Hy Brodsky, 89

Hy Brodsky, a public relations man, jazz historian, and Montauk community activist, died on Sunday at Southampton Hospital. Mr. Brodsky, who was 89, had not been ill, his family said.

Mr. Brodsky moved to his Montauk residence year round after marrying the former Arlene Goldberg on June 13, 1999, following, she said, “a 25-year courtship.” He had lived before then in Trenton, N.J., and more recently in Great Neck, while establishing his own firm, Triangle Public Relations.     

His heart, though, was in the easternmost hamlet, which he first visited as a young man and where he had many friends. As a member of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk and the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee, he made his voice heard on any number of topics, from the need for long-term resident parking to the meaning of Memorial Day to the threatened placement of a carousel at the memorial garden on the village green. He had strong opinions about the place he loved and was not shy about making them known, at town board and other meetings, and in letters to The Star.

In one letter — there were many over the years — he fumed that “despicable and deplorable aren’t strong enough to describe the arrogant act of Public Service Enterprise Group Long Island, an unbridled bureaucracy, that as a new kid on the block took it upon itself to chop down our trees without asking the taxpayers whether we liked the idea. . . .” In another, about the carousel proposal, he wrote that “words like disgraceful, reprehensible, insensitive, disbelief, and disgusting don’t come close to describing my stomach-turning anger.”

Mr. Brodsky was born in Brooklyn on May 9, 1926, to Harry and Bessie Sadofsky Brodsky, and grew up there and in Trenton. He graduated from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and earned a degree in public relations from the New School in Manhattan. He served with the Navy in World War II aboard the U.S.S. Adirondack in the Atlantic Theater.

From the age of 15, his wife said, he loved jazz. One year, the great bassist Percy Heath, who also had a house in Montauk, asked him to organize a jazz festival in conjunction with a Montauk Artists Association dinner. It turned into a highly successful three-day affair, held at Upstairs at the Downs, the state golf course.

Mr. Brodsky is survived by three sons of a former marriage, Russell and William Brodsky of Great Neck and Philip Brodsky of Danville, Calif., and by three stepchildren, who are Mark Abrahams of Oyster Bay, Ed Abrahams of Great Barrington, Mass., and Susan Abrahams of Traverse City, Mich. Ten grandchildren survive as well, as does a sister, Annette Itzkan of Boston.

Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman and Cantor Debra Stein of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons were to officiate at 10:30 this morning at funeral services, with burial following in Wellwood Cemetery in Wyandanch. Memorial contributions have been suggested for the Montauk Fire Department Ambulance, 12 Flamingo Road, Montauk 11954, the Montauk Playhouse Foundation, P.O. Box 1612, Montauk, or the Jewish Center, 44 Woods Lane, East Hampton 11937.