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For Vonda Miller

For Vonda Miller

By
Star Staff

Services for Vonda Kay Miller, 56, who died at home in East Hampton on Monday, will be held tomorrow at noon at the Amagansett Presbyterian Church, and the family has invited all who wish to join them afterward to a celebration of her life, at a location to be announced. Burial will be at Green River Cemetery.

A full obituary will appear in a future issue.

Gary Reiswig, Writer, Innkeeper, Was 76

Gary Reiswig, Writer, Innkeeper, Was 76

Dec. 12, 1939 - Aug. 20, 2016
By
T.E. McMorrow

Gary Dwayne Reiswig, the longtime owner and restorer of two of East Hampton’s historical inns, died in his New York City apartment on Aug. 20 with his family at his side. He was 76, and had been diagnosed with prostate cancer three and a half years ago.

Born in Booker, Tex., on Dec. 12, 1939, to John Fred Reiswig and the former Bella Gregory, he grew up on a farm in Beaver, Okla., on the Oklahoma panhandle.

“Grandmother helped my mother give birth,” Mr. Reiswig told an audience at the Parrish Art Museum in 2014, as part of a series the Parrish runs for authors and artists. The Dust Bowl years were ending as he was growing up, but life in Oklahoma, where the family farmed cattle and grain, was still not easy, he recalled. As a child, he would play in his own pretend farm, using old license plates as barns and shiny stones as cows and horses.

His mother, who had been taken out of school in the eighth grade, wanted more for her three children. “She took us to piano and voice lessons,” Mr. Reiswig, who was a strong baritone, told the Parrish audience. She also took them to the library.

Gary Reiswig was bright, and a good athlete, playing baseball and football. Colleges offered him athletic scholarships, but it was the church, central to the family’s farm life, that called to him. Members of his Christian faith saw his potential as a minister. Not only did the church offer a road out of the panhandle, “It chose him,” his wife, Rita Reiswig, said.

 He was ordained, and, with his first wife, Patsy McDaniel, moved farther east with every new assignment. They had three children before divorcing in 1970.

Mr. Reiswig’s last ministerial assignment took him to Pittsburgh, where, his wife said, he began losing faith in his calling. “Religion couldn’t really answer all the problems that people had in their lives,” she said. “They needed other types of help, other than God. He gradually left the church.” He returned to school, obtaining a Ph.D. in education from the University of Pittsburgh.

Using the same strengths that made him a good preacher, he turned next to community activism. The needs of the poor and working class for day care and housing became central to his life.

Pittsburgh, like other American cities in the ’70s, was crumbling. In its dilapidated old buildings, Mr. Reiswig saw not despair, but hope. He believed in reclaiming and restoring them, and went to work for the city’s Planning Department to make the dream a reality. “I rededicated myself to preservation, saving old houses instead of souls,” he told his Parrish audience.

On one community project, a parent education program, he met the former Rita Mallet. They worked on it together using their respective strengths, his in education and outreach, hers in psychotherapy, and married on July 20, 1973.

A few years later, the couple stayed at a country inn run by a husband and wife, and thought it seemed an attractive way of life. They took out a want ad in Historic Preservation, a national real estate publication, seeking an old inn in a seaside town on the East Coast to buy and run.

They received over 100 responses. The owners of three East Hampton hostelries — the Hedges Inn, the Huntting Inn, and the Maidstone Arms — were among them. The last had been closed for a few years.

“We actually looked at about eight or nine places, up and down the East Coast,” Ms. Reiswig said. “We rented an R.V. and took our then infant child with us.” They chose the Maidstone. With no experience running an inn, they had a steep learning curve, which they embraced.

Morris Weintraub came on board as chef, leaving the Maidstone Club, and ran the restaurant for 12 years while the Reiswigs ran the inn and the bar. Mr. Reiswig’s passion for restoration was a major factor in the Maidstone’s renaissance; he later became a member of the East Hampton Village Design Review Board.

He had had two siblings, David Reiswig and Jane Reiswig De Burgh, both of whom he lost to early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, which had claimed his father as well. His father’s family, it seems, had a genetic disposition to the disease. “Of my father’s generation, 10 of 14 siblings died in their 50s, including my dad,” he said at the Parrish. His wife said he thought that, should Alzheimer’s strike him as well, he could at least do things around the property, such as rake the leaves and tend to the grounds.

