VP Joe Biden to attend wake for Mario Cuomo

NEW YORK — The farewell to New York’s former three-term governor, Mario Cuomo, will start with his wake and include Vice President Joe Biden joining New Yorkers in saying goodbye.

Visitation is at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home on Madison Avenue, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday.

Cuomo’s funeral is at 11 a.m. Tuesday at St. Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Avenue.

Cuomo, 82, died in his Manhattan home on Thursday evening, hours after his son, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was inaugurated for a second term.

The governor spoke for the first time about his father’s death publicly on Saturday, saying, “there is a hole in my heart that I fear is going to be there forever.”

In the 1980s, the younger Cuomo ran some of his father’s campaigns and was his adviser. The Democratic governor lost his bid for re-election to a fourth term in 1994 to Republican George Pataki.

Andrew Cuomo is postponing his state-of-the-state address until Jan. 21. It had been scheduled for Wednesday.

Exuberant and eloquent, Mario Cuomo’s most memorable national moment came at the 1984 Democratic convention in San Francisco. Cuomo challenged Ronald Reagan’s description of America as “a shining city on a hill” by delivering a keynote address titled “A Tale of Two Cities” — about a country split between haves and have-nots.

Bill de Blasio used the same words when campaigning and winning New York City’s mayoral race last year. The mayor said all flags in the city will be at half-staff in Cuomo’s honor for 30 days.

Mario Cuomo’s “tale of two cities” came from personal experience. He was the son of an Italian immigrant father who struggled to make ends meet. Cuomo, whom some called a Roman Catholic kid from Queens, never forgot his background.

He once called politics “an ugly business” and never ran for president, as some Democratic leaders pushed him to do in 1988 and 1992.

Tuesday’s funeral will be open to family and friends and arrangements are being made for media wishing to attend.

VERENA DOBNIK, Associated Press