[2] His mother was a descendant of Dirck Jans van der Vliet (1612–1689) who settled in the then Dutch settlement of New Netherlands around 1659–1660 as son Henderick was born in what is now Livingston, New York.

[4] With the outbreak of World War II, Lindsay completed his studies early and in 1943 joined the United States Navy as a gunnery officer.

In 1958, with the backing of Brownell as well as Bruce Barton, John Aspinwall Roosevelt, and Edith Willkie,[2] Lindsay won the Republican primary and went on to be elected to Congress as the representative of the "Silk Stocking" 17th district, exemplified by Manhattan's Upper East Side but also encompassing the diverse Lower East Side and historically bohemian Greenwich Village.

[2][15] On his first day as mayor, January 1, 1966, the Transport Workers Union of America, led by Mike Quill, shut down the city with a complete halt of subway and bus service.

[20] Quality of life in the city reached a nadir during the sanitation strike as mounds of garbage caught fire and strong winds blew the filth through the streets.

[21] In June 1968, the New York City Police Department deployed snipers to protect Lindsay during a public ceremony, shortly after they detained a knife-wielding man who had demanded to meet the mayor.

[22] With the schools shut down, police engaged in a slowdown, firefighters threatening job actions, the city awash in garbage, and racial and religious tensions breaking to the surface, Lindsay later called the last six months of 1968 "the worst of my public life.

Drawbridges over the Harlem River were locked in the "up" position, barring automobile travel into Manhattan, and hundreds of thousands of gallons of raw sewage flowed into local waterways.

Nonetheless, he was especially influential in producing the Kerner Report; its dramatic language of the nation "moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal" was consistent with his rhetoric.

"[29] Lindsay showed his support for New York's African American community through his administration's sponsorship of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which is documented in the 2021 music film, Summer of Soul.

[1] In 1969, a backlash against Lindsay caused him to lose the Republican mayoral primary to state Senator John Marchi, who was enthusiastically supported by William F. Buckley and the rest of the party's conservative wing.

In the Democratic primary, the most conservative candidate, City Comptroller Mario Procaccino, defeated several more liberal contenders and won the nomination with only a plurality of the votes.

"[38][39] Two television advertisements described his position: In one he looked directly into the camera and said, "I guessed wrong on the weather before the city's biggest snowfall last winter.

[41] First were the city's minorities, mostly African Americans and Puerto Ricans, who were concentrated in Harlem, the South Bronx and various Brooklyn neighborhoods, including Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville.

As a result, the Knapp Commission was eventually formed that April by Lindsay, with investigations beginning in June, although public hearings did not start until October 18, 1971.

Because of his forming of the Knapp Commission, many NYPD officers disliked him and didn't want him to attend their funerals in case they died on duty and heckled, hissed, jeered and booed him when he did appear.

The wife of Rocco Laurie, one of two city police officers who were murdered by Black revolutionaries in 1972, specifically stated that she did not want Lindsay to attend her husband's funeral that year.

A 1993 survey of historians, political scientists and urban experts conducted by Melvin G. Holli of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranked Lindsay as the sixteenth-worst American big-city mayor to have served between the years 1820 and 1993.

Lindsay did well in the early Arizona caucus, coming in second place[53] behind Edmund Muskie of Maine and ahead of eventual nominee George McGovern of South Dakota.

Shortly thereafter, influential Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman Meade Esposito called for Lindsay to end his campaign: "I think the handwriting is on the wall; Little Sheba better come home.

In a 1972 Gallup poll, 60% of New Yorkers felt Lindsay's administration was working poorly, nine percent rated it good, and not one person thought its performance excellent.

[60] Journalist Steven Weisman observed "Lindsay's congressional career had taught him little of the need for subtle bureaucratic maneuvering, for understanding an opponent's self-interest, or for the great patience required in a sprawling government.

"[61] Lindsay's budget aide Peter C. Goldmark, Jr. told historian Vincent Cannato that the administration "failed to come to grips with what a neighborhood is.

"[1] McFadden also credited him for reducing racial tensions, leading to the prevention of riots that plagued Detroit, Los Angeles, Newark and other cities.

[1] Mario Cuomo, Carl McCall, and Carter F. Bales were among the many people who started their careers in public service in the Lindsay administration.

[64] After leaving office, Lindsay returned to the law, but remained in the public eye as a commentator and regular guest host for ABC's Good Morning America.

In 1975, Lindsay made a surprise appearance on The Tony Awards telecast in which he, along with a troupe of celebrity male suitors in tuxedos, sang "Mame" to Angela Lansbury.

[1] Medical bills from his Parkinson's disease, heart attacks, and stroke depleted Lindsay's finances, as did the collapse of two law firms where he worked, and he found himself without health insurance.

In 1996, with support from City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani appointed Lindsay to two largely ceremonial posts to make him eligible for municipal health insurance coverage.

[67] He and his wife, Mary, moved to a retirement community in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, in November 1999, where he died on December 19, 2000, at the age of 79 of complications from pneumonia and Parkinson's disease.