Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) could end up being the last black congressman from Harlem. Gov. David Paterson, the son of Basil Paterson of the legendary “Gang of Four” who have dominated Harlem for a half-century, has come to embody their central shortcoming: the failure to cultivate a strong second generation. The gang itself is down to three, Rangel, the elder Paterson and former Mayor David Dinkins, who were among the mourners at the December funeral of the fourth, politician-turned-tycoon Percy Sutton.

Within New York, African-American political power has quietly shifted across the East River to Brooklyn’s nearly 1 million black residents, where boosters say they have done what Harlem didn’t: produce an independent new generation of political leaders. “The guys who have started getting elected in Brooklyn have more freedom, because they were building as insurgents rather than from the establishment,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, now a pillar of Harlem, though he’s a son of Brooklyn and until recently lived with his family in Flatbush. “The new generation of electeds are coming out of Brooklyn.”

However, Harlem remains the symbolic center. When Rev. Sharpton convened a gathering of black leaders to discuss, and ultimately defend, Gov. Paterson last week, he did so at Sylvia’s, a legendary soul food joint in Upper Manhattan. But Sylvia’s, any given afternoon, is likely to be as packed with European tour-bus passengers as with black political stars. The young Brooklyn politicians are easier to find in a wave of new coffee shops and similar places that represent — they hope — a kind of “careful gentrification” of Bed-Stuy, one that keeps it a black center for some time to come. And the Brooklynites say they’re deliberately modeling themselves on the fading Harlem power structure. “We watched them; we learned how they did it, and we replicated it here in central Brooklyn,” said Lupe Todd, a political consultant.

Harlem, of course, isn’t going without a fight. And while its politicians may be old, they like to point out that their rivals remain junior figures in the state Legislature. The two black members of Congress are relatively low-key figures, and they lack a clear local leader or an officeholder at any but the most local level. Brooklynites shoot back that there’s something to be said for youth. “Harlem hasn’t had new leadership in decades,” said Tyquana Henderson, another Brooklyn political consultant. “I’m not trying to stomp on anybody’s grave or say Harlem is dead, but Brooklyn is doing what it needs to do in grooming new leadership.”

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