In 1986, according to a 2012 article by Gina Kolata in The New York Times, he received a call from an aunt, Ester May, who had lost her husband, his uncle, to the disease. She was participating in an Alzheimer’s study, she told him, and blood donations were needed from members of large families that were known carriers. Mr. Reiswig agreed to donate blood.

Nine years later, scientists isolated the gene that leads to early Alzheimer’s. It turned out that its passing from one generation to another was a hit-or-miss proposition. Gary Reiswig was not a carrier, meaning that his children were not either.

After that, he dedicated much of his time to the fight against the disease, working with the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network and writing a book, “The Thousand Mile Stare.”

The Reiswigs sold the Maidstone in 1992. Four years later they embarked on another project, the J. Harper Poor Cottage, nearby on East Hampton’s Main Street. They restored that inn, now known as the Baker House 1650, with the same enthusiasm they had put into the Maidstone. They sold it in 2004.

During those years Mr. Reiswig’s writing career took off. His novel “Water Boy,” published in 1994 by Simon and Schuster, was semiautobiographical, set in the panhandle. Reviewing it in this newspaper, James McCourt called the book a “powerful and dramatic first novel, notable for long stretches of really solid evocation, dramatization, and even reach.”

Mr. Reiswig also wrote screenplays, began reviewing books for The Star, and recently published a collection of short stories, “Land Rush: Stories From the Great Plains.” He was working on a revision of “The Thousand Mile Stare” at his death, and on another piece of non-fiction, a look at the changes in East Hampton since he had arrived. Rita Reiswig said both manuscripts will be completed posthumously.

Four children survive in addition to his wife. They are Gregg and Jeff Reiswig and Lora Reiswig Brown, by his first wife, and Jesse Reiswig. He also leaves two grandsons and two great-grandsons.

The family has suggested donations in Mr. Reiswig’s memory to the DIAN Project, c/o Dr. Randall Bateman, Campus Box 1082, Washington University, 7425 Forsyth Boulevard, St. Louis, Mo. 63105.

Craig Tuthill, Former Fire Chief

Craig Tuthill, Former Fire Chief

Jan. 20, 1936 - Aug. 19, 2016
By
Star Staff

Whether it was driving the Montauk ambulance, opening clams at a Montauk party, hauling ice and water for the triathlons, or helping a friend move, Craig S. Tuthill was willing to lend a hand.

A well-known, well-liked Montauker who was involved in almost every facet of that community, Mr. Tuthill died on Aug. 19 at North Shore University Hospital in Manhassett surrounded by his daughters and granddaughter. He was 80 years old and had been fighting heart disease for the last several years.

A 63-year member of the Montauk Fire Department, Mr. Tuthill was devoted to the fire service and remained active even in his later years. He fought some of Montauk’s biggest fires, like the one that destroyed a building known as the Fishangrila on Fort Pond Bay that had been deserted by the Navy. “It was the biggest fire of my life and was on one of the coldest nights. We fought it the whole night and most of the day,” he told The Star in an interview in 2010.

He joined the department in 1954, reaching the rank of chief in 1979. He assisted in nearly every aspect of the fire service, including the emergency medical service. When the ambulance squad was started in the 1950s, there was no such thing as an emergency medical technician, but Mr. Tuthill received first aid training and continued to serve as a driver for many years. He was said to have received many honors for his continued service to the department. When the Montauk Fire Department celebrated its 75th anniversary with a parade in 2014, Mr. Tuthill served as its grand marshal.

Mr. Tuthill was born at Southampton Hospital on Jan. 20, 1936, to Ellis Tuthill and the former Frances Scott. His parents owned the Montauk Lumber Yard, as well as Tuthill’s Home Modernizing Center, where he worked while growing up. He graduated from the Montauk School and from East Hampton High School. He then attended Paul Smith College in upstate New York, where he studied forestry.

He held several jobs throughout his life. He was a projectionist at the Montauk Movie Theater in the 1950s and ’60s and a ranch hand for Deep Hollow Ranch in Montauk. As a construction worker, he helped build most of the Panoramic Motel between 1972 and 1986. Later, he was a maintenance man there. He also worked as a corrections officer in the Suffolk County jail, a position then known as a jail guard, but left, he said, because the pay was so low. He was the custodian for the fire district for 23 years, and also owned Tuthill Home Security.

He married Joyce L. Michalek, and the couple raised six children on Elwell Road in Montauk. When the marriage ended in divorce, he eventually moved back to his family home on South Fairview Avenue in Montauk, which his parents had purchased in 1957.

