BY ALEX ELLEFSON | Eugene Glaberman, one of the first residents in Chelsea’s Penn South Cooperatives and a longtime advocate for the community, died June 21. He was 87.
Velma Hill, his neighbor and close friend, said he passed away at New York University Langone Hospital after suffering a heart attack.
To those who knew him, Glaberman is remembered as a cheerful, even-tempered man who was able to unite people around a common cause. He was a tireless champion for his neighbors, and went to bat for the community numerous times to fight for affordable housing, racial equality, and quality of life issues.
“He had a way of bringing many people together,” Hill explained. “He cared about anyone who was not treated fairly by society and will be remembered as a person who was always concerned about the community.”
Glaberman was a fixture of the neighborhood for more than half a century. He was always quick with a smile and loved to sing. His favorite song was Sinatra’s “My Way,” Hill recalled. It was Glaberman’s easy-going charm that made him such an effective political activist, friends said.
“He was not a ‘my way or the highway’ kind of person. He was a consensus builder,” recalled Bob Sikorski, another neighbor and friend.
Friends credited Glaberman with heading a successful push to secure more affordable housing during a 2005 rezoning battle with the Bloomberg administration. He also used his position as president of the Chelsea Midtown Democratic Club to restore a portion of West 27th Drive that ran through the nearby Elliott-Chelsea Houses.
Hill, who met Glaberman in the 1960s when the two were involved in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), said her friend was crusader for social justice throughout his entire life. He used his connections with police and elected officials to bridge the divide between law enforcement and NYCHA residents — and encouraged greater diversity on the local community board.
“He was connected in so many ways in Chelsea,” said Philoine Fried, another friend who worked alongside Glaberman at the Chelsea Midtown Democratic Club. “He was a one-of-a-kind leader and he will be missed for all of the things he was able to do — as well as for being a good friend.”
Glaberman left his fingerprints on many of his neighborhood’s civic organizations and community groups. He was a nine-year member of the Penn South Cooperatives Board of Directors, Vice President of Community School Board 2, New York Membership Director of the Congress of Racial Equality, President of the Penn South Workmen’s Circle branch, a member of the National Board of the Workmen’s Circle, President of the Eugene V. Debs Society at Brooklyn College, and a participant in the Chelsea Recreation Center Working Group.
Glaberman was born in Brooklyn on April 25, 1929. His parents, who were Democratic Socialists, named their son after the American labor leader and five-time Socialist Party presidential candidate Eugene Victor Debs. Glaberman always tried to live up to his namesake, Hill said.
“It had a lot to do with his view of life and the values that guided him,” she explained. “He was a real humanitarian.”
Gene graduated from Brooklyn College in 1951, and did postgraduate work at Pratt Institute and The School of Visual Arts. After serving in the army, he founded his own advertising agency.
Many of his clients came from labor or social justice groups like the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
“Most of his clients were either involved in labor, or civil rights or some other liberal movement,” Hill explained. “He did artwork for those organizations because that’s where his politics were.”
Hill, a former AFT vice president, said Glaberman worked with the union on a campaign aimed at helping more women of color become educators by providing them with stipends to study education in college. He also assisted in getting union president Al Shanker’s column placed in the New York Times.
Glaberman moved into the Penn South Cooperatives soon after their completion in 1962, Hill said. The co-op building, whose construction was sponsored by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, was aimed at creating housing for low- and moderate-income families. Glaberman lived alongside a cadre of other activists in the co-op, including civil rights activists Bayard Rustin and A. Phillip Randolph.
“There were a lot of people there who were part of the struggle,” said Hill, who moved to the co-op with her husband in 1967. “And when you struggle together, you form relationships. Gene was the type of person who made friends with a lot of people.”
Glaberman is survived by his nephew, Peter Glaberman, and Peter’s children, Rosaruby Kagan Glaberman, Ursa Brown Glaberman, and Ellen Glaberman Skolnik, as well as his dear friends, Velma and Norman Hill.
Hill is putting together a memorial service for Glaberman, scheduled to take place on Sun., July 31, 4pm, at the Fulton Center of the Hudson Guild (119 Ninth Ave., btw. 17th & 18th Sts.). For more information, email Velma Hill at velmahill38@gmail.com.
