Find our headlines more quickly in Google search results.

Back in the good old days of “honest graft,” William "Boss" Tweed didn't mess around when it came to enriching himself at the expense of New York City taxpayers. Take the Tweed Courthouse, the opulent Italianate marble edifice next to City Hall that now houses the Department of Education headquarters.

Originally budgeted at $250,000, it wound up costing the city $3.2 million in 1869 — nearly $80 million in today's dollars. Of that, Tweed pocketed a quarter, which came to $932,858 deposited into his bank account, plus another $104,333 in the account of a printing company Tweed secretly controlled.

His Tammany Hall total take: $1,037,191. That comes to slightly more than $25.5 million today.

Compare that to Eric Ulrich, ex-Mayor Eric Adams' one-time buildings commissioner who's set to go on trial Monday, charged with using the power of his office to benefit himself financially via a fairly mundane collection of bribes — compared to Tweed, anyway.

According to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg , Ulrich did favors for a wide variety of bribe-payers in exchange for Mets season tickets, several thousand dollars to pay off gambling debts, a discounted rental apartment in the Rockaways, artwork and a "bespoke suit."

On Monday Ulrich is set to be the first of several veterans of the former administration of Mayor Eric Adams charged with corruption to actually go to trial. But the relatively meager nature of his alleged loot makes Ulrich's case remarkably similar to the other pending indictments or — in the case of Mayor Adams himself — charges that were dismissed.

Or, as Jimmy Breslin once put it, "Nothing is too small to steal."

With Ulrich, prosecutors say they will present evidence in the coming weeks that while he was Adams' buildings commissioner, he took $4,000 in an envelope from two brothers, Anthony and Joseph Livreri, in exchange for helping them resolve problems their Ozone Park pizzeria was having with the buildings and health departments. Both Livreris have pleaded guilty and admitted to handing Ulrich the cash, though their lawyer insists they are not cooperating with the government.

During the trial, prosecutors will also allege Michael Mazzio, owner of Mike's Heavy Duty Towing, funded Mets season tickets for Ulrich worth "nearly $10,000." Mazzio will be sitting at the table as a co-defendant with Ulrich, charged with bribing Ulrich to get him to resolve problems he was having with his tow company's license.

Other members of Adams' inner circle, like Ulrich, are charged with obtaining an eclectic array of payments to sell their services.

Ingrid Lewis-Martin allegedly used her powerful position as Adams' chief advisor at City Hall to eliminate bureaucratic snags for a wide variety of bribe payers , including a movie production firm that wanted her to kill a proposed bike lane on a street their trucks often traversed.

In exchange, Braggs' prosecutors allege the firm, Broadway Stages, arranged to get her a walk-on part in a TV series about a Harlem drug lord. Developers she was helping resolve Buildings Department issues steered $100,000 to her son to buy a Porsche , they allege, and they say she also snagged a $3,000 pair of diamond earrings to help another developer dodge city inspections.

Never miss a headline with our free morning newsletter.

Then there's Frank Carone , once Adams’ chief of staff and a longtime close associate of the one-term mayor. Carone allegedly got his personal credit card paid for via a bribery scheme Brooklyn federal prosecutors say was routed through a law firm where he was a partner. They allege he "directed" a city commissioner to steer a migrant shelter contract to a hotel owner who'd hired his law firm as a consultant. Soon after, the owner was awarded a $6 million, no-bid emergency contract.