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Who

A New York City political institution and former chairman of the state Democratic Party, Farrell has represented Manhattan above 125th Street in the State Assembly for more than three decades.

Backstory

College dropout Herman "Denny" Farrell Jr. worked as an auto mechanic, gypsy-cab driver, and designer/manufacturer of bar-mitzvah cocktail dresses ("My father and I were the bar mitzvah kings of the East Coast") before entering politics during the John Lindsay administration, working in the mayor's Washington Heights office. Farrell was first elected to office as a Democratic State Committeeman in 1970, and then ran for State Assembly in 1974. He's been re-elected every two years since. Over the years, he's also assumed increasingly prominent roles within the local Democratic machine, even though a bid for mayor in the '80s never panned out. In 1981, he became chief of the Manhattan Democratic party, and still holds the title that a century ago would have made him "boss of Tammany Hall." (A series of reforms long since rendered the position relatively toothless.) Farrell served as head of the State Democratic Committee from 2001 to 2006, and currently leads the powerful Ways and Means Committee in the State Assembly, which oversees much of the state's budget and handles taxation legislation.

Of note

Farrell's early tenure as head of the state's Democrats was considered a disappointment; he was seen as a lackluster leader who came up short in the fundraising department, lacked a consistent message, and was generally beaten at the game by state Republicans. By the end of his tenure in 2006, buoyed by a national trend against Republicans, he'd increased fundraising and made gains in traditional GOP strongholds, and was instrumental in getting Eliot Spitzer elected as governor. (Oh, well.) As far as his legislative priorities go, Farrell's known for his work on banking reform, including increased disclosure requirements, anti-redlining legislation, and various consumer protections. In the early 1980s he even taught a class at the New School about the state's banking industry.

Personal

Farrell and his wife, Teresa, split up in 1966, though they didn't officially divorce until more than 30 years later; they have two children, Monique and Herman III, a successful playwright whose 1997 play Bedfellows happened to revolve around a "fictional" Manhattan Democratic party chairman. Farrell now lives on Riverside Drive in Washington Heights with his longtime partner, with whom he had a daughter, Sophia Ilene, in 2005 at the spry age of 73.