His family said he loved to cook for them on special occasions, making his famous meatloaf, scrambled eggs and chipped beef, and waffles. He often uttered the phrase “Don’t worry about it” or greeted people with a “Hey, babe.”

A dedicated freshwater fisherman, he enjoyed taking his boat out on Fort Pond and Hidden Lake and also enjoyed fishing in Florida. He told The Star he never kept his catch. “I just never really enjoyed freshwater fish,” he said.

Interested in local history, he was involved in the Montauk Historical Society, of which his father had been a founding member. He helped organize the 50th-anniversary party for the survivors of the 1938 Hurricane at the Montauk Manor in 1988, his family said. He was also a member of the Montauk Community Church.

He celebrated his 80th birthday with a party attended by close friends, but there were many other momentous occasions, like his 50th reunion with the East Hampton High School class of 1955. In 2010, the Montauk Friends of Erin selected him to be the grand marshal of the 48th annual St. Patrick’s Day parade and he told The Star at the time that he had marched in it every year since the Montauk Friends of Erin began hosting it. 

Mr. Tuthill’s parents died before him, as did his brother, Bradley Tuthill, his sister, Peggy Barry, and his son Douglas Tuthill.

He is survived by his daughters Lorraine D. Shott and Carolyn A. Cox and son Edward S. Tuthill, all of Citrus Springs, Fla., his daughter Jacquelin T. Tuthill of Clearwater, Fla., and by his son Stephen C. Tuthill of East Hampton. He loved to spend time with his nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren, who also survive.

Mr. Tuthill was cremated. A memorial service is scheduled for Oct. 22 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Montauk Firehouse.

Memorial donations can be made to the Montauk Fire Department, 12 Flamingo Avenue, Montauk 11954, or the Montauk Historical Society, P.O. Box 868, Montauk.

“Craig loved helping others and never looked for anything in return,” his family wrote. “Let’s keep his memory alive by paying it forward, by performing random acts of kindness or lending a helping hand when needed.” 

Francesco Bologna, Artist, Was 89

Francesco Bologna, Artist, Was 89

Jan. 26, 1927 - Aug.16, 2016
By
Joanne Pilgrim

Francesco Bologna, a respected artist, frame shop owner, mentor to young painters, and gallerist who showed many local artists, died on Aug. 16 at the Hamptons Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing in Southampton. He was 89.

Mr. Bologna’s representational paintings were of “anything that caught his eye,” his daughter Chucky Bologna of East Hampton said — trucks, gas pumps, old farm machinery. A large canvas depicting a car carrier with crushed cars was donated to East Hampton High School and still hangs in the school auditorium.

“I paint a lot of places people don’t want to look at,” he told The Star in a 1998 interview. His paintings reflect the classical aspects at work in those of painters he loved, such as Rubens and Tiepolo, as he told The Star, and balance realism with a painterly style. They often also contain surprising, contemporary elements such as an everyday kitchen item, or a bag with groceries. “Gas pumps and old buildings — they have personality,” he said.

With his wife, Barbara Bologna, a longtime East Hampton High School English teacher who died in 2001, Mr. Bologna spent summers in Venice and in Lucca, Italy, starting in the mid-1970s. He painted there, often beginning work that he would complete in his studio at home, and had several exhibitions of his work abroad, including in Milan.

His paintings are in a number of public and private collections, not least of which are those of the members of his large family.

Mr. Bologna had returned home to Corona, Queens, after serving in the United States Army in Italy during World War II, from 1945 to ’47, and had planned to go to Rome to study art under the G.I. Bill.

But his head was turned by the young Barbara Landi, who he saw outfitting a mannequin in the window of a dress shop. He stayed in New York instead and attended the Art Students League in Manhattan. The couple were married in 1951.

They lived in Queens with Mr. Bologna’s parents, and he worked at several jobs in New York City: running a sandwich shop, as an illustrator at a publishing house, and as a sign painter.

In 1962, he was sent out to Bridgehampton to make a sign for the Candy Kitchen luncheonette. He told his wife to take a ride out with their three children, and the family drove through a brand-new development in Springs, Clearwater Beach.

They “somehow finagled” the purchase of property there, said Chucky Bologna, and built a house, moving to Springs full time in 1963.

The family’s house was among only a handful in the area at the time. Mrs. Bologna was from a tight-knit Italian family, and her sister and her husband, Eva and Tom Verderosa, soon decided to build their own house nearby. In the interim, the two-bedroom Bologna house also became home to the Verderosas and their four kids, creating a lively household.

