Alex Wong/Getty Images
Representative Charles B. Rangel of Harlem, in Washington in May, has been weakened by inquiries into his financial dealings.
Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times
Gov. David A. Paterson last month. His Harlem base of power has lost ground since the days when his father was active in politics.
But now the once-vaunted Harlem political machine is on the verge of collapse. After 19 tumultuous months in office, Mr. Paterson has been urged by White House aides to abandon next year's election, a potentially mortal blow to the already embattled governor.
Charles B. Rangel, Harlem's elder statesman and congressman for 40 years, has been weakened by investigations into his unpaid taxes, unreported income and other ethical lapses; last week, House Republicans tried to remove him from the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee
Nationally, Harlem is increasingly eclipsed by Chicago, the home base of President Obama and much of his inner circle, while the power Mr. Rangel and others once wielded in New York City affairs is rapidly dispersing to Brooklyn and Queens, home to a younger generation of elected officials eager to assert themselves. If Mr. Paterson goes, some black leaders say, the Harlem machine goes with him.
"Harlem was a pretty considerable political dynasty that is now on life support," said Hakeem Jeffries, a freshman assemblyman from Brooklyn. "It will probably never be replaced, and I don't think it should be."
Few could deny the power of Harlem in its heyday. After Mr. Rangel was elected to Congress in 1970, the so-called Harlem Clubhouse — a fraternity with Mr. Rangel, Mr. Dinkins, Percy E. Sutton and Basil A. Paterson, the governor's father, at its center — racked up a formidable record of firsts. Besides Mr. Dinkins and the Patersons, H. Carl McCall, Boston-born but Harlem-groomed, became the first African-American to fill a statewide elected office when he became state comptroller. Assemblyman Herman D. Farrell Jr. became New York's first black state Democratic Party chairman in 2001.
But while Harlem and its voters remain influential, Governor Paterson and Mr. Rangel have few heirs. The president pro tem of the State Senate, Malcolm A. Smith, is a product of southeast Queens. His likely successor, John L. Sampson, the Democratic leader in the Senate, hails from central Brooklyn, part of a close-knit group of younger black lawmakers with overlapping districts and ambitions. The party's standard-bearer in this year's New York mayoral race, William C. Thompson Jr., is also from Brooklyn, as is the chairman of Albany's Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus, Assemblyman Darryl C. Towns.
"When Paterson leaves, I don't see a statewide elected official coming from Harlem for at least 20 years," said one black political consultant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to cause trouble for his clients. "I think the next black mayor will come from the Bronx or Brooklyn. It's almost like they're starting from scratch in Harlem."
Some say the decline of Harlem as a political force began in 2002, when Mr. McCall, the Democratic candidate for governor, won less than a third of the vote in a three-way race. For others, the signal moment was the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, when Mr. Rangel — along with most elected officials in the state — threw his support behind Hillary Rodham Clinton, then New York's junior senator. Joining him was Mr. Paterson, who campaigned for Mrs. Clinton in Iowa.
Relatively few older black elected officials believed that Mr. Obama had a chance of winning. They also saw little upside to crossing Mrs. Clinton, a powerful figure in the state.
"That was gut-check time for everybody," said Mr. Jeffries, one of a handful of lawmakers, mostly from Brooklyn and Queens, who backed Mr. Obama. "No one believed that Barack Obama had a chance to be successful, let alone among those who are in Hillary Clinton's own home state. The black machine in Harlem made it very clear that in their view, the only choice was Hillary."
Though Bill Clinton's administration relied heavily on Mr. Rangel as its proxy in New York politics, Mr. Obama and his aides have built relationships with a broader array of black officials and power brokers, many of them nearer in age and temperament to the president than the Harlem old guard. It did not escape notice in black political circles that when the White House sought to convey its concerns to Mr. Paterson, the intermediary Mr. Obama's aides chose was Gregory W. Meeks, a Queens congressman of the president's (and the governor's) own generation.
Another criticism, even from within the ranks, is that Harlem's elders paid too little attention to their own line of succession. They initially resisted when Eliot Spitzer sought, in 2006, to tap Mr. Paterson as his lieutenant governor, instead favoring Leecia Eve, who had been an aide to Mrs. Clinton.
"Paterson is the son of the Harlem elders," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, an ally and contemporary of the governor. "But other than Paterson, there was no one they trained in the new generation."
Some point to demographics, noting that black political power has simply migrated to where the votes have. According to census data provided by Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College, almost a quarter of New York City's black population lived in Manhattan in 1970, when the Harlem Clubhouse began its rise. Now that proportion is 12 percent. Today, Mr. Rangel himself has more white constituents than black ones, and when he leaves Congress, some Manhattan Democrats say, his successor may not necessarily be African-American.
Moreover, Harlem is to some degree a victim of its own success. As the old guard broke down color barriers and blazed trails, those officials expanded the sphere of black influence in city and state politics. And over time, reapportionment and court rulings opened up opportunities for black elected officials outside of the Harlem base.
"It's no longer just about Harlem," said Keith L.T. Wright, who represents central Harlem in the State Assembly. He pointed to the rapid growth of the state's caucus of minority lawmakers, which was founded in the 1960s and now has more than 40 members, two-thirds of them black.
"We've morphed into people of color all around the state," Mr. Wright said. "I wouldn't call it losing. I would call it evolving."
That evolution was on display on a recent evening when Mr. Wright, 54, was elected chairman of the Manhattan Democratic Party, succeeding Mr. Farrell, his fellow Harlem assemblyman, who had held the post since 1981.
District leaders, elected officials and political consultants filed into the sweltering common room of an Upper East Side senior center to witness the changing of the guard, one that many Manhattan Democrats privately say was a decade overdue. When Mr. Farrell called for a vote on Mr. Wright, a chorus of yeas filled the room. There were no nays.
But as he paid tribute to his predecessor amid whoops and cheers, Mr. Wright could not help but strike a wistful note.
"From 1981, we've had the man, the myth and the legend, Denny Farrell," Mr. Wright said. "We will never see this again."
Raymond Hernandez contributed reporting.
