Former Gov. Mario Cuomo, a grocer’s son from Queens who rose to lead the state for three terms — and whose eloquence vaulted him to national prominence with a stirring speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention — died Thursday.
Cuomo, who had been ill for months, was 82.
His death came hours after his son Andrew was inaugurated for a second term in his dad’s old job.
His daughter, Madeline Cuomo, said her dad died in his Manhattan home at 5:15 p.m., noting that those were “his lucky numbers.”
“I think he waited until after Andrew’s swearing-in,” she told The Post.
Mario Cuomo had been receiving hospice care in his Sutton Place apartment, and the cause of death appeared related to recent heart troubles, sources said. He had also recently suffered a mini-stroke.
During his inauguration ceremony at 1 World Trade Center, Gov. Andrew Cuomo highlighted his father’s absence.
“We had hoped that he was going to be able to come. He is at home, and he is not well enough to come,” the son said.
“We spent last night with him, changed the tradition a little bit.”
“I went through the speech with him. He said it was good, especially for a second-termer. See, my father is a third-termer. But he sends his regards to all of you.”
Tributes quickly poured in.
“From the hard streets of Queens, Mario Cuomo rose to the very pinnacle of political power in New York because he believed in his bones in the greatness of this state, the greatness of America and the unique potential of every individual,” said US Sen. Charles Schumer.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said all flags in the city — already lowered for slain Police Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu — will remain at half-staff in Cuomo’s honor for 30 days.
President Obama also highlighted Cuomo’s humble roots in extending his condolences.
“An Italian Catholic kid from Queens, born to immigrant parents, Mario paired his faith in God and faith in America to live a life of public service — and we are all better for it,” he said.
Bill and Hillary Clinton issued a joint statement calling the former governor “a sterling orator and a passionate public servant.”
Staten Island Assemblyman Matthew Titone, whose father, Vito, was a law school classmate whom Cuomo appointed to the state Court of Appeals, said he had known the late governor “my entire life.”
“Mario was a great role model for me growing up,” Titone said. “He had an immense legal mind. He’s the only guy who can match wits with my father.”
In 1991, Cuomo had been just a plane ride away from launching a historic campaign to become the nation’s first Italian-American president.
Then the darling of the Democratic Party, a chartered jet was waiting at an Albany airport to whisk him to New Hampshire to campaign for its first-in-the nation primary.
But Cuomo — whose public waffling over a run for the White House gained him the nickname “Hamlet on the Hudson” — said he needed to remain in New York and battle Republicans over the state budget.
Cuomo also never got to collect his widely expected consolation prize — a coveted seat on the US Supreme Court.
According to President Bill Clinton, he was poised to nominate Cuomo for a spot on the high court in 1993, but Cuomo took himself out of the running before Clinton had a chance.
“To be a justice of the Supreme Court, to sit there and listen, to study, to conclude and write and not have to worry about the polls, nothing would have been more perfect,’’ Cuomo told the New York Times years later. “But on the other side, I think I have probably been in a better position to speak out on the issues.’’
Speak out he did. And never did he do it better than at the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, in a stirring speech that launched him into national prominence.
There, he stood up for the poor and downtrodden, extolling idealistic virtues.
“We should not be embarrassed or dismayed or chagrined if the process of unifying is difficult, even wrenching at times,” Cuomo said, invoking the “Tale of Two Cities” theme long before Bill de Blasio ran for mayor of New York.
“Remember that, unlike any other party, we embrace men and women of every color, every creed, every orientation, every economic class,” said Cuomo, who counted Abraham Lincoln as his favorite president.
He did everything he could to support Democratic politics and to further the agenda he thought was best for all people.
- Daughter Madeline Cuomo
But few imagined Cuomo would be anywhere near that stage a decade earlier when the upstart lawyer was appointed New York secretary of state by then-Gov. Hugh Carey.
Two years later, in 1977, he ran for mayor of New York City, forcing a runoff with Ed Koch, a Manhattan congressman from Greenwich Village.
The race grew bitter and nasty, with Cuomo losing to Koch by eight percentage points.
During an era of high crime, the Son of Sam murders and blackouts, Cuomo’s opposition to the death penalty arguably cost him the election.
But Cuomo wasn’t done. He joined Carey’s ticket a year later and was elected lieutenant governor.
Four years later, Carey declined to run for re-election to a third term, and the stage was set for a Koch-Cuomo rematch — this time for governor.
Cuomo turned the tables, and this time came out on top.
