Assemblyman Farrell Recalled as A Good Vote-Counter, Better Person

Herman “Denny” Farrell, the longtime Manhattan Assemblyman and Democratic County Leader, who died May 26 at age 86, was remembered as a skilled and gracious political operator whom ex-Mayor David Dinkins called the best vote-counter he knew.

Mr. Farrell was a late entrant into the 1985 Mayor’s race, a move that broke up a coalition of black and Latino leaders who had been backing Herman Badillo in his attempt to deny Ed Koch a third term. While he got just 13 percent of the vote in that year’s Democratic primary, trailing Mr. Koch and City Council President Carol Bellamy, his run was sometimes credited with paving the way for Mr. Dinkins’s election as the city’s first African-American Mayor four years later.