Not even a funeral is safe from the feud.
In an episode that would make even the Real Housewives blush, Gov. Andrew Cuomo used his eulogy for beloved Manhattan Assemblyman Herman “Denny” Farrell Jr. to take shots at Mayor Bill de Blasio, who sat in the crowd.
“Denny’s spirit lives with the young minority child sitting in a failing school in Harlem,” Cuomo said.
“It lives in the young mother living in a NYCHA unit without heat, afraid that their children have lead paint poisoning. It lives in the young man who couldn’t make bail and sits in RIkers Island suffering for no good reason.”
The governor followed that string of references to controversies roiling city politics — and de Blasio’s political fortunes — with another shot at Hizzoner cloaked as remembrance.
“May we honor Denny’s life and example by continuing his fight for justice in overcoming prejudice, discrimination and intolerance and not just in words but in deeds,” Cuomo said. “That’s what Denny was about — government in action, actually making a difference. Not doing it rhetorically.”
The stanza echoed the theme of Cuomo’s speech to the state Democratic convention last week, where he lambasted liberals challenging him from the left as do-nothing ideologues.
When asked about the remarks after the funeral, Cuomo said they were an “indictment of the inequality that is in this country.”
He later added: “(Farrell) never minced words,” Cuomo said. “He was the first one to speak about these problems and he would be speaking about them today if he was here.”
De Blasio took the high road when he addressed the more than 500 mourners and dignitaries packing the Church of the Intercession at Broadway and 155th Street to remember the legendary Harlem lawmaker.
“Denny was one of those people who changed the rules of the game,” de Blasio said. “He may not have started out with the assumption that he would be a leader, but he was born to be leader and he worked tirelessly.”
Farrell served for nearly 43 years and was chair of the Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee for more than two decades. The son of a tailor, he was always dressed to impress with a jazzy personality to match.
“How many of you have heard Denny tell the same story twice? Three times? Umpteenth times. That’s Denny,” his son, author and playwright Herman Farrell III told the audience. “The thing was that each time you heard it, it got better, not because he embellished it… What got better each time was its meaning.”
