Robert Edward Markinson

Robert (Bob) Edward Markinson of Manhattan, NY passed away peacefully in his sleep on Monday April 27, 2020 at the age of 58. Robert leaves behind his loving wife of 23 years, Haritini Kanthou; two sisters, Katherine Finkelstein of Staten Island and Denise Markinson of High Bridge, New Jersey, nieces Katherine Okun and Rachael Vallaro, nephews Martin Finkelstein, Karl Finkelstein, Lambros Tsentas, and Christos Tsentas. An architect by profession, Robert was an avid runner covering on average 35 – 40 miles a week. He picked up running in 2014 and joined Central Park Track Club the same year. After a cardiac incident in February 2016 which resulted in three stents, Robert returned to competitive running two weeks later when he ran the Washington Heights 5K at 22:33, or a 7:16 pace. According to one of the team coaches, Bob was “loved for his determination, grit and love for the team. He will be sorely missed by his training partners and all his teammates.” Bookending his career in competitive running: Bob ran this year’s Washington Heights 5K in 24:05 or 7:45 pace. This was Bob’s final race. Born December 4, 1961 in Jamaica Hospital, Queens, to Irene and Bob Markinson. Bob spent the first four years of his life in the family brownstone upstairs from his grandparents’ German delicatessen on 7th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn where he formed his earliest memories. The family moved to a new, spacious home in Staten Island where Bob attended elementary school and Tottenville High School. After graduation, he worked installing fences for Grandview Ironworks on the island and determined that his love for crafting things was really a keen interest in construction and architecture and design. Bob attended the College of Staten Island, where he discovered the music of Phil Ochs in the college library. He later transferred to City College CUNY graduating with a BS in Architecture in 1990. An activist while at school, Bob was a key member of organizations expressing solidarity with the people of Central and South America. He participated in a post-graduation educational exchange with architecture students in Cuba and completed a study on sugar mill architecture and social history. Bob practiced architecture in junior positions for the first five years of his career, and in 1995 he joined the firm Superstructures and turned his skills to exterior restoration and historic preservation projects. His natural inquisitiveness for how things work drew his attention to the technical elements of building design. The book at Bob’s bedside when he died was “Historical Building Construction: Design, Materials & Technology” by Donald Friedman. In 2001 Bob became a Registered Architect in the State of New York after passing the grueling architecture licensing exam. Interestingly, Structures – a section hard for most people – was the first part of the test Bob passed, with ease. His subsequent career brought him to the roles of Project Architect, Project Manager, and Senior Technical Architect for the firms Richard Dattner and Partners, RKT&B, Pfeiffer Partners, Goshow Architects, and Rogers Marvel Architects. Bob was dedicated to the idea that spaces should serve people and found gratification when working on the adaptive reuse of a Belleview Hospital McKim, Mead, and White building to serve as the New York City Administration of Children’s Services. It was a project that took up weekends and late nights and served a population that is among the city’s most vulnerable. His most recent position was as Administrative Architect in the capacity of Senior Technical Architect/Team Leader in the Public Buildings Division – Architecture Unit of the New York city Department of Design and Construction (DDC). In addition to his technical command, Bob was respected for his ability to work with different people. His director at DDC praised him for his mentorship of younger architects and his dedication to the profession. Bob and his wife, an architecture buff, enjoyed traveling to “look at architecture” – their first trip together was to Chicago, the architectural mecca of North America, where they marveled at the Monadnock, the tallest masonry skyscraper, Richardson’s Glessner House, Sullivan’s Carson Pirie Scott Department store, and the fabulous modernism of Mies van der Rohe’s Crown Hall at IIT campus. Haritini’s native Cyprus, with its rich history and building types from Neolithic to on, came next. The long haul to Cyprus provided the foil for stops in European cities – Florence, Rome, Athens, London, Canterbury, Bath and the Cotswolds, Paris and Le Cobusier’s Villa Savoy, Amsterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht – were their playgrounds for adventures in art, architecture, and music. A special treat were two visits to Germany: the first, to the Black Forest, visiting with Bob’s maternal grandfather’s family, and the 400-year old home where Opa grew up in the tough 1920s. This was actually Bob’s second visit to the family and the region: he first visited in the winter of 1984, when the barn integrated into the living quarters still housed the annual hog. During their visit, Bob and Haritini stopped at nearby Frankfurt (where they actually witnessed a road race), and far-flung Berlin. The highlight for them was Hans Scharoun’s Berlin Philharmonic with is sailboat exterior and cruise ship interior circulation. In the COVID-19 lockdown, they watched Berlin Philharmonie’s free Digital Concert Hall performances and planned to visit Berlin again to experience a live performance at the hall, once things got back to normal. Their second Germany visit was to the north, to Lintig, the small town near the border with Denmark where Bob’s maternal grandmother was from. They met the last living nephew of Bob’s grandmother who recalled receiving care packages that included chocolate, after the war. They stayed in the city of Hamburg and watched a performance of Wagner’s “Twilight of the Gods”, with its famous hammer-and-anvil sequence – for which, as they were seated right behind that section, they were given earplugs! He and his wife also travelled to Massachusetts’ Berkshire County for The Clark in Williamstown, Mass MoCA in North Adams, and Tanglewood in Lenox. They fell in love with the natural beauty of the region and its unique combination to the arts and started looking for a vacation home. The deal was cinched for the rustic town of Otis, when they visited the proximate Jacob’s Pillow and its majestic outdoor stage, a ten-minute drive from a modern house they found. They enjoyed the house this past winter, enveloped in its icy beauty and warmed by the fireplace and had plans for summer swims in near-by ponds. The lockdown provided the opportunity for Bob to pick up his guitar, and he was engaged in learning the piece “Genesis” from Jorma Kaukonen’s YouTube channel. As a younger man, Bob had been part of the Rock en Espanol style, as the guitarist of a group of friends who called themselves Los Tres M (Marx, Music, and Marijuana). He authored his own songs and sang them during their shows, notably at an event on the night Ronal Regan was elected – needless to say, these songs were songs of protest chronicling the drudgery of low-paying jobs and a repressive, watchful state. His tastes in music ranged from his childhood Motown idols to Bach, and he would spontaneously make up songs while prepping dinner with his wife. Bob was a wonderful person, kind and generous, with a great sense of humor and a full-bodied laugh, but nothing could challenge his sweet smile and twinkle in his blue eyes. He respected the accomplishments of others and was unstinting in his praise of their work, in his admiration, and in his esteem. He saw the good in every situation and tried to bring others to recognize it, patiently arguing his points. He made others better, for interacting with him. He is missed and loved eternally by his wife. To honor his memory, in leu of flowers please send contributions to Doctors Without Borders: https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/onetime.cfm Please enter Bob’s wife’s information if you decide to send an e-card: Haritini Kanthou, hkanthou@gmail.com

Robert Edward Markinson

December 4, 1961 - April 27, 2020