In 1974, when the Bolognas built a house on property off Montauk Highway in Amagansett, the Verderosa home base was set up there, too, bringing about a family compound.

After working odd jobs, including doing construction with the crew that built the original A&P (now Stop and Shop) building on East Hampton’s Newtown Lane, Mr. Bologna opened his own frame shop in 1966, down an alley off that street.

  A decade later, he teamed up in the framing business with a brother-in-law, Joe Landi. The partners had shops on the Circle, Park Place, and Railroad Avenue in East Hampton, before buying property on Route 114 in East Hampton, where they opened the Bologna and Landi Gallery in 1982.

Through 1995, the gallery showed “everyone imaginable; it was a great success,” Chucky Bologna said. The gallery’s openings were festive, with “lots of food, plentiful wine, and opera playing,” she said. “Opera was a great love” of Mr. Bologna’s. He also loved reading, surfcasting, and clamming.

A gathering in his honor on Aug. 21 at the Bologna family house in Amagansett drew a crowd of some 60 people; all but three or four were members of his large extended family, with four generations represented and enjoying a feast, good wine, and each other’s company while remembering Mr. Bologna and celebrating his life.

An art show and more remembrances are planned for later this fall at Ashawagh Hall. An exhibit of the painter’s work will be open to the public on Nov. 5 and 6, and there will be a reception on Nov. 5 from 4 to 8 p.m.

 A son of Philip Bologna and the former Concetta DeGaetano, Mr. Bologna was born in New York City on Jan. 26, 1927. He was the longest-lived and the youngest of five boys. He grew up in Corona, attending school there, and earned a high school G.E.D. degree.

His brothers painted, and he mimicked them, using their oil paints. Mr. Bologna, whose nickname, Inky, stem­med back to his days in Queens, loved to do life drawings, and he “went to as many sketch classes as he could,” his daughter said. His drawings illustrate a booklet about local ecology, “The Wetlands,” by Anthony S. Minardi. He also enjoyed doing studies in which he enlarged details of his own paintings, creating abstracted shapes and designs, his daughter said.

Mr. Bologna had lived in Key West, Fla., for a time some years ago, where his daughter Susan Bologna and his son, Peter Bologna, had moved to open Franco’s Deli, in his name, but he returned to Amagansett about five years ago.

His children, all of whom survive, live in Amagansett. Also surviving are four grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.

Peter G. Delany Sr.

Peter G. Delany Sr.

Sept. 4, 1945 - July 21, 2016
By
Star Staff

Peter Graham Delany Sr., a summer resident of East Hampton who was the chief operating officer and head of production of Delany Products, a commercial plumbing manufacturer, died of a heart attack at his office in Charlottesville, Va., on July 21. He was 70 years old.

Mr. Delany, whose primary residence was Charlottesville, was born in New York City on Sept. 4, 1945, to A. Graham Delany Sr. and the former Melene Hart. He was educated at Tabor Academy in Marion, Mass., and the University of Pennsylvania. While in college during the Vietnam War, he was drafted, and entered Army Officers Candidate School in Panama. Two years later he was discharged as a lieutenant and returned to the university, graduating from the Wharton School of Business. When the family business moved from Brooklyn to Charlottesville in 1969, Mr. Delany moved with it.

Mr. Delany spent summers at the family home on Cottage Avenue from an early age, and learned to sail on Gardiner’s Bay at the Devon Yacht Club in Amagansett. A skilled competitive sailor, he won the Long Island Perpetual Bowl on his Comet Sazerac when he was just 18. He proposed to his wife of 34 years, the former Grenelle Savory, at the end of the dock at Devon. The family enjoyed entertaining friends, playing wiffleball, and hosting wine tastings at their house.

In Charlottesville, Mr. Delany was a fourth-generation executive at Delany Products, where he started on the assembly line in 1974 and became C.O.O. and head of production in the late 1990s.

He is survived by his wife and two children, Peter Graham Delany Jr. and Charlotte Savory Cowles Delany, both of Charlottesville. He also leaves a sister, Brooke Louise Delany of Denver, and two brothers, A. Graham Delany Jr. and David Scott Delany of Charlottesville.

A memorial service was held on July 30 at St. Paul’s Church in Ivy, Va. Mr. Delany was cremated, and his ashes were buried at St. Paul’s Cemetery there; some were saved to be spread off Devon. Donations in Mr. Delany’s memory have been suggested to the Alzheimer’s Association, which can be found online at alz.org.

