she the dalessandro family had something called the favor file. and you don't actually need a dictionary to understand. what a favor file is so they would big nancy and little nancy would sit at a table. in the front room of their home in little italy in constituents would line up. like line up out to the sidewalk to go through and see. favors they might need some help with housing, or maybe they had an immigration issue, or maybe they had a child in jail, and they wanted some help from the mayor to get him or her out of jail and big nancy would listen to the problem to the favor that was needed write it down on a card. and figure out what they could do to help and if you got a favor granted that came with a certain expectation. that you owed them something you would vote for tommy dalessandro the next time we was running for office. maybe you would go to a rally for him or if there was some future person seeking a favor that you were in a position to help with you'd be expected to do that. and this is i think a pretty good description of what the