Lanny Alexander

Jan. 14, 1946 – Dec. 7, 2025

Lanny Alexander, 79, of Southold passed away on Dec. 7, 2025. She was a devoted public servant, lawyer, partner, mother and grandmother. She built a life defined by purpose, resilience and love. 

Lanny was a renaissance woman. There was nothing she couldn’t do, and little she didn’t do. She graduated from Marymount College, summa cum laude, and from Pace University School of Law, completing her degrees while raising her two daughters. 

She built a rich legal career and spent much of it serving New York City government, initially as a senior lawyer practicing employment law and later serving as an agency head. 

Lanny believed deeply in the promise of public service and the responsibility it carries. She understood city service not as a job, but as a moral commitment to fairness, to serving others and to the everyday functioning of a city that belongs to everyone. She retired from city service in 2016 after nearly a decade as executive director of the New York City Loft Board.

Lanny is survived by Sally Renfro, her partner for 40 years; her daughters, Nicole Schlesinger and Dori Acampora; her sons-in-law, Damian Smith and Rick Acampora; and her four beloved: grandchildren, Francesca and Joseph Acampora and Sela and Harrison Smith, to whom she was deeply devoted.

She will be remembered for her fierce intellect, wit and sense of justice, as well her loyalty and tenderness. She was deeply creative, an avid golfer, a lover of yoga, a talented vocalist and a North Fork yard sale aficionado. Her life was one of substance and principle, and her impact — on her family, her friends and her communities — endures. 

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