1921-2009

King of the DIY HOW-TO writers — Gladstone was a prolific writer, photographer and ideaman for Popular Science and later was the home-workshop columnist for The New York Times for over 30 years. [more]

Was also a boater and a WWII veteran who had enlisted in the Army in 1942, finally discharged after sustaining injuries in the war.

Retired to Bradenton Florida. Died Jan 29, 2009 in University Park Florida. At the time of his death, he was survived by daughter Robin, his second wife Sandra Zalbowitz, four stepchildren. He was also a grandfather.A funeral service was held on Monday Feb 2 2009 at 11 a.m. at Toale Brothers Funeral Home. [NYTimes obit] [Paid notice from Ruth] [Guestbook (behind paywall)]

Career

Wrote for Popular Science as a teen and soon worked up to editor — commuted to Manhattan from his Long Island home — lived there in late 40s with his wife and children and had one of the first bamboo-laden postwar basement tiki bars, with Kentile flooring (including shuffleboard court) plus other side for laundry, clothing storage closet (painted with cedar paint to deter moths and with an indicator light on outside to show if light was left on), and a photographic darkroom.

Also wrote for Mechanix Illustrated.

Later went on to be a popular and syndicated columnist for The New York Times and retired in 1991, but continued to work freelance from home and file stories for several years until retiring to Florida.

Gladstone was the author (or editor) of many DIY books such as The Complete Home Guide to Furniture Finishing and Refinishing and The New Boatkeeper: Motorboating & Sailing’s Authoritative Guide to Maintenance, Repair and Improvement.

Articles etc

Wrote hundreds and hundreds of short articles on home handyman projects as well as collections of hints and tips. Many of his Popular Science articles were collected and repackaged into paperback books for the handyman and do-it-yourselfer.

• How to Install a Live Well
• The Right Way To Choose And Use Solvents
• Plaster ‘bridge’ repairs wall cracks
• Insulate attic door to prevent cool drafts
• Smoke and Fire Alarms (scroll down midway)
• Pros and Cons on Reel and Rotary Lawn Mowers

For further reference

The best sites and books for learning and discovering “unknown” New York:

Forgotten NY: relics of the past, still there in NYC

New York Songlines: Virtual Walking Tours of Manhattan Streets

The Beat Generation In New York: A Walking Tour of Jack Kerouac’s City by Bill Morgan (City Lights 2001)

Produced a great and general follow-up, Literary Landmarks of New York: The Book Lover’s Guide to the Homes and Haunts of World Famous Writers by Bill Morgan (Universe 2003)

Don’t miss the set of fabulous high-dynamic range photographs of New York City at NYC in HDR.

The Gangs of New York

sequel

For further reference

an annotated walk down the bowery in lower manhattan (long)

Top Three Tearjerkers of Cinema

All of these are absolute classics! No spoilers.

(And all movies in this list have a culminating effect, the real sadness and heartbreak coming out in the final moments of the film)

1. Love Affair (1939)

   Stars Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer. Written by Mildred Cram and Leo McCarey, who was also the director. “The magic of a shipboard romance charms a Frenchman and American woman.” And another great reason to love the Empire State Building.

   (You can get it super-cheap now as a dual-feature DVD paired up with A Star Is Born)

2. The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (1968)

   Stars Alan Arkin and Sondra Locke.

   Based on the classic novel by Carson McCullers, which she wrote at the age of twenty-three. It was reprinted a few years ago in Oprah’s book club.

3. An Affair to Remember (1957)

   A remake of Love Affair starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, and the Empire State Building 18 years later.

Tearjerker Shopping List

Want the ultimate Sad Movie Night? All are on DVD (and printed books).

Home of newspaper magnate Herbert Bayard Swope, inventor of the “op-ed”

Real-life counterpart to Jay Gatsby’s mansion &/or the Buchanan’s home (Fitzgerald did not write about a particular home but based his fictions on the ones that he knew), built 1902 by architect Stanford White (2002 NY Times article claims this is more legend than fact: “A Whisper Of White, A Hint Of Daisy”; even so, it’s the only one left and was definitely a home Fitzgerald visited)

Remembered only by a sole preservationist in the May 9, 2008 Port Washington News [letter] [more]

Demolished June 2008

Articles and information

opinion piece

Photographs: Historic Photos of Long Island by Joe Czachowski (Turner 2008)

See also Glitter That Was Once Gold: Long Island Gold Coast Trivia by Kevin Durst (Trafford 2006)

“Inventing the American game” by Bob Alman is a contempoary (2005) illustrated profile of Herbert Bayard Swope, Jr.

Related: Sara and Gerald Murphy’s estate in the Hamptons [NY mag feature]

For further reading

Educator, Author, Literary Critic

1914-2008

[CV]

Books and publications

• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (Easton Press 1980), hardcover. (Introduction by Leo Gurko)
• Joseph Conrad, Giant in Exile (New York: Macmillan 1979)
• Thomas Wolfe: Beyond the Romantic Ego (New York: Crowell 1975)
• Three Tales of the Sea by Joseph Conrad (Heritage Press 1972) (incl. Youth - Typhoon -The End Of The Tether) (Introduction by Leo Gurko)
• Ernest Hemingway and the Pursuit of Heroism (New York: Crowell 1968)
• Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Crowell 1968) (Introductin by Leo Gurko, illus. by Lars Bo)
• The Two Lives of Joseph Conrad (New York: Crowell 1965)
• Tom Paine, Freedom’s Apostle (New York: Crowell June 1957) (Winner of Newberry Award)
• Heroes, Highbrows and the Popular Mind (1953)
• The Angry Decade (New York: Harper & Row 1947)

  Where the Marxists drew their inspiration from the socialist thinkers of the nineteenth century, the Agrarians went back to Plato and his philosopher-kings vigorously trained to rule the state, to Carlyle and superman formulators of modern times, to Chesterton and Belloc and their strong religious orthodoxy.

  The Columbia World of Quotations

Additional facts and anecdotes

Literary debates on television

While a professor at Hunter College, Gurko discussed books on television for the “Author Meets the Critics” program. On the night of July 15, 1951, Gurko appeared opposite
famed newspaper magnate Herbert Bayard Swope, Jr. (whose Long Island mansion was the fictitious home of Jay Gatsby). The subject that evening was not a book but rather the Lights Out television program, which Swope spoke for and Gurko against. [reference]

Miriam Gurko

Leo Gurko’s wife, Miriam Gurko (d. 1988), was an independent scholar, researcher and author.

In 1989, Leo donated Inventory of the Miriam Gurko - Floyd Dell Papers, 1958-1968 to The Newberry Library (Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections) in Chicago, IL. The papers are a collection of correspondence on the subject of Edna St. Vincent Millay and a draft of Miriam Gurko’s book, The Letters of Floyd Dell About Edna St. Vincent Millay.