Walter Sigmund Helly

1930 - 2020
WALTER SIGMUND HELLY died June 6, 2020 at the age of 89. He had suffered from Alzheimer's for several years. Born August 22, 1930, he was the son of Eduard Helly, a mathematician whose name is connected with three theorems in geometry, and Elise Bloch, the second woman to receive a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Vienna. Walter escaped Austria after its takeover by the Nazis and emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1938. Walter graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in New York and Cornell University. He earned a Master's degree in Physics at the University of Illinois and a PhD from MIT in 1959, specializing in Operations Research. After working in New York City at the Bell Laboratories, the Port Authority, and the Bell Telephone Company, in 1966 he was invited to become a professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York, now merged with New York University as its engineering school. In 1975, he published Urban Systems Models, subsequently translated into Japanese. Walter enjoyed classical music, from opera to chamber works and liked using his hands to construct models of cars and buildings, install book cases, and make household repairs, turning his study closet into a workshop. He liked board games, from chess to scrabble, and developed a large mystery book collection as well as a notable collection of cameras dating back to 1890. He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Dorothy O. Helly, an historian and biographer living in Manhattan, and his daughter Miranda, an MSW now living in Oakland, California, where she is a docent with the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. An on-line memorial is planned for later in the fall.