Donald Halperin, who died Monday at 60, at 24 became the youngest-ever state senator, served 23 years in Albany, and then ran the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal.

Halperin represented a Brooklyn district comprising Manhattan Beach and Sheepshead Bay, and by the time he left in 1993, he was the third-ranking Democrat in the Republican-controlled state senate.

Governor Cuomo appointed Halperin to the DHCR, which he served until 1994. Halperin then became a lobbyist with the law firm of Kantor, Davidoff, Wolfe, Mandelker & Kass, where his clients included the American International Group, the New York Metropolitan Retail Association, and the New York State Association for Affordable Housing.

A lifelong resident of Manhattan Beach, Halperin was the son of a wealthy menswear manufacturer, Charles Halperin, the president of Barry-Walt. One way the family business paid off for Halperin was that he was known throughout his career as a snappy dresser. Another was that family money helped finance his first run for office.

Halperin was an idealistic third-year student at Brooklyn Law School in 1970, when he decided to take on William Rosenblatt from the sixteenth district – a 26-year incumbent – for the state senate. Aided by fellow students and law-school faculty, Halperin filed suit in Federal Court challenging the tradition of listing incumbents first on the ballot. He ended up winning a majority of votes in the primary, which included a third challenger.As in many city contests, the actual election was less of a contest than the primary was.

In Albany, Halperin became known for his bipartisan support of a reform agenda. Among his legislative achievements was a law mandating Braille and audio signals in elevators, and an act regulating noise on elevated trains. He worked to streamline organ transplant procedures and to reform reverse mortgages.

In 1985, Halperin journeyed to Los Angeles, where he was Brooklyn’s representative at an annual reunion of New York City high schools. Determined to evoke the old-town feel, he brought the ingredients for egg creams, some Nathan’s hot dogs, and a stickball bat and spaldeens. But stickball proved to be impossible, because there were no manhole covers to measure hits by.

Halperin quit the Senate in 1993 and sought the Democratic primary nod to run for New York City public advocate, in the first-ever election for that office.

His popularity in his home district did not translate to the citywide election, and Halperin finished fifth out a field of six. Newsday ran a campaign profile of Halperin headlined “It’s not easy beating Green.” At one campaign stop in a nursing home, the paper reported, an elderly gentleman asked him, “Who else is running?”

Halperin was talked of by some as a candidate for a judgeship, but ended up at DHCR, where he became known as a tenant’s advocate for opposing large hikes for rent-controlled apartments. In recent years, he was noted as one of the Democratic Party’s most effective fund-raisers. Gregarious and athletic, he remained active even through his final illness.

Governor Pataki released a statement on his death, praising Halperin as a consensus builder and directing that flags yesterday be flown at half-staff.

Donald Halperin
Born in Brooklyn on July 25,1945; died of cancer at the Menorah Nursing Home and Hospital in Manhattan Beach; survived by his wife, Brenda; his children, Jeremy and Rebecca; his mother, Gladys, and a sister, Susan.