Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo Dead at Age 82

Former Empire state governor Mario Cuomo dead at 82 …

Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York from 1983 through 1994 has passed away at the age of 82 from heart failure. Cuomo passed away at 5:15 pm of heart failure, surrounded by family in his Manhattan apartment as his son, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was in Buffalo delivering his second inaugural address of the day. Mario Cuomo was most known for his July 1984 keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention where he offered a rebuttal of President Ronald Reagan’s vision of America as a “shining city on a hill.” They have been spewing division for quite some time.

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, the liberal son of Italian immigrants and a gifted orator whose talents brought him national stature, died Thursday. He was 82.

Cuomo died in New York of natural causes due to heart failure shortly after his eldest son, Andrew, was sworn in for a second term as New York governor, the office his father had previously held for eleven years. The elder Cuomo had been hospitalized in November for a heart condition, the day after his son won re-election.

“He is in the heart and mind of every person who is here,” Andrew Cuomo said in his inaugural address Thursday. “He is here and he is here, and his inspiration and his legacy and his experience is what has brought this state to this point. So let’s give him a round of applause.”

In a statement, President Barack Obama called Cuomo “a determined champion of progressive values, and an unflinching voice for tolerance, inclusiveness, fairness, dignity, and opportunity.

NY Daily News – Obit.

Mario Matthew Cuomo was born June 15, 1932, in Queens, the third and final child of immigrants from a small village near Naples, Italy. His parents, Andrea and Immaculata Cuomo, owned a grocery store in South Jamaica during the Depression.

Cuomo became a product of the borough’s Catholic schools and a strong athlete: He excelled in baseball and basketball.

A center fielder, Cuomo signed a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization when he was 19. He was hitting .244 with one homer in 81 games in the Georgia-Florida League when he was beaned by a fastball. He was blinded for a week and never played professionally again.

He went home and attended St. John’s University and then its law school, where he tied for first in his graduating class. In 1952 he married St. John’s student Matilda Raffa, a union that lasted 62 years until his death.

Bill and Hillary Clinton ‘terribly saddened’ by Cuomo’s death.

Hmm, you mean they don’t consider him a “Mafioso” anymore?

“It was Mario Cuomo’s great gift and our good fortune that he was both a sterling orator and a passionate public servant,” they said. “His life was a blessing.”