Herb Sturz passed away on June 10, 2021 at the age of ninety surrounded by family and friends. This website is for anyone and everyone who loved Herb and wishes to post memories, photographs, or video about him.

It can be read in one long continuous scroll, and will simply reflect the order in which we received submissions. If you think of a further submission later on it will just be added to your first one so all your thoughts, photographs, and videos are in one place.

If you just want to look at photos, each one will be copied separately to a photos-only page (link above)

There will also be a page for documents from Herb’s life, for example to the novel he wrote, his letter from Steinbeck, news clippings.

If you think of anything else you would like on this page, just suggest it!

The page will be curated to make sure everything has a consistent appearance. Send all submissions/questions/requests to: peterfreed@peterfreedmd.com.

Manon Manavit

I loved my Uncle Herb with every piece of my heart. He was the kindly grandfather of my dreams. His brother Melvin, my grandfather, died before I was born, making Herb my surrogate grandfather. He lived up to the task, always receiving me with open arms. I believe my own deep love of literature began as a little girl, sleeping in Herb’s guest room below a huge bookcase. I would reach up, grab something, and read all night with a flashlight under the covers. I was impressed by the story of his interaction with John Steinbeck, knowing I was in the presence of a true literary expert. Herb always made sure I had a cup of water by the bed. 🙂 I loved hearing his stories about Cuba and South Africa. I loved watching Royal Shakespeare Company televised productions with him, and seeing Broadway productions with him in the theaters he protected from demolition. (I went on to be a theater director.) I loved singing to him and reciting poetry with him. His love was in the details. Any time I’d leave, he’d slip a 20$ bill in my hand, and whisper, “take a cab.” I’d always laugh and tell him I was planning on taking the subway anyway. It became our inside joke, that he knew I was never going to take that cab. As a teenager, he’d treat me as an adult, taking me out to restaurants and introducing me to his colleagues. I think he knew that I loved being around older people. I told him my deep dark secrets and he always listened without judgment. In the family, he was our patriarch, who you could always call for advice on how to get out of a tough spot. He was my biggest supporter when I directed my first play. He so dearly loved people, and he chose his wives very well. Elizabeth and Margaret were two of the finest, most intelligent and sparklingly adventurous people, and his love, and their loves, were contagious. Not to mention dear little Franklin the poodle. Herb, thank you for imparting a moral compass to our family. You were our soul, our bright soldier on the front lines against injustice. ❤ May you Rest in Power.

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Catie Marshall

Dear dear Herb. 

I miss you with all my heart. It’s been a week plus Tuesday since we talked in Tucson, your face twisted up in that goofy wonderful smile. Now my mind and heart are all twisted up in a mess. Because it is too hard for me to write ABOUT you, I am writing TO you. And even now, I don’t know how to start – too many experiences and memories collected and stored and jumbled together. It would be great if I could pinpoint when I first met you, but I can’t. I know that I would have felt I was meeting a celebrity – that’s the status you had in our family.

So here:

Remember circumnavigating Manhattan in the houseboat when you and Burke nearly got taken out by that chunk of concrete those kids chucked from (what I now know was) the Willis Avenue bridge? Elizabeth and Violet were white with fright. You would have found a way to keep those boys out of jail. I was curious – what kind of weird dirty place was New York that had kids my age doing stupid destructive stuff like that?

Lesson one. It’s a big, diverse and remarkable world. Listen to people who are not like yourself. Kids in my school in Fancy-Land swore and smoked their parents’ cigarettes. They were exotic and mysterious too. They would throw toilet paper and shaving cream and eggs on Halloween. Mystifying.

At school each of us had to make a speech in front of the whole morning assembly. I talked about the Bowery and saving alcoholics – bums; the “untouchables” – and getting them to feel as if they could trust and accept help and get on the road to a better way of life for their own sakes and for the good of the community. A double good. You tell me where a 12-year-old gets an idea like that…

I realize now: that was my first assignment from you. At the end of my talk, with a flourish, I presented the head of the Lower School with one of the wooden toy trucks the men in the Bowery Project had made.  My schoolmates and teachers were bemused, and probably confused, but I hope intrigued as well. I knew then that you’d put me on the right track. (Don’t deflect. I know my parentage is a factor – but remember, they were smart enough to bring YOU into the family.)

Lesson Two. Get over yourself and reach out. Learn from others. 

Lesson Three! You are who you are; what you DO is what counts.

Herb, I do what I do because you showed me it was possible: by kneeling next to those drunk men on the Bowery – and treating them like the men they were, you helped them reclaim who they are; and you have lived your whole life like this.

However that happened, you dreamed up Vera and inspired an army that knows that Justice, despite that “blind’ aphorism, has 20-20 vision. Your ideas – your assignments and pointed prodding – launched workable programs to enfranchise those who lack the privilege of birthright and good legal representation. And so much more that has grown organically from that.

Solutions arch over and crash into seemingly intractable problems.

This inspiration is the gift you have given to me. You are my friend and my mentor and my hero. I met Elizabeth and Margaret and Franklin! How lucky am I?

Lessons four through twelve: Write short sentences. Embrace criticism. Forgive. Seek a higher purpose. Explore worthy goals. Demonstrate what works; set an example. Be bold. Believe. Show respect.

The last time I asked you “what’s next,” you leaned in, clapped your hand on my shoulder, smiled slyly with a twinkle in your eyes and said: “I’m going to close Rikers.” And on we go, Herb. On we go.

Love,

-catie

PS Finally, because I found that I veer toward poetry, here’s this:

Editing Is An Active Verb For Herb

Changing the

state of things

takes vision and a

sharp pencil.

Red,

to make the point.

I see

what you do, now.

And how.

Your assignments

are not idle work or

casually given

any more than the cigarettes

you handed out to the

Bowery Boys

in exchange for a promise to love

themselves.

So begins understanding

what’s possible:

writ large,

magazine style,

by you.

I will love and revere you forever, my Mentor, my Friend, Herb.

Paula de la Cruz

I think of Herb as someone who understood everyone’s individuality without fail. He was a brilliant judge of character, which he put to great use in the social justice field. He is an oracle, and not just because he saw through a prism of great kindness, but also because he could build holograms in his mind of any problematic situation and arrive to the most complete solution, which of course he knew it was never perfect. He took the biggest bite out of life in the most spartan way. Herb defied three-dimensionality! How lucky we are to have him, still.