Olive M. Hildreth, 93

Olive M. Hildreth, 93

Feb. 6, 1923 - Aug. 4, 2016
By
Star Staff

Olive Marie Hildreth, who sang for 40 years with the Sweet Adelines, died on Aug. 6 at home on Collins Avenue in East Hampton. She was 93 and had been ill with dementia for four years.

Mrs. Hildreth was born on Feb. 6, 1923, at Southampton Hospital to Louis Ranalli and the former Mildred Kinkaid. She grew up in East Hampton, Greenport, and Sag Harbor.

On Feb. 4, 1942, she was married to Robert D. Hildreth. Mrs. Hildreth, a homemaker, was content with the simple things, her family said, and singing with the Sweet Adelines, an a cappella group with chapters around the world, was her primary outlet outside of family life.

She is survived by her husband of 74 years, who lives in East Hampton. She also leaves a daughter, Marlene Ross, also of East Hampton, and a sister, Lilian Skinner, who lives in Connecticut.

A family service was held earlier this month. Mrs. Hildreth was cremated; her ashes were interred at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton.

Vincent Grippa, 93

Vincent Grippa, 93

March 19, 1923 - Aug. 04, 2016
By
Star Staff

Vincent Grippa, the owner of Jewels by Virtu on Main Street in East Hampton for nearly 20 years, died at his Dune Alpin Farm residence here on Aug. 4. Mr. Grippa, who had had two strokes within the last eight years, was 93.

Born on March 19, 1923, in New York City, he was the youngest of eight children of Vincenzo and Iole Grippa. He grew up in an Italian neighborhood in East Harlem and was home-schooled as a child. His father, a jeweler, had taught him the trade, and when his father died, he went to work at the age of 16 for one of his older brothers in his watch repair shop.

Mr. Grippa lived for a while in Geneva, Switzerland, working for a small import-export company, before returning to work in the city. He moved to East Hampton in the late 1960s to open Jewels by Virtu, which was closed in 1997 when he retired. During his working life in the village, he built two commercial buildings on the Circle, which he sold after having the first stroke.

He also owned apartments in New York City and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Both were sold in the last two years.

Mr. Grippa had a number of interests, among them art, fashion, classical music, and opera. He was a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in East Hampton.

His longtime partner, Dale Werner, died in 1995. He is survived by a sister, Vera Avery of East Quogue. Funeral services were held at St. Luke’s on Saturday, the Rev. Denis Brunelle officiating, with burial following at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church’s cemetery on Cedar Street.

David Brown, Sculptor

David Brown, Sculptor

By
Star Staff

David Lee Brown, a well-known metal sculptor and Pratt Institute arts educator who lived in Springs before moving to Southampton some years ago, died on Friday after an illness. He was 77.

Mr. Brown was born in Detroit in January 1939 to Raymond Brown and the former Ruth Crowthers and graduated from Cass Tech High School there.

During his high school years he worked as a model builder for Minoru Yamasaki, who designed the original World Trade Center in New York City.

He attended North Carolina State University’s architecture program, studying with Eduardo Catalano, and pursued graduate studies in sculpture at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

After working as the head of the Design Department at the Worcester Craft Center in Massachusetts, he worked with the sculptor José de Rivera in New York City, where he settled with his wife, the former Andrea Samagochian, whom he married in 1960.

Mr. De Rivera chose Mr. Brown to work with him on the sculpture commissioned for the United States Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair.

Professional commissions of Mr. Brown’s sculptures include large-scale installations at the Fort Lauderdale International Airport, Gimbel’s Department Store in Philadelphia, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and smaller and medium-scale works in numerous private, corporate, and museum collections around the world.

The Grace Borgenicht Gallery represented Mr. Brown’s work in New York City. Mr. Brown was best known for his often very large abstract stainless steel sculptures, many buffed to achieve a distinctive mirror-like polish.

His family said he was a devoted design professor, teaching for more than 50 years at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, influencing thousands of students across generations.

A lover of design, architecture, materials, and structures, Mr. Brown also consulted at the Walt Disney Imagineering studio when it operated in Wainscott. His projects at the studio included a free-walking, full-sized robot dinosaur and designing and fabricating the exhibit for a national tour of the United States Bill of Rights original document.

Mr. Brown’s interests were many, and his hobbies ambitious. Early in his career he raced bicycles competitively. He also competed nationally as an oarsman, winning a national title with the Detroit Boat Club’s eight-man boat. In recent years he enjoyed rowing his single shell in Springs and on Mecox Bay.

