Sebastian Leone, who as borough president in the 1970s worked to raise Brooklyn's profile long before its current renaissance, died on Nov. 14 in Brooklyn. He was 91. The cause was complications of pneumonia, his wife, Helene Leone, said.

Mr. Leone, a Democrat, was borough president from 1970 to 1976, when Brooklyn did not enjoy the renown as a cultural center and thriving place to live that it has today. It felt then like "a neglected stepchild of Manhattan," as the reporter McCandlish Phillips wrote in The New York Times.

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/