Mario Cuomo
Mario Cuomo served as the New York Secretary of State from 1975 to 1978, as Lieutenant Governor of New York from 1979 to 1982 and as the fifty-second Governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. Cuomo was known for his liberal views and riveting public speeches, particularly his keynote speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, California, where he attacked President Ronald Reagan‘s record, saying: “There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don’t see, in the places that you don’t visit, in your shining city.” The speech brought him to national attention. Widely considered a front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president in both 1988 and 1992, he declined to seek the nomination …show more content…
His father, Andrea Cuomo, was from Nocera, Italy, and his mother, Immacolata Giordano, was from Tramonti. The family owned a store in South Jamaica. Cuomo was a very good baseball player, and he was signed and played baseball in the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system. His career ended abruptly when he was hit in the head. He pocketed his $2,000 signing bonus, which he used to help purchase an engagement ring for his wife Matilda. Cuomo earned his bachelor’s degree in 1953 from St. John’s University and a law degree in 1956 from the same school, graduating first in his class. Soon after, he became clerk for the Honorable Judge Adrian P. Burke of the New York Court of Appeals in 1956. Cuomo made a name for himself when he defended the Corona Groups, a group of sixty-nine home-owners from the Queens neighborhood of Corona, who were threatened by the city’s plan to build a new high school. With this success, he represented another Queens residents group, the Kew Gardens-Forest Hills Committee, that opposed another housing proposal. After Cuomo became better known, Mayor John Lindsay appointed him to conduct an inquiry and mediate a dispute over low-income public housing for the upper-middle-class neighborhood of Forest
Mario Cuomo served as the New York Secretary of State from 1975 to 1978, as Lieutenant Governor of New York from 1979 to 1982 and as the fifty-second Governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. Cuomo was known for his liberal views and riveting public speeches, particularly his keynote speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, California, where he attacked President Ronald Reagan‘s record, saying: “There is despair, Mr. President, in the faces that you don’t see, in the places that you don’t visit, in your shining city.” The speech brought him to national attention. Widely considered a front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president in both 1988 and 1992, he declined to seek the nomination …show more content…
His father, Andrea Cuomo, was from Nocera, Italy, and his mother, Immacolata Giordano, was from Tramonti. The family owned a store in South Jamaica. Cuomo was a very good baseball player, and he was signed and played baseball in the Pittsburgh Pirates minor league system. His career ended abruptly when he was hit in the head. He pocketed his $2,000 signing bonus, which he used to help purchase an engagement ring for his wife Matilda. Cuomo earned his bachelor’s degree in 1953 from St. John’s University and a law degree in 1956 from the same school, graduating first in his class. Soon after, he became clerk for the Honorable Judge Adrian P. Burke of the New York Court of Appeals in 1956. Cuomo made a name for himself when he defended the Corona Groups, a group of sixty-nine home-owners from the Queens neighborhood of Corona, who were threatened by the city’s plan to build a new high school. With this success, he represented another Queens residents group, the Kew Gardens-Forest Hills Committee, that opposed another housing proposal. After Cuomo became better known, Mayor John Lindsay appointed him to conduct an inquiry and mediate a dispute over low-income public housing for the upper-middle-class neighborhood of Forest