Former State Senator John Marchi Dead at 87
New York, NY —
Longtime state senator John Marchi has died. He was 87.
REPORTER: The Republican, who was first elected in 1957 and retired in 2006, is perhaps best known for leading a movement to let Staten Island break away from the rest of the city in the 1990s. The state Senate in 1995 approved Marchi's secession bill, but it never came to a vote in the Assembly. Mayor Bloomberg says Marchi shouldn't just be remembered for the secession effort.
BLOOMBERG: He was also a great champion of the people of Staten Island and fought successfully for ferry service, and I was proud to christen one of the modern new ferries, the John J. Marchi, in 2004.
REPORTER: Bloomberg says Marchi also played a major role in writing and passing the state legislation that helped bring New York City out of the fiscal crisis of the 1970s. More recently, Marchi and several Staten Island colleagues in 1996 successfully pushed through the legislature a bill to close the Fresh Kills Landfill.
