Community icon Joyce Pilsner dies

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Joyce Pilsner, a longtime leader at the Riverdale Mental Health Association (RMHA) and Community Board (CB) 8, died on April 14. She was 91.

During her 35 years as executive director of RMHA, she helped the organization grow to become a city leader in providing services to people with mental health and other challenges. As chairwoman of CB 8 in the 1990s, she played a key role in the board’s major effort to protect the character of the neighborhood through rezoning. 

Robert Brewster, the current executive director of RMHA, remembered Ms. Pilsner as an “indefatigable” worker and source of inspiration to many.

“She was just a dynamo. She knew everybody,” he said, adding that Ms. Pilsner took an interest in the lives and families of staff members. “She was just a huge advocate for mental health in this community and throughout the city.”

Ms. Pilsner became the head of RMHA in 1971, helping grow the budget to some $5 million a year by the time she stepped down as director in 2006, according to Mr. Brewster. She also launched initiatives including an effort to help elderly residents remain in their homes — part of RMHA’s emphasis on preventive mental health care. Ms. Pilsner remained at the association as a project director until 2011.

She also was a leader on the city’s Coalition of Behavioral Health Agencies, regularly lobbying in Albany and City Hall.

“If all politics is local, Joyce lived on every street in the Bronx,” said Mr. Brewster.

While devoting herself to mental health care, Ms. Pilsner also took a leadership role at CB 8. She became a board member in 1976 and served as chairwoman from 1993 to 1995, vice chairwoman from 1996 to 2006 and then secretary from 2007 until last year. She continued to serve as a regular board member until she passed away.

“She cared a lot about people and she certainly cared about the community a lot,” said Dan Padernacht, the current chairman of CB 8. “She had a lot to do with the shaping of land use issues within CB 8.”

He said she was a driving force in the creation of the 197a plan, the document that made protections to northwest Bronx neighborhoods a part of city law in the late 1990s. Over the course of several years, Ms. Pilsner helped obtain funds to commission the plan, found contractors to perform studies and worked with them.

Mr. Padernacht said Ms. Pilsner “found happiness in helping other people.”

“She was very engaging in both issues and always curious to know how I was doing personally,” he added.

Born on January 30, 1925, Ms. Pilsner grew up in the Bronx and was an academic prodigy at a time when higher education was hard to access for women. She graduated from Hunter High School at age 15 and from Hunter College when she was 19, going on to earn a master of arts degree from Columbia University and a certificate in business management from Columbia Business School.

She married the late Harry Pilsner in 1947, and after a stay in Washington Heights, the couple moved with their only child Toby Pilsner to Riverdale. Following a career as a high school science teacher, and then assistant to a dean at Sarah Lawrence College, Ms. Pilsner shifted the focus of her energy to the Riverdale community.

“My mother was out frequently at night at various meetings and, you know, a lot of husbands would have complained,” said Toby Pilsner. “My father was very supportive of her and very proud of her accomplishments.”

While working at RMHA, Ms. Pilsner helped found Riverdale Senior Services and provided guidance to other leaders throughout the community. She earned numerous awards, with Toby Pislner noting that her mother was “particularly proud” of being named Riverdalian of the Year by the Riverdale Community Council in 1997.

Toby Pilsner said that when she was growing up, other children came to view Joyce Pilsner as a mother figure.

She added, “My whole life I was known as Joyce’s daughter, which when I was little annoyed me, but I just couldn’t be prouder to be thought of that way.”

Joyce Pilsner is survived by her daughter Toby Pilsner, grandchildren Ariel, 24, and Haley, 20, sister Rhoda Stephens and niece Amy Buessen and nephew Scott Stephens.

A funeral service was held at Plaza Jewish Community Chapel in Manhattan on Sunday. Toby Pilsner said donations may be made in her mother’s memory to the Riverdale Mental Health Association.

Joyce Pilsner, Riverdale Mental Health Association, CB 8, Robert Brewster, Dan Padernacht, Toby Pilsner