Jerry Finkelstein

Jerry Finkelstein made a fortune in business, real estate and newspapers, including The New York Law Journal and The Hill, and for many years was a self-styled Democratic power broker in New York City. With money and connections drawn in a wide-ranging career that placed him at the nexus of the legal profession, publishing and politics in New York, Mr. Finkelstein assisted presidents, governors, mayors, members of Congress, city and state officials and a host of judges, lawyers and lesser luminaries. But he was instrumental to only one politician: his son Andrew, who shortened his surname and in campaigns heavily financed by his father became an assemblyman, Manhattan borough president and City Council president. Mr. Stein quit his last race, for the 1993 Democratic nomination for mayor, lacking public support. Mr. Finkelstein was the retired chairman of Struthers Wells, a conglomerate that manufactures a range of heating, fuel handling and thermal engineering equipment, and the owner of a newspaper chain that includes The Hill in Washington. He derived much of his power from The Law Journal, which he acquired in 1963 and built into the leading publisher of New York’s court decisions, with news and analyses of legal affairs. For all his considerable influence, Mr. Finkelstein ran for office only once — for a State Senate seat in 1942 — and lost. His father, Albert, ran a small business. He attended George Washington High School and New York University and graduated from New York Law School in 1938, but did not take the bar exam. He became a reporter for The New York Daily Mirror, and with a colleague, Seward Brisbane, son of the Hearst editor Arthur Brisbane, founded The Civil Service Leader, a newspaper for public employees, in 1939. In 1942, he married Shirley Marks. She died in 2003. Besides Mr. Stein, he is survived by another son, James Finkelstein, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Mr. Finkelstein sold The Law Journal in 1983 but remained its publisher until 1988. In 1994, Mr. Finkelstein and Martin Tolchin, a correspondent for The New York Times, founded The Hill, focusing on Congressional coverage. James Finkelstein succeeded his father as chairman of The Hill and other publishing interests.