Cynthia Leigh Silverman, a longtime summer resident of Amagansett who was studying for a joint degree in law and international affairs at the City University of New York, died in New York City on Dec. 14. She was 29.
“Cynthia’s exceptional intelligence was evident in the early days of her life,” her family wrote. Ms. Silverman attended the Dalton School, “an important part of her intellectual life,” her mother said, and went on to graduate cum laude from Hunter College in 2018, where she majored in sociology, earning departmental honors, and minored in international relations. She worked at the college’s Center for Student Achievement.
“She became passionate about equal rights and justice and decided that the best way to be effective was to become a lawyer,” her family wrote. Ms. Silverman turned down a Carswell merit scholarship from Brooklyn Law School to pursue a joint degree at CUNY starting last year.
Born at New York University Hospital on Sept. 23, 1990, she was the only child of Catharine Crowell Regan and Kenneth Silverman of Amagansett and Key West. “She was a devoted New Yorker,” her family said, “and remained in the city for the duration of her short life.” She had lived most recently on Mott Street.
Her summers were spent at the beach in Amagansett, while winter vacations growing up took her to the Caribbean island of Bonaire, where she and her mother both earned their scuba certifications. She loved to ski and often traveled with her family to the slopes at Deer Valley in Utah.
She had a beautiful voice, her family said, and as a child she sang for many years in the choir of the Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan. She traveled with the choir to sing at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., and at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, and had also performed with it at St. Thomas Church in Manhattan.
Ms. Silverman was a descendant of Yelverton Crowell, who settled in Charlestown, Mass., in 1637.
Her cause of death has not been determined, her family said.
In addition to her parents, she is survived by two aunts, Janet Goodman and Anna Barfield, both of London and Key West, by her “stand-in grandparents,” Elizabeth and Richard Stone of New York City, and by many cousins and friends.
A memorial service will be held at a later date. The family has suggested donations in her name to the Hunter College Foundation, 696 Park Avenue, Suite E1313, New York, N.Y. 10065, or online at hunter.cuny.edu/give.
