Remembering former Lawrence village mayor, Jay Gordon

Jay Gordon was known to have his golf clubs with him in his Manhattan law office and after a day of prepping for a case, he grabbed his golf bag, hailed a taxicab and headed back to Lawrence and the village’s country club to play a round.

“Next to his family and the law he was passionate about golf,” his daughter Amy Gordon Solomon said.

Gordon died on May 28 in Albany. He was 97.

Born on Popham Avenue in the Bronx on Feb. 5, 1926, Gordon attended public schools in his home borough and upstate Goshen, and graduated from Townsend Harris High School in Queens at 14 years, 11 months old. Later on his IQ was Columbia University-certified at 169, which is considered exceptional.

“He had a photographic memory which made him a very impressive lawyer,” Solomon said.

He entered City College of New York in January 1941 at 15, and was elected president of the freshmen, sophomore and junior classes.     

Gordon enlisted in the army reserves in August of 1943 and was sent to Cornell University for basic engineering then to Camp Wheeler in Georgia the next year. Assigned to Fort Benning, also in Georgia, for officer candidate school.

He was released from OCS and sent overseas to Italy as part of the Fifth Army division. He was a corporal. In the army when he received a congressional appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy from legendary Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. As seaman first Class, Gordon was assigned to the Great Lakes naval base and discharged in 1947.

Several months before he married Eleanor Gordon in September 1946, Eleanor did not have to change her last name as Gordon was her maiden name. 

After graduation from St. John’s University Law School, Gordon clerked for the Cardozo and Nathan law firm and went on to become a prominent litigator and managing partner with the law firm of Phillips Nizer.

Of the many major cases Gordon was involved with was the infamous Love Canal litigation. The upstate community was one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history and the first designated as a superfund site, when the federal Environmental Protection Agency is tasked with cleanup and remediation of a contaminated property.

The Gordons moved to Lawrence in 1956, and became involved neighbors as members of Congregation Beth Sholom. Eleanor who died in 1988 was well known for her artistic ability.

Jay was appointed to the village’s building design board in 1961 and losing a trustee election the year before. He was elected mayor in 1964 and again four years later.

Under his mayoral administration, the village’s sewage treatment plant was opened and Gov. Nelson Rockefeller visited Lawrence, was instrumental in acquiring land previously known as the Williams Estate that would become the 12th, 13th and 14 holes of Lawrence’s golf course, a major renovation that did not cost the village money, Solomon said. Gordon also acquired the club’s tennis court, established the village court and refurbished the municipality’s crest and flag.

“I knew Jay for more than 25 years,” Jonah Schein wrote in an email. “We played golf regularly at Lawrence and had lunch almost every Saturday when golf season was over.”

Schein noted that Gordon was the club’s champion golfer in 1980, when he was 54.

Gordon is survived by his second wife, Barbara, children Amy, Irving Gordon and Cindy Finkelstein, 10 grandchildren and a dozen great-grandchildren. Also Barbara’s children, Jon Bell and Andrea. Daughter Patricia Gordon also predeceased him.   

“He was just a kindhearted, sweet, happy guy,” Solomon said. “He lived life to the fullest and enjoyed every minute.”