SALUTING A HARLEM POL PIONEER:
Pols pay tribute to beloved Dem leader Farrell at uptown rites
HARLEM POWER broker and Albany legend Herman (Denny) Farrell, who for decades served in powerful perches in the state Assembly and lead the Manhattan Democratic Party, was remembered as a trailblazer by Gov. Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio and others at his packed funeral Friday.
“In his political life, he was simply an extraordinary leader. Even in these ugly and difficult political times, no one would disagree, on either side of the aisle, that there has never been a steadier, more highly respected, more graceful presence in the halls of Albany than Herman Denny Farrell,” Cuomo said in a eulogy of the 86-year-old pol at Church of the Intercession on W. 155th St. “And that is quite a tribute.”
Cuomo recalled Farrell’s longtime friendship with his father, Gov. Mario Cuomo, and their partnership in building Riverbank State Park in Harlem, atop a wastewater treatment plant Farrell and others felt had been unfairly stuck in the neighborhood.
Farrell once told Cuomo, he said, that it was best to name things after someone while the person was still alive, something Cuomo regretted not doing for his own father.
“But we did not make that mistake for Denny,” Cuomo said. “We named the Riverbank State Park for Denny.”
It was more than a park, Cuomo argued, but a civil rights monument and proof that wrongs can be righted, even if it takes 20 years. Cuomo then went on to outline continuing wrongs — many of them in areas overseen by de Blasio, who was in the audience and spoke after him.
“Denny’s spirit lives in a young minority child sitting in a failing school in Harlem. It lives in the young mother living in a NYCHA unit without heat afraid that her children have lead paint poisoning. It lives in a young man that couldn’t make bail and sits at Rikers Island suffering for no good reason,” he said. “It lives in the young couple turned down for a mortgage because their neighborhood is off-limits. It lives in a young person afraid they can’t go to college because they can’t pay the bill.” A rep for de Blasio took a dig at the governor afterward. “Not even a house of worship, nor funeral for a civic leader, is safe from Andrew Cuomo’s obsession with Bill de Blasio,” Eric Phillips said. His boss focused on Farrell in his remarks. “Denny was a straight shooter if ever there was one. Denny was a wise leader. Denny was a style icon, and Denny was certainly a man who did it his way,” de Blasio said. He also recalled Farrell’s natty suits — he was the son of a tailor — and his fondness for “making good time” in his convertibles, perhaps a holdover from his time working as a mechanic. “When the legislative session would end, he would go to that convertible anxious to get home, happy to put the top down and happy to speed along the Thruway,” de Blasio said. “I can safely say there was not a state trooper he didn’t know.”
Farrell was memorialized as a trailblazer among black politicians, including by some of his colleagues in that regard — former Mayor David Dinkins and Congressman Charles Rangel among them.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said he’d looked up to Farrell in his days an aspiring politician in the Bronx, and recalled an early encounter with him in the Assembly.
“Denny pulled me to the side and said I have something important I really want to tell you,” Heastie said, adding how excited he was that Farrell wanted to speak with him. “Denny pulled me into his office and said, ‘Your suit jacket does not match your pants, go home.’ ”
In his nearly three decades running the county party, Farrell used his perch to help diversify the state’s courts, city Controller Scott Stringer said, elevating people of color and women to the judiciary. And he managed to wade through the political battles that come with the post, current chairman Keith Wright noted.
“Denny served for 28 years as county leader. I don’t know how he ever did that,” Wright said admiringly.