HERBERT MORAWETZ

MORAWETZ--Herbert,

102, died peacefully at his longtime home in Greenwich Village on October 29, 2017. A man of boundless curiosity and broad intellectual interests, he spent his professional career as an influential professor of polymer chemistry. As he would say, he was born in 1915 under the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph. He fled Czechoslovakia in 1939 and settled with his family in Toronto. He studied chemical engineering at the University of Toronto and earned his PhD in chemistry at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now the Tandon School of Engineering at NYU), where he spent his professional life. Following retirement, he served as an editor for Macromolecules, published a history of polymer chemistry and his memoirs, and did volunteer translations from Czech and German for the Leo Baeck Institute. He had wide-ranging interests in history, art, literature, philosophy, science, and current events. He was an accomplished watercolor painter and continued to paint until he was 97 years old at his beloved Belle Isle and wherever he traveled. He was deeply devoted to his wife of 72 years, Cathleen Synge Morawetz, who passed away in August, and delighted in his growing family. He served as a true patriarch, bringing extended family together and building strong bonds across generations and continents. He is survived by his sister, Sonja Sinclair, his children, Pegeen Rubinstein (David), John Morawetz, Lida Jeck (James), Nancy Morawetz (Manuel Vargas), his grandchildren, Eric (Lauren) and Matthew Rubinstein, William (Abigail) and Daniel (Tiffany) Jeck, Alicia and Marisa Vargas-Morawetz, his step- grandchildren, Jeremy and Chris (Stephanie) Lacinak, Aupala and Keenan Huq, his great-grandchildren, Xavier Rubinstein, Linus and Peter Jeck, and his adoring relatives around the world. A service will be held on Thursday, November 2nd at 2:00pm at Judson Memorial Church at 55 Washington Square South. Contributions in his memory can be made to the Herbert Morawetz Lecture Series at the Tandon School of Engineering at NYU.