My Memories of Frank (Ezra Glaser)
Submitted by dschonfeld
on Thu, 03/01/2012 - 21:18

By Ezra Glaser

(Note: This reminiscence was prepared for and delivered at the Memorial 
Meeting for Frank Schonfeld held in the Vladeck Auditorium in the 
Amalgamated Housing Co-op on February 26, 2012.)

In November, the Amalgamated lost a beloved community activist and fighter 
for the ideals of common people  Frank Schonfeld. 

I don't remember when I first met Frank Schonfeld  I just know that it had 
to be in the courtyard of building 7 sometime in the 1980s while I was 
still in college.  He and my father had first struck up a relationship  I 
believe from talking about tools and how to make things.  Sometime later, 
the two of them worked together to rebuild the playground at the entrance 
to Building 7  although I did not know that until many years later, when 
Frank announced at a public meeting, much to my surprise, that he wanted 
the playground named after my father.  In retrospect, it made sense that 
it would be through my father that I got to know Frank  because the two 
men had a very similar, meek, disposition that people saw when they knew 
them, which masked the type of fighter that Frank, at least, demonstrated 
to the public.

I started speaking to Frank in earnest about issues involving the 
Amalgamated in 1992, when I first ran and was elected to the Board of 
Directors of the co-op  and we disagreed intensely.  At the time, the 
Amalgamated was strapped for cash, while simultaneously, several buildings 
were in desperate need for major capital improvements  including his own.  
Frank proposed a capital assessment to increase the investment that all 
cooperators had in their apartments as an alternative to a rent increase  
which would allow cooperators to get the money that they put into their 
apartments back at the time that they moved out.   I was skeptical because 
capital funds had never been raised using this method, and there were 
risks.  What about elderly cooperators on SCRIE  they would have to pay 
the extra money out-of-pocket, and absorb a type of increase that they 
might not be able to afford?  Frank said: we could find a way to allow 
them to borrow from the credit union, or in certain special cases, waive 
the increase.  There were many unanswered questions, and I thought it was 
too risky.

So that year, Frank supported candidates, and put out a flyer stating that 
the group he supported were independent thinkers, and hinted that I would 
be controlled by the existing President and others who  lacked innovative 
ideas.  He fought publicly with Amalgamated attorneys and the President at 
public meetings, and the capital assessment was defeated by referendum. 
Since this defeat, though, a capital assessment similar to the one he 
proposed was passed three times, and one was specifically earmarked for 
capital improvements to our buildings.  In time, I became much less 
favorable to endorsing a rent increase just because people in leadership 
said we needed the money to raise capital and on two occasions, favored 
capital assessment as an alternative.

A few weeks after our public disagreements, I met with Frank at Montefiore 
Hospital.  Coincidentally, my father and the Amalgamated President, the 
latter of whom had been in a serious accident in the interim, were both 
there at the same time, and Frank came to visit both of them.  I learned 
during one of his visits that Frank had once been a rabbinical student, 
and had descended from a line of rabbis before he started on a different 
lifeward path.  I also learned a bit more about his involvement in the 
Painters Union  which involved fighting mass corruption, at the threat of 
his own life and members of his family, to make things right for fellow 
painters.  This followed his own career as a painter, and ultimately, a 
tinkerer, who was always trying to fix things and get the very most out of 
anything he ever possessed.

There were so many local battles with Frank since  usually on the same 
side, but often  well, not quite.  I have a poignant memory of Frank 
questioning several Board members about a rent increase, speaking on the 
issue, and then, finally  enough, Frank came the voice from the 
microphone.  Frank kept on, and then the voice came again: Frank, sit down 
and shut up.  That didn't stop him either  he never sat down until he 
finished his point.  And while this was going on, I sat with Dave Warren  
who, by now had become the other outcaste on the Board with me.  I looked 
at him and he looked at me, and then Dave announced: Frank Schonfeld is no 
one to tell to shut up.  When Frank finally finished, Dave said: Tough 
guy.  Hes a tough guy.  By now, Frank was already in his late 70s.  No one 
thought to step in and help Frank to say he should have been accorded 
respect  as he should have  but rather, we knew he could fight his own 
battles.

Of course, many people remember some of the long fights over the 
filtration plant  with Frank not always taking very popular decisions.  At 
the beginning of the fight, he joined the community opposing the 
filtration plant going into Jerome Park Reservoir.  Later, he developed 
the theme that if there were to be a filtration plant, it should go into 
Van Cortlandt Park.  He and I discussed his position often, and he wanted 
me to take the same position.  I often told Frank that there is no need 
for a filtration plant at all; that even if there is, it should go in 
Westchester County for various practical purposes.  When the filtration 
plant was proposed for Van Cortlandt Park, Frank then opposed the siting  
arguing that it should go into a more remote corner of Van Cortlandt Park 
instead.  He again attempted to enlist public support  and I heard from 
his successor at the Painters Union, at a wedding in St. Thomas thousands 
of miles from our community, that Frank was driving me crazy about 
prevailing upon the Central Labor Council on that it was unacceptable to 
make a major part of the park completely inaccessible to residents of our 
community for years to come. 

We joined forces again to pass amendments to the Amalgamated by-laws for 
term limits for officers and directors of the co-op.  While campaigning 
for term limits, Frank enforced the notion that new people should always 
be encouraged to hold offices after learning from those that preceded 
them.  In doing so, he said wonderful things about Amalgamated Officers of 
the past, such as Abraham Kazan, who while believing they held power for 
too long, taught this community important things about sharing and being 
good cooperators that were not necessarily in sync with regulations that 
developed over the years since in this cooperative.  Among these was the 
issue of subletting  an issue which was not inapposite to Mr. Kazan's words 
and actions over the years, as long as it was in keeping with the spirit 
of cooperation.

Even after term limits passed, Frank kept coming to meetings of our group 
over the course of several years.  Now, while in mid to late stages 
dementia, Frank kept on expressing the view that if we don't do something 
soon, we were going to destroy the planet through global warming and 
environmental pollution.  People often looked at each other with 
bewilderment, while Frank was speaking, often wondering what this had to 
do with the co-op, and why we would let him speak.  Though I sometimes 
asked Frank to wrap it up (as he had been asked many times over the 
years), I told people that Frank must be given an opportunity to express 
his views.  There were two reasons for this:

(1)    That this was Frank speaking, and that he must be accorded a level 
of respect as one of the elder statesman of our community;

(2)    That what he was saying was clearly true, regardless of the venue, 
and that working to save our planet must come from every level, including 
our own community.

Of course, everyone is confronted with mortality, and the loss of Frank 
Schonfeld in recent years increasingly appeared inevitable.  But today, 
with Frank gone, I cant help but believe that there is a little less love 
in this world; a little less fight for the people that are important to 
us; a little less civility in our discourse then we might want.  On this 
last point, no one enforced the idea that once a fight was over, you go on 
to the next one without any ill feelings toward your adversary better than 
Frank did.  This type of civility has been lost upon us  in this community 
for sure, and this country in general  for many years.  We should remember 
Franks lessons well, and take heed of the need to respect our adversaries, 
our neighborhoods and our friends through cooperative spirit in the same 
way he did.
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