Longtime Riverdalian Doris Glickstein dies at age 91

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On Feb. 20, longtime Riverdalian Doris Glickstein died at her home on Henry Hudson Parkway at the age of 91.

Born in the University Heights area, Ms. Glickstein lived in Riverdale for over 45 years, where she started a market research company called Research Associates in 1975. The firm specialized in focus groups for new advertising campaigns and products. It was her business until she retired in her late 70s.

Her daughter, Janis Barth, described her as an entrepreneur.

“She was a modern woman before the concept that women could be wives, mothers and business professionals,” Ms. Barth said. “She was all of that long before it became the way things are in society.”

Ms. Glickstein was an avid reader and a member of the Linden House Book Club, based in her apartment building at 301 Henry Hudson Parkway. In her youth, she was an active member of the reform movement and the Bronx Democratic Party, working on various political campaigns.

She was fond of travel, with cruises being her preferred form of transportation. She visited the Caribbean a number of times and traveled through Europe to locales including England, France and Russia. For her 90th birthday, her family took her on a cruise to Canada.

“She made friends wherever she went,” Ms. Barth said.

Throughout her travels, Ms. Glickstein acquired a vast collection of owls. Friends and family would bring her back owl figurines as souvenirs when they returned from their own travels.

Ms. Barth said her mother had a knack for getting her own way. When Ms. Glickstein was well into her 70s, the family was traveling across the Atlantic to London from JFK International Airport. At the Virgin Atlantic ticket center, airport employees told her they had put her in a middle seat. Ms. Glickstein found this unacceptable, arguing that she could not sit in a middle seat for seven hours going across the Atlantic.

“They said, ‘We’re sorry, Mrs. Glicksten, the flight is full… there’s nothing we can do about it unless someone wants to trade with you,’” Ms. Barth recalled.

“In that case, I will stand all the way to London,” Ms. Glickstein responded.

The woman behind the counter promptly upgraded Ms. Glickstein to first class.

Ms. Glickstein loved chocolate, shoes and a good vodka Collins. She met her husband Samuel Glickstein at a wedding before World War II, when she was working as a bookkeeper in Manhattan.

Their courtship lasted through the war, and when Mr. Glickstein returned from overseas, they married in the Bronx on Oct. 13, 1945.

“She loved life,” said Ms. Barth. “She had a good time wherever she went.”

Ms. Glickstein is predeceased by her husband. She is survived by her daughter Janis K. Barth and Ms. Barth’s husband Peter of Cazenovia, N.Y., a granddaughter, Emma Mangano and her husband Valerio as well as one great grandchild, Isabella Mangano. Ms. Glickstein was buried at Cedar Park Cemetery in Emerson, New Jersey.

Her family asks that donations in memory of Ms. Glickstein be made to readers’ local hospices.

Obituaries, Doris Glickstein, Janis Barth, University Heights, Linden House Book Club

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