By Albert Amateau
Jerry Halpern, who opened Music Inn World Instruments on W. Fourth St. in 1958 and spent the last two years of his life writing poems that he shared with friends at the Greenwich House Senior Center, died on March 31, two weeks before his 80th birthday.
He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease about 10 years ago, and was acutely ill for several months before his death, according to Jeff Slatnick, a friend who began working at the store 40 years ago.
“He died peacefully surrounded by friends and admirers,” said Slatnick, who manages Music Inn and is continuing the business in its one and only location at 169 W. Fourth St.
Jerry Halpern was born and raised in the Bronx, served in the Army during the Korean War and traveled around the country in the 1950s.
“He came to the Village and started the store with rock-and-roll records,” Slatnick said. “It became the place to go. Then he got interested in other things — whatever was blowing in the wind.”
Halpern’s enthusiasms included African music and then African musical instruments.
“He got into African culture generally,” Slatnick said. “He began collecting African masks — he had these books about Egyptian civilization — Jerry’s mind was adventurous.”
Halpern lived on Sheridan Square with his wife, Janet Richmond, an artist, who died six years ago.
His direct involvement with the business tapered off a few years ago and he began filling notebooks with poetry.
“It was hard to read because of the Parkinson’s, so I got him to write big with felt pens,” Slatnick recalled.
The Greenwich House Senior Center poetry club had a memorial for Halpern on April 6. Among the poems that Halpern had published in the group’s biannual magazine was one called “Loose Ends,” which began: “Hello, Babe! I’m in love with /Your loose ends: the clothes you /Peel off and toss helter-skelter /When you change to go out or get /Ready for sleep; the shoes that are /Strewn about, except for one pair, /Creamy-tan with short heels, standing/Together, waiting for your graceful/ Feet.”
Slatnick, the executor of Halpern’s estate, said he was looking at the notebooks with poems that Halpern had indicated were complete with a view to publishing them.
