Maurice Bloch (New York City)

Life

He married Madeline Neuberger (1894–1986) in 1922. Robert F. Wagner Sr., then a Judge, acted as best man. Hon. and Mrs. Bloch had two children, a daughter, Jean Doris, and then a son named Robert Wagner Bloch, honoring a living Gentile. At the time Bloch was President of the Park Avenue Synagogue [plaque on synagogue wall]

Bloch was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1915 and rose to Whip in 1920. [Tammany Hall Archives] He was made the body's minority leader by Tammany Hall Leader Charles Murphy in late 1923 and served as such until his untimely death in December 5, 1929 at Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan, from a heart embolism caused by a blood clot a week after recovering from an emergency appendectomy. His obituary in the Times reads, that a nurse "found him deal" (sic). Bloch was involved in many deals at the time of his sudden death. The most prominent was the formation of the Democratic Union with James A. Farley, which was designed to win F.D.R. the presidency. Bloch was running the office when funds were withheld by former Governor Smith. [F.D.R. Library] Bloch had just managed F.D.R. campaign for Governor [Cover NY Daily News November 8,1928 [F.D.R. to Bloch Nov. 1928] and, before that, the 1926 Senatorial Campaign of U.S. Senator Robert F. Wagner. [Lauinger Library, Georgetown University]. Bloch was considered a candidate for Governor when F.D.R. was in Georgia balking due to his paralysis. [New York Times] When F.D.R. accepted, Bloch was one of the first to write saying that he was anxious to help. Ultimately he managed F.D.R.'s campaign. [F.D.R. Library/Working with Roosevelt, Samuel I. Rosenman]. It was rumored that Bloch stood to gain a State Supreme Court Judgeship when he died. [New York World] Evidence to the contrary suggests that F.D.R. wanted him as his Attorney General candidate, which was the only statewide office that Democrats didn't hold at that time. [F.D.R. Library].