Harrison J. Goldin

Harrison Jacob Goldin (February 23, 1936 – September 16, 2024), often known as Jay Goldin,^[1] was an American lawyer and politician. He served as a member of the New York State Senate from 1966 to 1973 but was better known for his almost-sixteen year tenure as New York City Comptroller from January 1974 to December 1989.

Harrison Jacob Goldin was born on February 23, 1936, in the Bronx, New York City.^[1] He graduated as Science Valedictorian from the Bronx High School of Science in 1953, and received an A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1957, and an LL.B. from Yale Law School, where he was articles editor of the Yale Law Journal and was elected to the Order of the Coif.^[1] Goldin was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School. Just prior to his graduation, Goldin turned down several top Wall Street jobs, and instead chose to work during the Kennedy Administration as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Civil Rights.^[1]

Goldin was a member of the New York State Senate from 1966 to 1973, sitting in the 176th, 177th, 178th, 179th, and 180th New York State Legislatures. After previously seeking the office in 1969, he was elected New York City Comptroller in 1973, and held the office for four terms.^[1] His first years as comptroller were consumed by a deep fiscal crisis, during which the city was nearly driven to bankruptcy.^[1] His tenure coincided with the mayoralties of Abraham Beame and Ed Koch. Though historian Kim Phillips-Fein has described conflict between city mayors and comptrollers as "more or less inevitable", Goldin was noted for his clashes with both, especially Koch, with an animosity that The New York Times said often ran "nasty and personal".^[1][2]: 60

In 1981, Goldin's office was investigated after he solicited campaign contributions from a businessman who was seeking to build bus shelters in the city; the investigation closed without charges against him.^[1] He was then investigated later in the decade over his ties with trader Ivan Boesky, who had pled guilty to insider trading, but no charges were filed against Goldin.^[1]

Goldin twice sought higher office. In 1978, he ran for New York State Comptroller, but lost to Republican Edward Regan, who had been endorsed by retiring Democratic incumbent Arthur Levitt Sr.^[1] In 1989, he ran in the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City, challenging Koch, but was defeated by David Dinkins, coming in last place with only 2.7% of the vote.^[1]

After leaving public office in 1989, he opened Goldin Associates, a financial advisory and turnaround consulting firm.^[1][3] The firm's notable cases included Drexel Burnham Lambert, Rockefeller Center, Enron^[2]: 307 and Refco. Goldin Associates was acquired by Teneo in 2020.^[1]

He was a founding Chair (then Chair Emeritus) of the Council of Institutional Investors and a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. Goldin was an adjunct professor of Accounting at the Stern School of Business at New York University and an adjunct professor of law at Cardozo and New York Law Schools. He was also a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School.

In 1966, Goldin married Diana Stern, and they had three children.^[1]

Goldin died at a hospital in Manhattan on September 16, 2024, at the age of 88.^[1]

• Dinkins, David A Mayor's Life: Governing New York's Gorgeous Mosaic, PublicAffairs Books, 2013