Governor Hugh Carey dead at 92

After former governor Hugh Carey passed away on August 7, at the age of 92, friend and colleague Claire Schulman remembered the man for his intelligence, humor and hardworking attitude.
“He was an incredible person, an incredible governor and the best story teller I ever met,” said the former Queens Borough President. “He was talented on many levels, but very humble and laid back. He was also a great thinker.”
Schulman recalled the time when York College was on the table to be built in Jamaica and the city could not pay its half of the debt service. With the state half paid off, then-borough president Donald Manus asked Carey for help – Carey agreed and paid 100-percent of the city’s half of the debt service.
“He was really critical to the future of that school,” said Schulman of Carey, the two-term governor of New York between 1975 and 1982. “I’ll remember him as the warmest, most intelligent, funniest and most unusual person I ever knew.”
Many will also remember him for the work that he did to improve the lives of the misfortunate. In 1975, Carey signed the Willowbrook Consent Decree, a civil rights law that obligated the state to provide appropriate housing and programs for more than 6,000 individuals at Willowbrook State School, an institution for mentally handicapped children. The law established the Willowbrook Review Panel, a temporary federal authority to oversee the transfer of residents from the Willowbrook Center to group homes.
Carey is also remembered for pulling the city back from the precipice of bankruptcy. It was in 1975, in his first year as governor, that the city came frighteningly close to financial collapse as the federal government balked at bailout proposals, prompting the famous Daily News headline, “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”
“Success is not inevitable – it takes hard work, difficult choices, and a willingness to put aside ideological differences,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg of the governor’s legacy. “That’s how Hugh Carey governed our state and saved our city.”
Carey was born in Park Slope and represented a district stretching from there to Bay Ridge in Congress for seven terms, beginning in 1960. He is survived by 11 children, 25 grandchildren, and six great grandchildren.
Carey had a lot of strong ties to Brooklyn and according to Democratic District Leader Joe Bova, who worked on Carey’s campaigns for Congress in 1970 and 1972, he had a specific skill set that made him a formidable leader.
“He was able to look at a problem and to deconstruct its various components, then assign people to the components,” Bova said. “He was an excellent problem solver.”