Saying Goodbye to my Grandfather

Seymour Malkin, a public relations legend, journalist and Romeo, at 93


Wednesday, December 2, 2009
BY JAY LEVIN
The Record
STAFF WRITER

Seymour F. Malkin, an enterprising publicist who promoted the newly built Bergen Mall and located the perfect venue for an Israel Bonds fund-raiser — Albert Einstein's home — died on Thanksgiving.

He lived in Hackensack, where he was born 93 years ago.

Mr. Malkin earned a law degree but didn't go into law. He worked instead for The Bergen Evening Record, which he delivered as a paperboy.

Rising to real estate editor, Mr. Malkin penned the "Mr. Real Estate" column and became a trustee of the National Association of Real Estate Editors.

His column on Jan. 28, 1950 — and a full-page ad the same day — announced he was leaving the paper to begin an "independent public relations service for a growing New Jersey."

He knew his stuff. When charged with putting on the Israel Bonds fund-raiser to end all Israel Bonds fund-raisers, Mr. Malkin telephoned Einstein and arranged to use the physicist's Princeton home. Einstein stuck around, lending star power to the soirée.

When the Bergen Mall opened in Paramus in 1957, Mr. Malkin got the account. He thought up the annual Dirty Rotten Sneaker Contest, in which kids brought their smelliest footwear to what was then an open-air shopping plaza.

He represented many other businesses, including the Huffman Koos furniture store in River Edge, and did fund raising for Jewish charities.

Mr. Malkin and his wife, Dorothy, ran the public relations firm from their Maywood home. The business inspired their granddaughter Ilya Welfeld, who has her own public relations firm in Bergenfield.

"My grandfather's glass wasn't half-full; it WAS full," said Welfeld, who as a 5-year-old pasted up newspaper clippings for Malkin Public Relations. "He loved to love life."

Welfeld honored her grandpa last year by renaming her company after him: Seymour Public Relations.

Mr. Malkin retired in his 80s and began volunteering in Hackensack University Medical Center's public relations office. He edited press releases and organized press clippings, "and brought a wealth of knowledge and life experience to our department," said Ann Marie Campbell, HUMC's vice president, public relations.

He volunteered weekly at the hospital until several months ago.

"He'd go to Florida and always send us newspaper articles about health care and hospitals down there, and he'd write us little notes," Campbell said. "I can't begin to tell you how much this man meant to us."

Dorothy Malkin died in 2003. On Oct. 12, 2008, Mr. Malkin married Eleanor Baker, whom he met at his synagogue, Reconstructionist Temple Beth Israel in Maywood.

Mr. Malkin's daughters gave the couple a gift of dance lessons so they could cut the rug at the wedding reception. Eleanor and Seymour danced the foxtrot to Frank Sinatra's "Young at Heart."

Eleanor shared her husband's passion for volunteering at Hackensack University Medical Center — she held newborns. The couple also traveled and enjoyed strolling hand-in-hand on the Hackensack River walkway.

"We had wonderful times together, and we loved each other — how should I say? — like Romeo and Juliet," said Eleanor Baker Malkin, 85. "We were the greatest lovers in senior citizen land."

In addition to his wife, Mr. Malkin is survived by daughters Anna Gotlieb and Naomi Kolstein, both of Spring Valley, N.Y.; four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and Eleanor's daughter, Pamela Steckler, of State College, Pa.

Mr. Malkin was buried Friday at Cedar Park Cemetery, Paramus. Arrangements were by Robert Schoem's Menorah Chapel, Paramus.