In Memoriam: The Campus Remembers Those We Lost
The following article was featured in the May 2020 edition of The Campus.
By Aspasia Celia Tsampas
One of the hardest parts about all the changes and hazards brought on due to the Coronavirus pandemic is the inability to properly honor the lives lost during this time, either from the virus or otherwise. The Campus would like to take this time, with a heavy heart, to honor the lives of those lost recently in the City College community. For now, until a proper memorial is possible, we want to celebrate the lives of three very influential lives lost, Professor Michael Sorkin, Professor William Helmreich, and Professor David Nocera. Our sincere condolences go out to their family and friends, and the many other people whose lives these great minds touched.
Distinguished Professor and Director Emeritus of the Graduate Urban Design, Michael Sorkin, one of architecture’s most outspoken public intellectuals and renowned member of the CCNY’s Spitzer School of Architecture, succumbed to the Coronavirus on Thursday, March 26th in Manhattan at 71 years old. Sorkin was a public advocate for social justice and he inspired many in his lectures, designs, and essays. While he will be deeply missed by the entire CCNY community, his impact will be eternal with his contributions to urban design and books such as Twenty Minutes in Manhattan (2009), Exquiste Corpse (1991), All Over the Map (2011), Some Assembly Required (2001), What Goes Up (2018), Starting From Zero (2003) and many more.
Professor William Helmreich, distinguished professor and foundational member of the CCNY sociology department passed away on Saturday, March 28th from complications of the Coronavirus. Helmreich will be best remembered for his series of books in which he walked every street in New York in New York Nobody Knows (2013) and the subsequent books for each borough. An account of his efforts to walk the entire city and document what he saw and heard is a sociological masterpiece. A scholar of Judaism and the son of Holocaust survivor parents, his book Against All Odds: Holocaust Survivors and the Successful Lives They Made in America (1992), highlighted the resilience and achievements of survivors.
Professor in the Media and Communication Arts department at City College, Augustine David Nocera, age 63, passed away after a sudden illness at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City on Thursday, March 26, 2020. In a statement released to CCNY, President Vincent Boudreau relayed that he had not contracted the Coronavirus. David was a man of many talents and a reserve of knowledge. In addition to being an educator, David was a proud archivist, who most recently dedicated his time to the George Lois David Archives at City College, where he touched the lives of many students and served as a great mentor to them all. David was the kind of mentor who was willing to help a student in any way he could, always ready to write a recommendation or offer an opportunity. His life experiences and knowledge of the world were an open book to his students. David is survived by his longtime partner, Ellen Handy, an Art History professor at City College.