In the epic Democratic primary rematch, Cuomo skillfully exploited Koch’s haunting remarks from an earlier Playbook interview in which the mayor referred to suburban life as “sterile,” farm country as a “joke” and living in Albany as a “fate worse than death.”
Cuomo would cruise to re-election in 1986 and again in 1990, with presidential rumors in the air.
“I have no plans and no plans to make plans,” Cuomo would tell reporters, though he refused to rule out a bid for the White House.
He never ran, and instead became the “Hamlet on the Hudson.”
His governorship was not without controversies. Then-Cardinal John O’Connor rebuked Cuomo, a Catholic, for supporting abortion rights.
In 1994, he was upset by George Pataki, a Republican state senator from Peekskill, in a bid for a fourth term.
Voters had grown tired of the 12-year incumbent Cuomo and his liberalism. Pataki ran a biting campaign ad describing Cuomo as “too liberal, for too long” and attacking his record on taxes and the death penalty.
Mario Cuomo was born on June 15, 1932, in Queens to Andrea and Immaculata Cuomo, immigrants from southern Italy.
Cuomo spoke of his strict upbringing. His father and mother ran a 24-hour grocery store in South Jamaica, where he often worked growing up.
His parents did not speak or read English. But he said, only half in jest, that papa Andrea knew the difference between an A and a B on a report card. Andrea whacked Mario on the ears for getting a B.
But he also idolized his parents for symbolizing the striving American immigrant success story.
“I watched a small man with thick calluses on both his hands work 15 and 16 hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example . . . That they were able to build a family and live in dignity and see one of their children go from behind their little grocery store in South Jamaica on the other side of the tracks where he was born, to occupy the highest seat, in the greatest state in the greatest nation . . . ,” Cuomo said in his famous Democratic convention speech.
Cuomo attended P.S. 50 and St. John’s Preparatory School. A gifted student, he graduated at the top of his class at St. John’s University Law School in 1956 after earning a bachelor’s degree.
Cuomo also was a talented athlete.
He played baseball at St. John’s and befriended Lou Carnesecca, who would later become the university’s legendary basketball coach.
Cuomo, a 19-year-old outfielder, was good enough to be drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates and played for its farm team in 1952. He said he used the $2,000 signing bonus to help purchase an engagement ring for his future wife, Matilda Raffa.
A scouting report would capture his competitiveness: “He is aggressive and plays hard . . . He is another one who will run you if you get in his way.”
He quit baseball in 1953 after getting struck in the head by a pitch and sustaining a concussion.
Mario and Matilda, also a St. John’s student who became a schoolteacher, wed in June 1954. They had five children: Andrew, Chris, Maria, Margaret and Madeline.
Even into his later years, the elder Cuomo enjoyed pick-up basketball games and was known to swing his elbows for a rebound.
After earning his law degree, Cuomo clerked for the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, and served as a law professor at his alma mater, St. John’s.
Despite his strong academic record and legal background, Cuomo felt the sting of bias because of his Italian heritage. Many of the “white shoe” Manhattan law firms rejected him. He started working at a small law practice in Brooklyn.
He just didn’t ‘require’ the spotlight . . . stepped aside so his son could step into it. He is a giving man and father.
- Daughter Madeline Cuomo
Cuomo’s first claim to fame came in the late 1960s as a community lawyer representing the “Corona Fighting 69,” a group of property owners opposing a plan to demolish their homes to make way for a new high school. After a six-year battle, Cuomo and the homeowners prevailed in saving most of the homes from the wrecking ball.
Cuomo’s work in Corona caught the eye of then-Mayor John Lindsay, who tapped him to mediate a racially tense dispute over the city’s plan to build low-income public housing towers in middle-class Forest Hills. He fashioned a slimmed-down, compromise plan that won the support of community leaders as well as City Hall, a delicate feat that drew widespread praise and catapulted him into politics.
Cuomo later recounted the negotiations in his book, “Forest Hills Diary: The Crisis of Low-Income Housing.”
Cuomo, a writer as well as speechmaker, also published books about his 1982 race for governor, “Diaries of Mario M. Cuomo,” two others about Lincoln and a children’s book, “The Blue Spruce.”
The elder Cuomo lowered his profile in recent years in deference to his son, Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
But his daughter Madeline told The Post that Mario never really “retired.” He remained committed to his Democratic principles and played an active role at the law firm, Wilkie Farr.
“He did everything he could to support Democratic politics and to further the agenda he thought was best for all people. He spoke all over,” Madeline Cuomo said.
“He just didn’t `require’ the spotlight . . . stepped aside so his son could step into it. He is a giving man and father.”