Spigner, ‘Godfather of politics’ in Queens, dies at 92

NEWYORK >> Archie Spigner, a New York City councilman who was a political kingmaker in southeast Queens for half a century, helping fellow Black politicians climb the ladder and coaxing jobs and construction projects into his district, died Oct. 29 in, of course, Queens. He was 92.

His wife, Leslie Spigner, said the cause was cancer. He died at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.

Spig ner represented his home base on the City Council from 1974 to 2001, the last 15 of those years as the deputy to the majority leader, Peter Vallone. But in his district, he was nobody’s second in command. For 50 years — from 1970 until his death — Spigner ran the United Democratic Club of Queens and served as a district leader, positions that gave him power to help shape the Democratic Party’s local leadership.

In an area that reliably voted Democratic, a nod from Spigner all but assured election. As Donnie Whitehead, a local campaign manager, put it, Spigner’s blessing was as essential to a candidate in southeast Queens as Christ’s was to a Christian hoping to gain entry to heaven.

In 2009, managing a rival campaign in a Democratic primary, Whitehead had vowed to change that. “No more only getting elected through Archie,” he declared.

Again, Spigner’s candidate won.

“He was the godfather of politics in southeastern Queens,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks, the area’s House member.

Spigner oversaw Meeks’ rise along with those of many other Black leaders from Queens, including Kenneth Browne, the borough’s first Black member of the New York state Assembly and its first Black state Supreme Court justice; Andrew Jenkins, its first Black state senator; and Alton Waldon Jr., its first Black representative in Congress.