April 28, 2010
Former Margaretville lawyer fought for landowners
By Patricia BreakeyDelhi News Bureau
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A former Margaretville lawyer died Saturday at the age of 99.
Herman Gottfried’s nephew, Robert Kramer, said Gottfried represented many area farmers, business owners and homeowners who lost their land when New York City used eminent domain proceedings to obtain land to build the reservoirs.
Gottfried practiced in Margaretville from 1949 — when he opened his own law firm — until he retired in 1990, Kramer said Monday.
“His life’s work was centered around Margaretville,” Kramer said. “Diane Galusha mentioned him in her book ‘Liquick Assets,’ which is the story of the building of the reservoirs.”
Kramer, of Cranbury and formerly of Andes, said Gottfried was “very charming, gregarious and intelligent, but low key at the same time.
“He did a lot of work for a lot of people; but he was proud of saying that he never had a business card. If anyone wanted his name and phone number he would write it down for them on a piece of paper.”
Gottfried was just six months shy of his 100th birthday when he passed away at Huntington Hospital in Huntington. Before becoming ill he had lived independently at his homes in Centreville, Mass., and Palm City, Fla.
Gottfried’s wife Margaret “Peggy” O’Neill, died Jan. 13, 2002.
A Brooklyn native, Gottfried was born Oct. 8, 1910, to German immigrant banker Morris Gottfried and his wife Fanny. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English literature at City College and then graduated from Brooklyn Law School. He went to work for New York City, heading the law department of the Comptroller’s office during the tenure of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
He joined the U.S. Navy, serving as an officer aboard the USS Isherwood, a destroyer escort commissioned in April 1943 and assigned to duty in the Pacific Theater during World War II. The ship took part in the initial landings on Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in October 1944.
In 1991 Gottfried wrote: “We were the lead ship. We were fortunate to see Gen. Douglas MacArthur wade ashore and were alarmed when he was greeted by gunfire from snipers in the palm trees on shore. Isherwood loosed all its firepower into the fronds of the palm trees, and the snipers dropped like coconuts.”
Following the war, Gottfried was named acting corporation counsel in charge of the New York City Board of Water Supply office in Kingston. In 1949, he went into private practice to represent property owners, merchants and workers who were losing land, business and jobs to the city’s reservoirs.
Kramer said he used a section of the law to win substantial awards for his clients based on the value the property and businesses would have had in the years to come. He later assisted many area property owners affected by state highway construction and other public works projects.
The Gottfrieds were supporters of Margaretville Memorial Hospital, Fairview Public Library, the Margaretville Central School Scholarship Fund and Kingston Hospital, as well as libraries and hospitals in Cape Cod and Florida. In 1998, they donated to the Village of Margaretville the brick building they built on Main Street to house the Gottfried law practice.
