Farewell Notices

[Southpaw]

Often I find that when people I know in Chelsea have passed on I learn of the passing only by chance months after the fact. Perhaps creating a farewell notices thread will help change this situation.

You are invited to a celebration of...

[Southpaw]

Betty L. Sheppard
a Chelsea resident since the 1950's
passed away on April 19th 2009.
A celebration of her life was held
at the Hudson Guilds Elliott Center
on June 7, 2009.

[Southpaw]

Katharine "Kay" Roberts

June 27, 1926 - June 28, 2009

Katharine "Kay" Roberts, 83, of New York City, N.Y., died June 28 at St. Vincent's Hospital after a short illness.
For full story click here

also see...
and

[Southpaw]

Gene Mandel: Friend and Neighbor

Eugene (Gene) Mandel, a retired mechanical engineer, passed away at the age of 88 on July 13, 2009 after battling an illness for several years. He lived in Penn South for 40 years with his wife, whom he survived by several years.

A member of the Chelsea Democratic Club, he was a voice for his neighborhood and the larger community, openly expressing his ideas for preserving and improving New York and the nation. Professional engineering experience and a keen interest in economics gave him unique insight into many of the city's and nation's problems. He would propose pragmatic solutions at public hearings, such as a 2004 meeting of the City Planning Commission and the MTA. He also attended Budget hearings at City Hall.

Everyone who knew Gene spoke well of him. His candid style and wit, combined with a natural affability, made him very well loved. He will be deeply missed by his many friends at the Fulton Center. An upcoming memorial service will be announced.

[SNAP]

THE FOLLOWING IS FROM "CHELSEA NOW". WE'VE LOST A REAL GENTLEMAN AND A DRIVING FORCE IN CHELSEA.

Jimmy Pelsey, 74, a voice for Chelsea’s voiceless
By Patrick Hedlund
Willie James "Jimmy" Pelsey, longtime leader of the Robert Fulton Houses tenant association and a voice for Chelsea’s lower-income residents for more than three decades, died on July 9 after an extended stay at St. Vincent’s Hospital. He was 74.

Pelsey became recognized as one of the staunchest advocates for the public housing complex where he lived for more than 30 years with his family, often manning the grill at community cookouts he organized for tenants.

Pelsey proved a vital link between Chelsea’s public housing community and the police in their joint effort to confront drug dealing and other criminal activity, and also created partnerships with local businesses to give back to the neighborhood through employment opportunities and block parties.

Born to Johnnie Pelsey and Catherine Taylor Pelsey on Jan. 13, 1935, in Jacksonville, Fla., Jimmy was well regarded as a chef in his home state before moving to New York City in the 1950s. Once here he began a 38-year career with the Sunray Yarn Company, where he worked as a color coordinator and dealt with some of the city’s top fashion designers before retiring in 1996.

Jimmy first got involved in community outreach through the Hudson Guild, presiding over the organization’s Cottage Club program that provided homeless and less-privileged New Yorkers with free trips to Lake Hopatcong, N.J

"He believed in helping when there was a need," said his wife of 27 years, Earnestine Pelsey, who also volunteered with the Guild and joined Jimmy on trips to the lake. "If something wasn’t correct as far as he could see, Jimmy would jump."

After continued work with the Guild and later as vice president of the Chelsea Community Council, Jimmy and fellow public housing advocate Phyllis Gonzalez of the Elliot-Chelsea Houses were elected to serve on Community Board 4 by then-Borough President C. Virginia Fields.

"Before Jimmy and Phyllis were on the board, there was nobody on the board that represented the people from our community that have little," said Velma Murphy-Hill, a former Board 4 member who founded the neighborhood group Afford Chelsea and also presided over the Chelsea Community Council. She added: "He was a voice for the poor, he was a voice for the elderly, he was a voice for the youth—he was a voice for the people who didn’t have a voice. And I think that’s how he’ll be remembered."

Gonzalez, who has served as president of the Elliot-Chelsea tenant association for more than 20 years, recalled that whenever the community board dealt with incoming nightclubs, Jimmy made sure to lobby club operators for jobs for local residents.

"Jimmy always had the children in mind," she said, describing how the pair worked to reconcile the sometimes fractious relationships between residents of the two housing complexes. "He was basically a peacemaker, a blessing to all of us."

Around the same time Jimmy joined the community board, he was elected president of the Fulton Houses tenant association and helped initiate a series of monthly meetings with the Police Department, elected officials and the New York City Housing Authority to comabt crime in the Fulton and Elliot-Chelsea Houses.

"Anything we needed, he was there for us," said Deputy Inspector Stephen Hughes, commander of Chelsea’s 10th Precinct. "He put the kids in the neighborhood in a positive light and always wanted to do what was best for the community."

Hughes explained that Jimmy was particularly instrumental in helping bring surveillance cameras to the two housing complexes last year after a string of violent incidents.

"He was the main reason it was accepted so easily," Hughes said, noting that Jimmy helped ease residents’ concerns regarding privacy by making sure the cameras were only placed in public areas. He added that the precinct has seen a 30 percent drop in crime at the two complexes since the cameras were introduced.

