NICK BEILENSON Obituary

Name: Funeral service for NICK BEILENSON
Start: 2022-02-24T10:00:00.000Z
End: 2022-02-24T11:00:00.000Z
Location: Congregation Emanu-El of Westchester

BEILENSON--Nick, Civil Rights activist, book publisher, and lifetime resident of Westchester, died Tuesday, February 22. The cause was complications from COVID. Born and raised in Mount Vernon, Nick attended AB Davis High School and Andover Academy, before earning a BA and a JD from Harvard University. He married Evelyn Loeb of New York City in 1959. Together they raised three children in Yonkers, New Rochelle, and White Plains. Nick began his career as a corporate lawyer in New York City. Inspired by the television images of the Civil Rights movement in the South, he set aside his legal practice in 1968 and founded Westchester Residential Opportunities (WRO), a nonprofit initially focused on pressuring enforcement of the federal Fair Housing Act and integrating Westchester County neighborhoods. More than 50 years later, WRO continues to promote equal, affordable, and accessible housing opportunities for all residents in our area. In the early 1970s, Nick stepped away from WRO (though he served as Chair of the Board for most of his life) and formed Hecker, Sheer and Beilenson, a law firm in White Plains. In 1978, he won the Democratic primary in the race for the Mayor of White Plains, losing in the general election. In 1981 he took over the family publishing business, Peter Pauper Press, founded by his parents Peter and Edna Beilenson in Fleetwood in 1929. Partnering with Evelyn and ultimately his son, Laurence, he helped transform the struggling small book publishing company into a thriving enterprise. In retirement, he founded the Center for Public Interest Careers at Harvard College (CPIC), which creates internship and job opportunities for Harvard students in nonprofit organizations around the country. For his lifetime commitment to the public good, Nick received the White Plains Human Rights Commission Award in 2014 and the "Outstanding Supporter of Public Service" award from Harvard in 2015. A competitive racket athlete throughout his life, Nick was the 70+ US National Hardball Squash champion in 2008. He was also an avid birder and hiker, summiting all 48 4,000- footers in New Hampshire's White Mountains during his lifetime. With Evelyn, he traveled extensively to six continents and to most of the islands of the Caribbean. Nick is survived by his children, John (Wanda), Laurence (Esther), and Suzanne (Robert), and his grandchildren, Sarah, Hannah, Jacob, Jane, Tom, and Carly. He was recently predeceased in October of last year by Evelyn, after 62 years of marriage.

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Published by New York Times on Feb. 26, 2022.

Memories and Condolences
for NICK BEILENSON

4 Entries

Jill and Ken Iscol

February 26, 2022

To the Family:
So very sad to hear that both Nick and Evie are no longer with us. We had not seen them in many years but I look back fondly on our friendship and his legal representation of ours in our formative business years. And Evie was our office design consultant. We were close personal friends when John, Larry and Susie were teenagers. I am very sorry that we lost touch. They were a wonderful couple and I can´t even imagine how Nick bore life without her. If there is a memorial service in the future, please let us know.

Travis Lovett

February 24, 2022

Travis Lovett

February 24, 2022

Travis Lovett

February 24, 2022

The world lost two social justice champions this week, one who was renowned for his steadfast and determined commitment to global health and one who was steadfast and determined to create pathways for Harvard´s best and brightest to pursue public service. I´m not sure if Paul Farmer and Nick Beilenson ever met, but they shared a determination to confront injustice anywhere and everywhere they encountered it. Their common bond was tikkun olam: a mission to mend the wounds and repair the wrongs they saw in the world.

Sometimes we only know the stories of unsung heroes after they leave us. Their kindness and heroism take on many forms. For anyone who knew Nick, he wasn´t really quiet and he wasn´t always patient, but he embodied our mission and call to service. He had a vision in the twilight of his life to create a starting point for Harvard students to pursue public interest careers - his work enabled over 1,800 Harvard College students to pursue public service internships and jobs in the fields of education, legal services, public health, social services, advocacy, and social innovation. He worked to develop hundreds of relationships with community partners, students, staff, and alumni. His work as a mentor forged bonds across generations. For several years, he was the only full-time staff person for the Center for Public Interest Careers even though he never took a paycheck. He juggled that work alongside being a tireless advocate for civil rights. He believed housing was a human right and led a nonprofit for several decades that fulfilled that mission.

Nick and I met two or three times each week for over a decade. For me, those conversations started as formative lessons about building relationships, persistence and perseverance, a life-long commitment to learning, and building a public service program on the foundation of the most important capital anyone has: keeping their word. He pursued a relentless quest to honor justice and truth, to keep this institution accountable to its mission, no matter how insurmountable the obstacles might feel. Over time, our conversations became more about family and friendship, books, sports, arts, and escapes - all the things that made his life exhilarating and complete. I got the chance to know his wife of 62 years, Evie, and how proud they were of their children and grandchildren. When I had children of my own, Nick and Evie sent us Peter Pauper Press care packages filled with children´s books, adventure books, and notable quotes.

We had the chance to honor Nick in 2015, when he earned Harvard´s Outstanding Supporter of Public Service award and that meant as much to our team as it meant to him - we created this award to honor alums who dedicated their lives to public service. We have only given out this award a few times as a way of honoring those whose work has transformed the Harvard community. It´s fitting in a lot of ways that Nick was the last recipient of this award: he had a great sense of humor and would joke that he broke the mold for how to live a purposeful life.

Nick was caring and charismatic. He lived a life full of adventure, hitchhiking across the North America three times, hiking every 4,000 foot peak in the White Mountains, exploring six continents with a resolute commitment to discover all that he could. He won the men´s national squash championship in his age group in 2008. In his late 70´s, he hopped the late-night train between White Plains and Manhattan to take weekly Spanish classes at NYU. Nick was a Renaissance man who defied his time. I was convinced that if anyone could live forever, it was him. He was a man in the arena who built the arena: Nick´s work at Harvard and Phillips Brooks House was the precursor to a nationwide public service internship program, the establishment of our engaged scholarship program, summer and year-round mentoring programs, nonprofit board recruitment, and programming to sustain a lifetime of service.

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