I knew Lionel a little differently than most of you. I met him around 1974 through a neighbor of his on Warren St. in Brooklyn - Nils Bruner. Nils' son Roland and I used to come in from Great Neck and spend weekends visiting all the people renovating their brownstones on the block. Lionel was one of them. This was before Brooklyn regained its cachet, and these weren't the noveau riche gentrifying the neighborhood. For two teens from the burbs that isolated block between Bond and Nevins was as amazing and surreal a place as imaginable.

I ended up spending 2-3 years of weekends, holidays and summers helping Lionel renovate his building. At night we'd walk his super-shy Samoyed "Blue" around the neighborhood, get McDonalds or soemthing e;se from the Bodega, and listen to casettes or reel tape of his shows on WNYC. He kept gallons of water in the fridge and drove a beat up old VW station wagon. He was truly kind and generous, though he wasn't meant to be a property owner.

It hurt when people took advantage of him, but he was part of the neighborhood, and it was a real island of civility in a then still reeling borough. I'm sorry to have heard of his passing.