"He was somebody who really understood that we all depend on each other," said Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, who worked with Jimmy to press for affordable housing in the community as luxury development increased throughout the years. "I don’t think I ever saw him without a big smile on his face, although he always made it clear that under the smile and the bright eyes was a very serious determination."

Jimmy struck up relationships with local merchants as tenant association president, convincing many to give back to the neighborhood by contributing to holiday and block parties for the public housing community. Through this outreach, he was also able to secure jobs for the local youth at places like the Chelsea Market, which continues to support programs at the Fulton Houses today.

Jimmy was forced to step down from his post as president of the tenant association last year after having a heart defibrillator surgically implanted. However, he still remained active in the community and reprised the role of "chief cook" at 2008’s National Night Out event at the Fulton Houses, which he helped organize in conjunction with the 10th Precinct.

"It’s hard to think about [National Night Out] without Jimmy, because every year he was there," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who worked with him frequently during her decade in office.

Her fondest memory of Jimmy dates back to the citywide blackout in 2003, when Quinn went around visiting various residential buildings in the district to see how people were coping with the situation.

"When I got down to Fulton, Jimmy was outside, had the grill going, apron on," she said, describing how he got the police to close down the street to put together an impromptu cookout by gathering food from local markets that otherwise would have been thrown out. "There was a problem, and he used his creativity and his wit to keep everyone safe," Quinn added.

In recognition of his work with tenants, Jimmy received the Hudson Guild’s Dr. Elliot Senior Service Award last year shortly before entering St. Vincent’s. His memorial service was attended by Quinn, Gottfried, and a host of fellow colleagues from Community Board 4 and other organizations that Jimmy had contributed to.

He is survived by his wife, Ernestine Pelsey, and their children Michele Richard-Atkinson, William Richard, Lafette Richard, Joy Richard and Antoinette Stratton. He is also survived by the children of his late first wife, Grace: Catherine Youngblood, Willie James Pelsey Jr., Keith Pelsey, Cheryl Griffin and Terry Pelsey; as well as children Aubrey Aiken, Terrance Pelsey and Timothy Pelsey. Jimmy has 30 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, and is survived by sisters Emma Jean Pelsey, Lenell Smith Washington and brother Johnny Pelsey Jr.

[Southpaw]

Budd Schulberg, Screenwriter, Dies at 95

Budd Schulberg, who wrote the award-winning screenplay for “On the Waterfront” died on Wednesday. He was 95 and lived in the Brookside section of Westhampton Beach, N.Y. (1)

On the Waterfront is a 1954 American drama film about mob violence and corruption among longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden and Lee J. Cobb.

Karl Malden's character of Father Barry was based on the real-life "waterfront priest" Father John M. Corridan (2), who operated a a Roman Catholic labor school, housed in St. Francis Xavier Parish on 16th Street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. (3)


1 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/movies/06schulberg.html
2 http://www.companymagazine.org/v204/waterfrontpriest.html
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Waterfront


50 Years after On the Waterfront Bud Schulberg visits the New Chelsea Piers...

"It's hard to conceive of the power the ILA had. Every time a ship came in, it was a drama," Schulberg says, walking past the former site of Piers 54 to 62, where the Grace and U.S. Lines ships once docked. "They worked in gangs, a bunch of tough guys in undershirts. If a ship had perishable goods, they could let that stuff rot. The smell never went away. The payoffs were tremendous. Thousands, hundreds of thousands per shipload. This was the fifties! The union ran the shape-up, they said who could work, who couldn't, who'd make money, who wouldn't. ILA local 791, which had the piers from 14th Street to 23rd, was called the Mother Local. If you controlled 791, you controlled the West Side; if you controlled the West Side, you controlled the harbor -- that meant you controlled the East Coast, the Atlantic, and everything else. Those were the stakes."



Our visit was the first time he'd really been over to the current sports-and-shopping-mall version of the Chelsea piers, Budd noted before heading for lunch at Moran's, the erstwhile bucket of blood where the Westies rolled the head of the shylock Ruby Stein down the bar like a bowling ball. Not that Chelsea Piers was that alien. People were obviously making money here, or trying. The desperate lure of lucre and identity, the violent striving, the flush of success, the nagging creep of conscience, the often failed attempt to salvage decency in a corrupt world -- these had always been his core concerns, Budd acknowledges. Certainly the new Chelsea Piers, with its parade of Cadillac Escalades, was not devoid of these constants. Besides, there were memories here, even beyond the years spent with Father Corridan.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/movies/features/6311/

[Southpaw]

[minnie-me]

*The Board and Staff of the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation regret to announce the passing of Bruce Oatman on August 17, 2009. Bruce served on the RSF Board in recent years, and was for many years a Board Member of the Henry George School of Social Science. During his last year Bruce dealt with courage and dignity a rare form of bone cancer. Our condolences go out to all of Bruce's family and friends. We have lost a good person and a dedicated Georgist.
~ Gil Herman, RSF President

Bruce was our kind and caring neighbor. He spent his life as a social worker professionally and spreading his generousity and joy of life with others. He will be greatly missed.

[blair23]

My friend has found a new job and she is ready to give two-weeks notice to your current employer. Next, she will want to say farewell to your co-workers.