Gordon Greenfield, 89, Industrialist and Lover of Music

Gordon Kraus Greenfield, a self-made industrialist and a self-taught music lover who shaped institutions ranging from department stores to music schools, died Friday at his home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. He was 89.Greenfield’s life as a leader started during World War II, when he served as a lieutenant commander on the USS Ludlow in the North Atlantic and later survived losing a ship in battle off the coast of Senegal in 1942.After the war, rather than return to the Washington Star newspaper, where he had worked briefly before volunteering to serve, Greenfield entered the business world. He rose quickly to executive rank, heading a company that included the old-fashioned department stores Franklin Simon and Oppenheim Collins. Running that eclectic business enabled him to acquire a miscellaneous skill set that took him to a varied series of executive positions until he retired.From retail, Greenfield moved to the helm of the America Corporation, a diversified holding company. There, as president, he supervised the processing of film for television at New York City, the construction of movable steel partitions at Virginia, the printing of greeting cards at Ohio, and the production of natural gas at Texas.Greenfield next tackled real estate and freight as president of the Franchard Corporation, and in 1965 he took the position he would hold until he retired in 2000: chairman and president of Autocue Holdings, a producer of services and products for broadcast and media.If Greenfield hadn’t made his mark conducting business, he would have wanted to do the same for symphonies, another avocation for which he had no formal training, according to his daughter Faith Lewis. Greenfield never studied an instrument, even as a child, but his mother was an avid amateur singer who cultivated his taste for music by toting him along to the opera starting when he was only 7. That passion for opera impelled Greenfield to put his business and leadership skills at the service of the classically trained musicians he revered. He took particular pleasure in nurturing the careers of young singers by financing scholarships through such organizations as the Opera Orchestra of New York and Young Concert Artists, another daughter, Hope Greenfield, said yesterday.But the Manhattan School of Music, which named one of its major concert halls after him, was Greenfield’s special joy. He served on its board for 29 years – as chairman for 13 of them – and during that time the school introduced several curricular innovations that were a testament to Greenfield’s refined appreciation for music, according to the school’s vice president, Richard Elder Adams. In 1982, the school became one of the first on the East Coast to offer a master’s degree in accompanying; shortly thereafter it launched a major in jazz, and in 1991, under Greenfield’s leadership, it created the first graduate program in orchestral performance.Even retirement and the move to Florida couldn’t induce Greenfield, who was a trustee emeritus when he died, to sever his ties with the Manhattan School of Music. He spent the bulk of his leisure years enjoying the Southern sun in the company of his dog, Ronnie, named for Ronald Reagan. But he braved the city’s more extreme weather whenever one of the opera companies mounted a specific production he couldn’t resist, which was often.A graduate of the Lawrenceville School and Princeton University, Greenfield ended his formal education with his college graduation, but he nonetheless proudly displayed one degree on the wall of his study: the honorary doctorate granted him in 1994 by the Manhattan School of Music.Gordon Kraus GreenfieldBorn June 16, 1915, at Philadelphia; died January 7 at Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., after a short illness. Survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Harriet Copelin Greenfield; his children, Gordon K. Greenfield Jr., Hope Greenfield, James Greenfield, Faith Lewis, and Juliet Six; and seven grandchildren. His sister, Elizabeth Zeidman, and his brother, Albert M. Greenfield Jr., also survive him. The Manhattan School of Music will hold a memorial service for Mr. Greenfield on February 6 in the hall that bears his name.

Gordon Greenfield, 89, Industrialist and Lover of Music

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