From the Jewish Center: “We regret to inform you of the passing of long time Jewish Center member Margaret Kahn, beloved mother of Jewish Center members, Daniel Kahn (Shira Orenstein) and Allen Kahn and grandmother of Yael Kahn Pinto (Tony) and Aliza Kahn.
The funeral will take place on Thursday, May 16th at 1:30pm at Plaza Funeral Chapel, 630 Amsterdam Avenue.” A Look at the Belnord, Lucette Lagnado, The Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2001
Hugo Kahn is 85 years old, frail and forgetful. But with the help of his wife, Margie, he still tries to take a daily stroll around the interior courtyard of the place he calls home, a fabled apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side called the Belnord.
On good days, he waves to everyone he sees. On bad ones, he slumps down like an exhausted, lost boy, refusing to move. This is tough on Margie, 73. A courtly, retired businessman, Hugo used to be the life of the party. Now, ten years after a massive stroke, his lapses are so profound that the Belnord’s doormen have had to come to the rescue — picking him up from the elevator floor, freeing him from the shower.
As long as Mr. Kahn is ambulatory, though, a nursing home is out of the question — Margie Kahn wouldn’t dream of it. So Hugo will stick it out here in the Belnord, where the couple have lived for 35 years in a roomy, rent-regulated apartment. A lot of their aging neighbors, many of them sheltered by extraordinary rent-control protections that they have gained over time, feel the same way.
