Stanley Fink, State Speaker

More than 1,000 people attended a funeral service for Stanley Fink last Thursday at Manhattan's Riverside Memorial Chapel. A Democratic Speaker of the State Assembly for seven years, Mr. Fink, 61, was a part-time resident of Wigwam View Lane in East Hampton, near Three Mile Harbor. He had cancer and died on March 4 in Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Mr. Fink was "a veritable giant in the New York State Democratic Party," said Judith Hope of East Hampton yesterday. Ms. Hope, the chairwoman of the State Democratic Committee and a member of the Democratic National Committee's executive board, credited Mr. Fink with establishing the State Legislature as "an equal party with the Governor, professionalizing its staff, and creating an Assembly agenda."

She noted that as early as 1979, he introduced legislation providing for public financing of statewide campaigns for office, a bill she said "dies each year in the Senate." It has been reintroduced in its near-original form by Speaker Sheldon Silver, she added.

Among those attending last week's funeral was Montauk's Perry B. Duryea Jr., a former Republican State Assembly majority leader. Yesterday he called Mr. Fink an "outstanding legislator, a great person, and a dear friend." Mr. Fink loved the East End, he said, calling his death "a terrible loss at the prime of his life."

"When Stanley Fink was born, they threw away the mold," Jerry Kremer of Bridgehampton, a Uniondale attorney, said yesterday. Mr. Kremer, a longtime friend who had served with Mr. Fink as the Assembly's Ways and Means Committee chairman, characterized his colleague as "hard-driving and brilliant."

During his 18 years as a lawmaker from Brooklyn, Mr. Fink developed a "progressive and highly ambitious Assembly agenda," Mr. Kremer wrote in Newsday Monday. The New York Times credited him with forging a "powerful alliance with the Republicans who controlled the Senate, repeatedly leading the Legislature to block the policy initiatives of two Governors in favor of its own agenda."

The Times also noted that as Speaker, he was among the nation's first prominent government leaders to speak out about the "need for infrastructure investment." Among his accomplishments was an $8 billion overhaul of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's aging subways, buses, and commuter railroads. He also was remembered for championing legislation for school funding, including increased support for the City University of New York.

Mr. Fink had "great strength and an unfailing sense of humor," Mr. Duryea said, "no matter how critical the issues."

Born in Brooklyn on Feb. 6, 1936, Mr. Fink attended New Utrecht High School and Brooklyn College, graduating in 1956. He earned his law degree three years later from New York University Law School and afterward he joined the Air Force, serving with the Judge Advocate General's office as a commissioned second lieutenant.

Following his discharge as a captain in 1962, he returned to Brooklyn to practice law. In 1968, he became chief counsel for the Assembly's Committee on Mental Hygiene and won his first election to that body. He became majority leader in 1977 and the 98th Speaker two years later.

He decided not to seek re-election in 1986 and worked for several years thereafter at the Manhattan law firm of Bower & Gardner. In 1994, he became a senior vice president at NYNEX, acting as a chief negotiator for the NYNEX-Bell Atlantic merger.

Mr. Fink is survived by his wife, Judith, and two sons, Marc and Keith Fink, all of Manhattan.