New Delhi, June 13 -- Mourners paid their respects to former U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel as his body lay in state Thursday at New York City Hall, an honor bestowed to a short list of political figures, including U.S. presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.

The outspoken, gravel-voiced Harlem Democrat died May 26 at the age of 94 after spending nearly five decades on Capitol Hill. Rangel was among the longest serving House members, a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and chairman of one the chamber's most powerful committees.

On Thursday morning, a small group of mourners quietly came to pay their respects in City Hall, a landmark neoclassical building at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, as the surrounding streets o...