Jack Rudin

Jack Rudin, the patriarch of a family that has been developing New York real estate for five generations and the benefactor of the city’s first five-borough marathon, died on Sunday December 4 2016 at his home in Manhattan. He was 92. The cause was pneumonia, his son, Eric, said. Jack and his younger brother, Lewis, who died in 2001, were in the vanguard of the partnership of government, business groups and organized labor that helped spare the city from bankruptcy in the mid-1970s and figured prominently in its revival. Jacob Rudin (he was always known as Jack and legally changed his name as an adult) was born on June 28, 1924, in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx. His mother, the former May Cohen, became a philanthropist. His father was the son of a grocer, Louis Rudinksy, a Jewish immigrant from Poland who was the first in the family to own property in Manhattan. The Rudins moved from the Bronx to Manhattan. Jack graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School and briefly attended City College before enlisting in the Army in 1942. After serving in Europe in the 89th Infantry Division and being awarded the Bronze Star, he was discharged as a staff sergeant, returned home in 1946 and joined the family real estate business. His wife, the former Roberta Chait, died in 1983. In addition to their son Eric, he is survived by his wife, the former Susan Salesky; two daughters, Madeleine Rudin Johnson and Katherine Rudin; two stepdaughters, Inda Schaenen and Eve Schaenen; three grandsons; and five stepgrandchildren.