He was passionate about ice boating — building by hand the first DN boat he raced — and served for several years as the commodore of the Mecox Bay Ice Yacht Club.

In recent years, he was an active and dedicated member of the Southampton Village Volunteer Ambulance Service. He is survived by his wife, his daughter, Victoria Brown of Manhattan, and one granddaughter.

Memorial contributions have been suggested to the Southampton Village Volunteer Ambulance, P.O. Box 832, Southampton 11969.

A memorial gathering may be announced at a later date.

Craig Tuthill, 80

Craig Tuthill, 80

By
Star Staff

Craig Tuthill, a former chief and 63-year member of the Montauk Fire Department, died on Friday. He was 80 years old.

Funeral arrangements had not been made as of yesterday, according to the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton. A memorial service is being planned. A full obituary will appear in a future edition.

M. Bernard Aidinoff, 87

M. Bernard Aidinoff, 87

Feb. 2, 1929 - Aug. 8, 2016
By
Irene Silverman

In a 2004 interview published in Harvard Law Today a year after his 50th law school reunion, M. Bernard Aidinoff was asked whether he considered the practice of law a profession or an industry.

“There is no question that the private practice of law, particularly big-firm law, is a business,” he answered. “At the same time, there is constant awareness that professional standards must be maintained. So the question is: How do you retain the independence of being a true professional? How do you retain collegiality, the camaraderie, the sense of purpose that you are doing something more than just making money?”

Mr. Aidinoff, who died of heart failure at his Manhattan home on Aug. 8 at the age of 87, was widely recognized as a “true professional,” not only by his colleagues but by the high-powered master-of-the-universe clients he advised, the young lawyers he mentored, and his fellow board members of the many organizations, including Guild Hall and the East Hampton Historical Society, that benefited from his philanthropy and his counsel.

 An internationally respected tax expert, he was a former chairman of the American Bar Association’s taxation section, editor in chief of The Tax Lawyer, and on the Commissioner’s Advisory Committee of the Internal Revenue Service.

Mr. Aidinoff’s given name was Merton, but his parents, Simon and Esther Miller Aidinoff, may have been the only ones who called him that; he was known as Bernie all his life. He was born on Feb. 2, 1929, in Newport, R.I., where as a boy he delivered groceries to the resort’s grand “cottages.” He remained a member of Newport’s famous Touro Synagogue, the oldest in America, throughout his life.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Michigan, Mr. Aidinoff was a member of the Harvard Law School class of 1953 and an editor of  The Harvard Law Review. He was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps after he graduated, and served for two years before being appointed a law clerk to the legendary federal judge Learned Hand.

Mr. Aidinoff joined the Sullivan & Cromwell law firm in 1956, the same year he married the former Celia Spiro. They bought a house on Bluff Road in Amagansett about 10 years later. Cissie Aidinoff died in 1984; Mr. Aidinoff married Elsie Vanderbilt Newburg in 1996 and continued to vacation here until his death.

“Elsie took care of my father for 20 years,” Seth Aidinoff said. “She was there for every minute and every kind of attention one could want for one’s father.”

Mr. Aidinoff, a music lover and civil libertarian, was a longtime chairman of the board of St. Luke’s Orchestra, and a director of the Metropolitan Opera Association. He also was a board member of Human Rights First, the Foundation for a Civil Society, and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. A lifelong Democrat, he was counsel to the Clinton Legal Defense Fund during the president’s Whitewater and Lewinsky difficulties.

A funeral service, attended by about 35 members of the family, was held at the Aidinoff residence in Manhattan on Aug. 10, Senior Rabbi Joshua Davidson of Temple Emanu-el in Manhattan officiating. Several hundred people visited afterward. “Human rights people next to St. Luke’s Orchestra people next to Goldman Sachs people,” his son said. “It all came together.”

Mr. Aidinoff was cremated. His ashes will be distributed in Amagansett and in Lyme, Conn., at his wife’s family home. In addition to his wife and son, he is survived by a daughter, Gail Scovell, also of New York and Amagansett. He also leaves four stepchildren, Michael Newburg of Lyme, Anne Newburg of Millerton, N.Y., Daniel Newburg of London, and Thomas Newburg of Berlin, as well as two sisters, Judith Aidinoff of Manhattan and Ruth Elkind of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and three grandchildren.

A memorial service is planned in the fall. Memorial contributions have been suggested for the Storefront Academy Harlem, 70 East 129 Street, New York 10035, or the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, 450 West 37th Street, Suite 502, New York 10018.