William Marcy Tweed, the Tammany boss, was near his downfall.

This cynical maneuver by News Corporation and New York City brings to mind the question posed by a Tammany boss at the turn of the century.

(Carmine G. DeSapio, who became the last of the Tammany bosses, held the same post for the First Assembly District South.)

Mr. Sivak presides like a Tammany boss in a comfortably furnished office suite in an otherwise rundown headquarters building.

Pundits in Washington asserted that the Tammany boss had the muscle to name the Democratic candidate for president.

In 1949, he became the youngest Tammany boss in history.

They had been secretly recruited at the last moment by De Sapio lieutenants who were anxious not to disappoint the Tammany boss.

That way every person knew how the Tammany boss rated his or her current political standing.

As Big Tim Sullivan, the Tammany boss, observed around the turn of the century, "New York is a nine-day town."

The Tribune also ridiculed the idea of a gallery of portly Tammany bosses.