Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo Laid to Rest

Hundreds of mourners gathered to say their final goodbyes Tuesday to former Gov. Mario Cuomo at a public funeral in Manhattan.

Cuomo, a liberal beacon who served three terms as governor from 1983 to 1994, died last week at the age of 82 from “natural causes due to heart failure,” his family said.

Many gathered at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on the Upper East Side hours before the 11 a.m. funeral, which began with Cuomo’s casket, draped in a New York State flag, carried into the church as light snow fell outside.

Among those on hand at the funeral were former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch.

Mario Matthew Cuomo, born in Queens on June 15, 1932, was elected governor in 1982 following stints as lieutenant governor and New York’s secretary of state, but he was thrust on the national stage following a speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, where he took aim at then-President Ronald Reagan’s characterization of America as a “shining city upon a hill.”

“A shining city is perhaps all the President sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well,” Cuomo said. ”But there’s another city; there’s another part to the shining city; the part where some people can’t pay their mortgages, and most young people can’t afford one; where students can’t afford the education they need, and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.”

Cuomo wanted ”a simple, local funeral with minimal fanfare,” the Rev. George Witt said at Tuesday’s service. “This has been hard to pull off.”

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“His love was not confined to the home,” Witt said of Cuomo, who leaves behind five children and 14 grandchildren. ”The entire state of New York comprised his family.”

At Cuomo’s wake on Monday, a line stretched down the block at one point, and an A-list of political dignitaries, including Vice President Joe Biden and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, poured into Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home to pay their respects to a man who came very close to running for president on two occasions.

Cuomo disappointed liberals by turning down a presidential bid in 1998 and 1992, but he remained a well respected figure on both sides of the aisles long after he lost his bid for a fourth term as governor to Republican George Pataki in 1994.

“Mario Cuomo was a giant of New York government and politics,” Rep. Peter King, R-Seaford, said following Cuomo’s death. “As much as anyone, he understood and appreciated the mosaic that was New York. All who knew Mario Cuomo were better for it.”

Cuomo’s son Andrew was sworn into office for a second term as New York’s governor hours before the elder Cuomo’s death on New Year’s Day.

“There is a hole in my heart that I fear is going to be there forever,” Andrew Cuomo said Saturday about his father’s death.

Eulogizing his father on Tuesday afternoon, Andrew Cuomo said his father was, ”my hero. He was my best friend.”

Mario Cuomo, the younger Cuomo said, had one rule: “Always do the right thing.”

“If my father thought he was fighting the right fight,” Andrew Cuomo said, ”it didn’t matter if he thought he was going to win or lose.”

Photo Credit: Flickr/Creative Commons/David Berkowitz