Every left-leaning activist and politician in New York, especially the women, should study the wild, larger-than-life career and personality of Bella Abzug, nicknamed “Battling Bella,” who served three tumultuous terms in Congress and left an indelible mark on American politics and culture as a leader, along with Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, of the feminist movement of the 1970s.

“She was extraordinary in what she accomplished and how she presented herself,” Ruth Messinger, the former Manhattan Borough president, told me. “Unlike almost all of us in elected office, she was who she was. She said what she believed in any instance, often with some fierceness — and sometimes some swear words.” (An audio documentary about Abzug is the latest episode of my podcast, You Decide.)

New Yorkers of a certain age will remember the days when you could hardly open a newspaper or turn on the news without seeing Abzug thundering away at a podium or a picket line, with a gravelly Bronx accent that, in the words of Norman Mailer, “could boil the fat off a taxicab driver’s neck.” You could spot her from a block away, thanks to the big, stylish, floppy hats that were her trademark.

“The hats started because she was a lawyer when there were very few women lawyers and therefore in a courtroom she was thought to be the stenographer,” Steinem told me. “So she wore a hat to distinguish........

© Daily Intelligencer