Hugh Carey, Who Led Fiscal Rescue of New York City, Dead at 92

Neal Boenzi/The New York Times

Gov. Hugh Carey of New York, center, in 1975, during meetings on the
New York City financial crisis.  With him were
Judah Gribetz, left, counsel to the New York City mayor,
and Victor Marrero, counsel to the Governor.

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Published: August 7, 2011

Hugh L. Carey, the governor who helped rescue New York from the brink of financial collapse in the 1970s and tamed a culture of ever-growing spending, died Sunday at his summer home on Shelter Island. He was 92

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• Times Topic: Hugh L. Carey

His death was announced by the office of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
“Governor Carey led our state during a time of great financial turmoil and pulled us back from the brink of bankruptcy and economic ruin,” Mr. Cuomo said in the statement.
As the 51st governor of New York from 1975 through 1982, Mr. Carey led a small group of public servants who vanquished the fiscal crisis that threatened New York City and the state — the direst emergency a governor had faced since the Depression — by taking on powers over the city’s finances that no governor had wielded before and none has wielded since. A liberal Democrat, Mr. Carey reversed the upward spiral of borrowing, spending and entitlement under his predecessor, Nelson A. Rockefeller, a Republican who had presided in an era of limitless government promise.
But even after eight years as governor, Mr. Carey remained an enigma. The witty storyteller who could charm an audience alternated with the irascible loner who alienated many of his allies. The brooding, private man, father of more than a dozen children, who mourned the deaths of his wife and, earlier, two sons killed in a car crash, gave way to a man whose exuberant, very public romance and second marriage produced embarrassing moments.
Hugh Carey rose to power as a Democrat outside his party’s machine. He began the 1974 campaign for governor as a recently widowed congressman from Brooklyn, a long shot who was not taken seriously, yet he cruised to one of the most resounding victories in the state’s history.
Before his election as governor in 1974, Mr. Carey spent 14 years in the House of Representatives serving Brooklyn’s 12th and 15th congressional districts.
Hugh Leo Carey was born on April 11, 1919, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, the fourth of five sons of Margaret and Dennis J. Carey, both children of Irish immigrants. Dennis Carey founded a successful business delivering fuel oil and kerosene, and the family lived comfortably.
Hugh Carey followed an educational path well worn by Brooklyn’s Irish Catholic sons: St. Augustine’s Academy and High School, St. John’s College. He left school to enlist in a National Guard cavalry unit in 1939, at a time when the cavalry still rode horses. Years later he would regale upstate audiences with tales of his equestrian experiences at Camp Drum, near Watertown, providing a local touch that voters relished. When his unit was activated, he was transferred to the infantry.
He fought with the 104th Division in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, helping to capture Cologne and liberate prisoners at a concentration camp at Nordhausen. At his discharge in 1946, he was a lieutenant colonel, wearing the Bronze Star, the Croix de Guerre with Silver Star and the Combat Infantryman’s Badge.
In 1947 he married Helen Owen Twohy, the widow of a Navy flier killed in the war whom he had known as a teenager, and adopted her daughter. They had 13 more children together and divided their time between Park Slope and a rambling white house with a wraparound porch on Shelter Island that in time became the family homestead.
Survivors include 11 children, 25 grandchildren and 6 great grand-children. His wife, Helen died in 1974. Three sons Peter, Hugh Jr., and Paul, also have died.
Funeral arrangements were pending.