Elinor Glassman Gordon was remembered this week for her “moxie,” her sense of style, and her “consummate New York-ness.”
“She knew where everything good in New York City was — every restaurant, gourmet store, every shop, great art gallery, and curiosity,” her daughter, Jill Gordon, wrote. “And she was the most fun. She was seething with curiosity and adventure and hilarity. When we traveled, she had sussed out the most interesting things to do. We hit the ground running and never stopped.”
Ms. Gordon, who was 83, died of pancreatic cancer last Thursday at her daughter’s house in East Hampton. She had been ill for two and a half months.
Ms. Gordon began coming to the South Fork in 1969 with her late former husband, Sid Gordon, and bought a house here in 1971. “This is where they came to relax and entertain,” her daughter said. “She loved all the best food places out here — the original Loaves and Fishes, Amagansett Farmers Market, Iacono’s, Round Swamp Farm — from way back. We used to joke that my mother would stop at four different farm stands just to make a salad. She was an amazing cook and a gracious hostess.”
In the 1970s she designed jewelry that was sold at retailers like Bendel’s and Bloomingdale’s and small boutiques. She had a concession at Zoom on Job’s Lane in Southampton where she sold her jewelry and accessories in the mid-1970s, and owned a store in East Hampton Village called Splash from 1978 to 1982.
She lived in London from 1983 to 1990 and went on to become a real estate broker, working most recently with Halstead Property in New York City.
Ms. Gordon was born in New York City on Sept. 7, 1940, to Richard Reuben Glassman and the former Helen Hirscher. She grew up on Central Park West and attended the Birch Wathen School, American University in Washington, D.C., and Finch College in Manhattan.
She and Mr. Gordon were married on Dec. 19, 1961. Ms. Gordon’s daughter said she taught her “excellent values. I knew that lying was not an option. Education was paramount — there was no thought of skipping a day of school for fun or frivolity, and my parents committed to tremendous private school tuition even when they were young and poor. When my feet hurt after a day of being dragged around the city, she insisted that I give up my seat on the bus for an older or pregnant or infirmed person.”
“She was a strident feminist from as young as I can remember,” her daughter said. “She bristled at anything racist or homophobic. And though she loved to spend it, she was very clear that money was not something by which you judged others. She was always political and thought progressively.”
“She had lots of very wonderful friends, was the life of the party and — at least from my young perspective — the most interesting person in the room.”
In addition to her daughter, she is survived by a niece, Barbara Kiss, and a nephew, Andrew Kiss.
She was buried at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont.
