CITIES: Musical Benches

Away back in 1948, Vincent Richard Impellitteri's ambition was to become a judge. Last week he made it—by a circuitous route.

About to step out of office as mayor of New York after a resounding defeat in the September primary, Impellitteri had been wondering how he could get a $15,000-a-year lifetime post on the board of water supply, an office he once described as useless. In the end, however, Impellitteri took an even stranger course. Less than four hours before his term as mayor ended, he gave the water-board job to one Herbert M. Rosenberg, a man he had ousted from a city tax commission job in 1952. Rosenberg is a wheel horse of Tammany Hall, which bitterly opposed Independent Democrat Impellitteri when he won the mayoralty in 1950 and when he lost it in 1953.

Taking another step in the same direction, Impellitteri appointed one Wilfred A. Waltemade to a ten-year term as a justice of the domestic relations court, at $19,500 a year. Waltemade is a leader in the Bronx Democratic machine, which also bitterly opposed Impellitteri. Having thus rewarded his certified enemies, the retiring mayor crossed the East River into the borough of Brooklyn and rented a room in the Towers Hotel, to establish a residence in Kings County.

The reason for this strange pattern of events became crystal clear the next day, when New York City's new mayor, Tammany-backed, Bronx-backed Robert F. Wagner Jr., announced some of his own appointments. Named a justice of Brooklyn's court of special sessions (which deals mostly with misdemeanors) was Vincent R. Impellitteri. The judgeship, though it pays $19,500 a year, was no longer the apple of Impy's eye. Main consideration: by staying on the city payroll in any capacity for two more years, Impellitteri will become eligible for what will probably be the highest retirement pay ever received by a government employee in the U.S.—around $20,000 a year.