Obituary
Gloria Sukenick, 94, housing / political activist
BY GABE HERMAN
Gloria Sukenick, a Chelsea resident
for nearly 50 years and
a prominent community and
housing activist, died on May 26 in her
Penn South apartment. She was 94.
Sukenick, a Brooklyn native, fi rst
lived in Chelsea on W. 16th St., before
moving to Penn South in 1991.
She was a veteran member of the
Chelsea Reform Democratic Club,
with which she advocated for affordable
housing policies and on behalf of
tenants, according to Randy Petsche, a
longtime friend and fellow activist.
She had also been an active volunteer
in the Metropolitan Council on Housing
since the late 1980s.
Sukenick’s work as a champion of
housing rights earned her a Clara Lemlich
Award in 2015 from the group
LaborArts.
When this paper covered that awards
ceremony, Sukenick recalled that her
entry into housing activism began in
the early 1980s when Barneys wanted
to expand with a women’s store at W.
17th St. and Seventh Ave.
“However, there were families that
had been living there for years —
they were all rent-stabilized or rentcontrolled,”
Sukenick recalled. “They
were all very affordable rents and Barneys
was intent on getting them out of
there.”
She helped in the efforts to fi ght
back, along with the Chelsea Coalition
on Housing and its late founder, noted
activist Jane Wood. One-minute street
theater was performed in the middle of
Seventh Ave., and special performance
art was done for the store’s opening
night.
“We had decided that we were going
to have this fashion show, so we rented
a limousine and we all dressed up in
wacky costumes,” Sukenick recalled in
2015.
She wore an outfi t with dollar bills
attached all over it, and the words “Barneys
Bill of Rights” on it.
Although Barneys ended up moving
into the space, the tenants were able to
move to other apartments in Chelsea
with the same rents and protections
they had before.
Sukenick fought in a campaign to
prevent evictions at the Leo House, a
church-run building on W. 23rd St.
for single women. She also helped to
organize the fi rst conference of Older
Women’s Liberation, and was involved
with New York Radical Feminists, the
feminist group Redstockings, and the
National Organization for Women.
Gloria Sukenick was born in Brooklyn
in 1925. She studied painting at the
Yale School of Fine Arts, and was an
FILE PHOTO COURTESY GLORIA SUKENICK
Gloria Sukenick takes her “Barney’s
Bill of Rights” dress for a
test run, before joining others in
protest.
artist throughout her life. She painted
and was active in the Penn South Pottery
Studio, and was also a big jazz fan,
according to Petsche.
She worked several jobs in her 20s,
including waitress, model, dance teacher
and switchboard operator at the Museum
of Modern Art. She eventually
settled into a job as a copywriter at Alexander’s
department store.
“I kind of ambled my way through till
I got to my activist years,” she told this
paper in 2015. “I retired as soon as I
possibly could at 62.”
Sukenick came to activism later
in life, starting around the time she
reached 40, she told LaborArts. She
was introduced to second-wave feminism
and consciousness-raising after an
invitation to a meeting while she was
living on E. 10 St. in the East Village.
She told LaborArts of her late arrival
to activism, “Rather than my life skinnying
down, it seemed to have opened
up and included more and more of the
world. And I have to say, it’s been a
good grown-up life.”
Sukenick lamented in that 2015 interview
that Chelsea had lost much of
Gloria Sukenick after a 2015 ceremony, with the flower that accompanied
her Clara Lemlich Award.
Sukenick (in dollar dress) and cohorts picketing Barneys in the early
1980s.
its community spirit, mentioning how
small stores were closing or moving
away.
“It was such a feeling of support
from people that lived in communities,
which we don’t have now,” she refl ected.
“And now as we look around, we see
our neighborhood being turned into a
neighborhood for the wealthy. It’s just
kind of very sad.”
She added of her activism, “If you get
involved in something that really affects
the world, and does something that
makes life easier or better for somebody
else, it’s like a great big bouquet of wonderfulness.”
Sukenick’s late brother Ronald was a
PHOTO BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC
FILE PHOTO COURTESY GLORIA SUKENICK
writer, editor of literary fi ction and university
professor. She is survived by her
cousin Marianne Rosenfeld, and sisterin
law Julia Nolet, along with several
nephews, nieces and cousins.
A memorial for Gloria Sukenick will
be held Tues., June 25, at 367 W. 28th
St., between Eighth and Ninth Aves.,
starting at 6:30 p.m. It’s being organized
by LEAPS, or Limited Equity and
Affordability at Penn South.
Speakers will include family, friends,
activists and local politicians, according
to an announcement for the memorial.
There will also be an open microphone
for others who wish to speak about
Sukenick.
6 June 20, 2019 CNW Schneps Media