Charles Poletti
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Charles Poletti (July 2, 1903 – August 8, 2002) was the governor of New York between 1942 and 1943. He had previously served as the lieutenant governor. He was the first American of Italian ancestry to serve as a governor. At the close of World War II Poletti served as a U.S. Army civil affairs officer in Italy, rising to the rank of Colonel.
Polettia was a lawyer for a state commission that recommended the creation of a statewide New York State Power Authority and worked in drafting the 1931 legislation which met that objective; later he became a trustee of the Power Authority, serving from 1955 to 1960, the crucial period in which the St. Lawrence Project was built and the Authority’s Niagara Project largely completed. Besides serving as Governor and Lieutenant Governor, and practicing as an attorney and a justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Poletti had a role as a labor arbitrator and was the official responsible for foreign exhibits at Robert Moses' 1964 New York World's Fair.
The Charles Poletti Power Project (renamed in 1982 to honor him) is located in Astoria, Queens, across the East River from Manhattan in New York City.
External link
- Poletti papers at Columbia University (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/lehsuite/guides/Poletti.html)
| Preceded by: Herbert H. Lehman | Governor of New York 1942–1943 | Succeeded by: Thomas E. Dewey |