Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who rose from New York City's gritty Hell's Kitchen to become a Harvard professor and one of the leading intellects in the U.S. Senate, said Friday he would not run for re-election in 2000.

"I surely will miss it, but there are other things to do in life, and there comes a time," the professorial New York Democrat said.The 71-year-old Moynihan, with his trademark white shock of hair and slow speech, is serving his fourth, six-year term. The former chairman of the Senate Finance Committee was considered a safe bet for re-election if he had run again.

President Clinton called Moynihan's announcement sad news and said his life story, which "could have been written by Horatio Alger," was a powerful rebuttal to cynicism about politicians. "We will miss him. So will the Congress. So will America," Clinton said.

Moynihan's retirement came just three days after his longtime New York colleague, Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, was defeated in his bid for a fourth term by Democrat Charles Schumer, a congressman from Brooklyn.

For years the two men played different roles in Congress, with Moynihan focusing on foreign affairs, social policy and other broad issues and D'Amato concentrating on bringing home projects and federal aid to the state.

"The world moves on," Moynihan said simply when asked about D'Amato's defeat and his retirement announcement coming in the same week.

"Now we have Chuck Schumer so that when I leave, the senior senator from New York will be a Democrat and a friend," Moynihan said.

Elected to the Senate in 1976, Moynihan said that "after the last election, my wife and I agreed: one more term, that's all; that's plenty; that's fine."

"You're in your 70s, and you don't want to press that too long, do you?" he added.

But Moynihan has also been unhappy with his role as a minority legislator since Republicans took control of the Senate in 1994 and at the thought of having to raise the money needed for yet another race.

"His last campaign, he ran for $5 million. That sounds quaint compared to what happened this year," William Cunningham, a Moynihan confidant and former chief of staff, said. Noting that D'Amato and Schumer spent more than $35 million on their race this year, the Albany banking executive said, "I don't think he wanted to spend the next year and a half on the phone every day trying to raise money."

Moynihan said that other than a bad knee that may need surgery, he was in fine health.

Moynihan, the author of 18 books, said he would continue to "scribble away" after he leaves the Senate and perhaps go back to the classroom.