Gruzen

Jordan Gruzen devoted himself to urban architecture in and around New York City. He died on Jan. 27 from cancer. He was 80. In the early 1960s, Gruzen and his college classmate Peter Samton joined Kelly & Gruzen, founded by Gruzen's father in 1936. Gruzen and Samton became partners in 1967. In 2009, Gruzen Samton merged with the nearly 2,800-person IBI Group and is now known as IBI Group-Gruzen Samton. The 50-person New York City office has a portfolio that includes schools, colleges, dormitories, courthouses, transportation terminals, residential complexes, facilities for the elderly and synagogues. Gruzen's New York City work includes residential high-rises at Battery Park City, Stuyvesant High School and the master plan for Long Island University's 22-acre health sciences complex in Brooklyn. "He was the optimist; I was the pessimist," says Samton. "Good architectural firms need both."