Former Council Member Paul Vallone died Jan. 27 at the age of 56.
John McCarten : NYC Council
Paul Vallone, a former City Council Member who was part of a Queens political dynasty, died suddenly this weekend. He was 56 years old.
Vallone most recently served as the city’s Deputy Commissioner of Veterans’ Services. His brother Peter, a fellow former Council Member who presently serves as a judge in Claims Court, confirmed Paul’s passing.
Peter Vallone said his brother was rushed to Flushing Hospital Saturday evening after suddenly falling ill at home, but could not be saved. The news was first reported by the Queens Chronicle.
In addition to his brother, Vallone is survived by his wife Anna-Marie and three children, as well as his father Peter Sr., formerly the City Council speaker and a giant of municipal politics.
News of Paul Vallone’s death stunned Queens politicos and spurred an outpouring of grief.
“Paul didn’t just carry on his family’s immense legacy of service — he personified and embodied it,” Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said in a statement. “He inspired me every single day to be a better elected official, but it’s his lessons in friendship, family, and fatherhood that I will cherish for the rest of time. Queens is a better borough because of Paul, and I am a better person for having had the privilege of calling him a colleague and a friend.”
Before entering politics, Vallone was a managing partner at his family’s general practice law firm, Vallone & Vallone LLP, founded in 1932 by his grandfather, Judge Charles Vallone. His father, Peter Sr., was elected to the City Council in an Astoria-centered district in 1973, and became the first Speaker of the City Council following the reorganization of city government in 1989.
Vallone Sr. was term-limited out of the Council in 2001 and was succeeded as Astoria’s City Council representative by Peter Jr., who served two terms.
After running unsuccessfully in 2009, in…
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