<P> Tweed was a member of the New York State Senate (4th D .) from 1868 to 1873, sitting in the 91st, 92nd, 93rd and 94th New York State Legislatures, but not taking his seat in the 95th and 96th New York State Legislatures . In the Senate he helped financiers Jay Gould and Big Jim Fisk to take control of the Erie Railroad from Cornelius Vanderbilt by arranging for legislation that legitimized fake Erie stock certificates that Gould and Fisk had issued . In return, Tweed received a large block of stock and was made a director of the company . </P> <P> After the election of 1869, Tweed took control of the New York City government . His protégé, John T. Hoffman, the former mayor of the city, won election as governor, and Tweed garnered the support of good government reformers like Peter Cooper and the Union League Club, by proposing a new city charter which returned power to City Hall at the expense of the Republican - inspired state commissions . The new charter passed, thanks in part to $600,000 in bribes Tweed paid to Republicans, and was signed into law by Hoffman in 1870 . Mandated new elections allowed Tammany to take over the city's Common Council when they won all fifteen aldermanic contests . </P> <P> The new charter put control of the city's finances in the hands of a Board of Audit, which consisted of Tweed, who was Commissioner of Public Works, Mayor A. Oakey Hall and Comptroller Richard "Slippery Dick" Connolly, both Tammany men . Hall also appointed other Tweed associates to high offices--such as Peter B. Sweeny, who took over the Department of Public Parks--providing the Tweed Ring with even firmer control of the New York City government and enabling them to defraud the taxpayers of many more millions of dollars . In the words of Albert Bigelow Paine, "their methods were curiously simple and primitive . There were no skilful manipulations of figures, making detection difficult...Connolly, as Controller, had charge of the books, and declined to show them . With his fellows, he also' controlled' the courts and most of the bar ." Contractors working for the city--"Ring favorites, most of them--were told to multiply the amount of each bill by five, or ten, or a hundred, after which, with Mayor Hall's' O.K.' and Connolly's endorsement, it was paid...through a go - between, who cashed the check, settled the original bill and divided the remainder...between Tweed, Sweeny, Connolly and Hall". </P> <P> For example, the construction cost of the New York County Courthouse, begun in 1861, grew to nearly $13 million--about $178 million in today's dollars, and nearly twice the cost of the Alaska Purchase in 1867 . "A carpenter was paid $360,751 (roughly $4.9 million today) for one month's labor in a building with very little woodwork...a plasterer got $133,187 ($1.82 million) for two days' work". </P>

Who benefited most from boss tweed's control of new york city