Hugh Joseph Addonizio

Hugh Joseph Addonizio (January 31, 1914, in Newark, New Jersey – February 2, 1981, in Red Bank, New Jersey) was an Italian-American Democratic Party politician, who was the 33rd Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, from 1962 to 1970, and a New Jersey Congressman for 13 years prior to that.

Biography
He graduated from Fordham University in New York City in 1939 and went to work for A&C Clothing Company in Newark where he became vice president in 1946.

During World War II he had served in the United States Army earning the Silver Star. He served in North Africa, Italy and France. Among the first Americans drafted in 1940 a year before Pearl Harbor, he rose from the rank of private and was discharged with the rank of captain and named to the Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame at Fort Benning.

In 1948, Addonizio ran for and won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat, representing New Jersey's 11th congressional district. He resigned his seat on June 30, 1962, to run for mayor of Newark. He ran on a reform platform, defeating what he characterized as the corrupt political machine of Leo P. Carlin, who had been mayor since 1953.

Addonizio served as mayor from 1962 until 1970 when he lost his reelection bid. A state investigation into his administration on the heels of the 1967 riots, which occurred during his tenure, led to the discovery that Addonizio and other city officials were taking kickbacks from city contractors. Addonizio was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey and convicted of corruption after leaving office.

Much of the corruption became public when he was convicted, along with five others working in or through his administration, of "literally delivering the city into the hands of organized crime," according to former U.S. District Judge Herbert J. Stern.

Addonizio was interred in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in East Hanover.