LEGISLATIVE RESOLUTION paying tribute to the distinguished life and
accomplishments of The Honorable Roy M. Goodman, former New York State
Senator

WHEREAS, It is fitting and proper that this Legislative Body recognize
and pay tribute to the life and accomplishments of a distinguished
former colleague, New York State Senator Roy Matz Goodman, whose career,
purpose, and commitment remain a great example of what a noble calling
public service should be; and
WHEREAS, With sorrow and regret, this Legislative Body mourns the
passing of Roy M. Goodman on June 3, 2014, and pauses to note signif-
icant accomplishments of his meritorious life; and
WHEREAS, Roy Goodman was a "larger than life" figure during his three
decades as a Senator representing the 26th Senate District on the East
Side of Manhattan, from which position he served as effective conduit to
Albany State governmental leadership for several generations of Republi-
can and Democratic mayors of New York City, was primary author of impor-
tant changes in the New York City Charter, sponsor of over 1,200 laws
designed to improve the lives of all residents of this great State, and
was a public official committed to defining and solving problems as
Chair of the Investigations, Taxation, and Government Operations Commit-
tee of the Senate; and
WHEREAS, In 1955, he married the late Barbara Furrer, and they had
three children, his daughters Claire Goodman Pellegrini Cloud and Leslie
Goodman, and his son, Randolph, all of whom survive him, along with six
grandchildren; and
WHEREAS, Roy Goodman was a leader of the moderate wing of the Republi-
can Party in the State, a fiscal conservative with a social conscience
who championed tax cuts and waged a war on government waste, while
insisting on keeping the social services safety net intact; and
WHEREAS, One of the great loves of his life was the arts, which he
viewed as important for the development of the mind, soul, and humanity
of people, and he was able to bring State resources to bear in support
of expansions of the arts as Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on
the Arts and Cultural Affairs and the leading legislative advocate of
the arts in New York State, and a member of the National Endowment for
the Arts Council, for which he was named Ambassador for the Arts by the
National Endowment for the Arts "in recognition of his unwavering
support of the arts and cultural affairs," and as a Commissioner of the
National Commission of Fine Arts, by appointment of President Ronald
Reagan; the first President George Bush later named him to the National
Council on the Arts; and
WHEREAS, Roy Goodman was a Fellow for Life of the Metropolitan Museum
of Art; a Patron of the Metropolitan Opera; Patron of the New York Phil-
harmonic Society; and President of the Goodman Family Foundation, a
philanthropic trust; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and
recipient of an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Pratt Insti-
tute and received honorary awards from: The Kennedy Center for Distin-
guished Government Leadership in Arts-in-Education; Carnegie Hall; the
National Arts Club; the City University of New York; Brotherhood-in-Ac-
tion; the Junior Chamber of Commerce; the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children; Odyssey House; the Ripon Society; the UJA-Federa-
tion of New York; the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the Columbia Asso-
ciation For Promoting Well-being of Police Officers; Our Town; the
Statesman Father of the Year Award of the National Father's Day Commit-
tee; Lenox Hill Neighborhood Association; the New York City Police Foun-
dation; the Fire Safety Foundation; Playwrights Horizon; Catholic Inter-

racial Council; Stanley Isaacs Association; New York Benevolence
Council; Artists Fellowship; South Street Seaport; Town Hall; the New
York Foundling Hospital; Family Planning Advocates of New York; New York
State Division of Human Rights; New York State Humane Society; Kennedy
School of Government; and the U.S. Treasury Department for Patriotic
Service; and
WHEREAS, As a member of the then-dominant moderate-to-liberal wing of
the Republican Party that centered around former New York State Governor
Nelson Rockefeller, U.S. Senator Jacob Javits, and former New York City
Mayor John Lindsay, his talent and abilities were such that he was
perennially considered as a likely candidate for mayor of New York City,
for United States Senator, for a post as a cabinet officer, and for New
York State Comptroller; and
WHEREAS, Roy Goodman grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan,
graduated with Honors from Harvard College in 1951 and received a
Master's degree with Distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of
Business Administration in 1953, and he then served as an officer in the
Navy, and in the early 1960s, after a brief career in investment bank-
ing, joined the family business, becoming president of Ex-Lax Inc. at
age 32, tripling its value in a short time and selling it for tens of
millions of dollars; and
WHEREAS, He was hooked by one of the great loves of his life, the love
of public service, working first on the 1965 John Lindsay mayoral
campaign and then becoming Finance Commissioner and Treasurer of the
City of New York and served in the Mayor's Super Cabinet in Mr.
Lindsay's first term, positions he held with distinction until 1968,
when he left City Hall to run for a vacant State Senate seat, which he
won; and
WHEREAS, From 1972 through 1975, he served as Chairman of the New York
State Charter Revision Commission for New York City which significantly
revised City government structure, in a task accounted by most people as
impossible as most of the panel's members were Democrats, who viewed him
warily and fought among themselves, even as then-Mayor Abraham D. Beame
opposed the commission at every turn, and yet Roy Goodman was able to
bring the group into agreement behind a set of recommendations adopted
by city voters in 1975, at the height of the New York City fiscal
crisis, with changes that greatly expanded the power of community
boards, required balanced budgets and public disclosure of labor
contracts, loosened mayoral control of spending and gave the city comp-
troller broad power to audit agencies; and
.SO DOC S R5806 RESO TEXT 2013
WHEREAS, Roy Goodman ran for mayor of New York City in 1977, ultimate-
ly losing to Mario Cuomo and the mayoral winner, Edward I. Koch, with
both of whom he became friends and the Albany go-between; and
WHEREAS, As chairman of the Committee on Investigations, he conducted
investigations and inquiries that resulted in many changes in law and
rules, including medical precautions at boxing matches and controls on
investments by public authorities; Roy Goodman also identified emerging
issues and took on very tough battles including convincing Albany lead-
ers in 1984 to establish the first in the nation AIDS Institute to
combat the emerging and still mysterious at the time AIDS crisis; he
also was the first legislator to expose the scourge of crack-cocaine in
the mid-1980s; Roy Goodman's Investigations Committee also issued a
scathing report detailing the breakdown in the city's mechanism to build
schools, which resulted in the creation of a new School Construction
Authority to take over the task of school construction; and
WHEREAS, Senator Goodman's major initiatives included sponsorship of
legislation to increase police patrols and toughen gun and ammunition
controls; provide tax fairness for the owners of co-ops and condos;

expand women's rights to choose and increase protections against domes-
tic violence; cut the state income and corporate taxes; provide better
housing and tenant protection; protect children against abuse; combat
discrimination; and spearhead City Hall efforts to increase state aid
for New York City; and
WHEREAS, In 1981, Roy Goodman became the Republican Party chairman of
Manhattan, a post he held for two decades, hosting Republicans from
around the country at party dinners and events; Roy Goodman built the
New York County the Republican party into a powerhouse organization,
which provided, as he put it many times the "high octane fuel" which led
to the elections of Assemblyman John Ravitz and Councilmembers Charles
Millard and Andrew Eristoff on Manhattan's East Side, who along with
Congressman Bill Green and Senator Goodman formed the nucleus for years
of moderate Republican leadership in government; and
WHEREAS, After leaving the Senate, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and
Governor George E. Pataki appointed Senator Goodman President of the
United Nations Development Corporation, an agency charged with building
new offices for the United Nations and a park along the East River; and
WHEREAS, Roy Goodman's commitment to public service extended to his
friendship and mentoring of numerous individuals who served with him and
served his community and the people of the State of New York with intel-
ligence and caring dedication, contributing significantly to the quality
of life of his constituents and the communities of the State of New
York; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to
honor the memory and accomplishments of The Honorable Roy M. Goodman;
and be it further
RESOLVED, That copies of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be tran-
smitted to his daughters Leslie Goodman and Claire Goodman Pelligrini-
Cloud, and his son, Randolph Goodman.