Michael Mostoller

Michael Mostoller was an architect, professor, writer, and artist. Through his work, his teaching, and his private life as a partner, parent, and grandparent, he touched countless lives, always putting the needs of others above his own. He departed this life in the presence of his family on Sunday, April 2 from sudden complications from pneumonia after a 9-year long battle with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Born George Michael to George and Violet Mostoller in 1938 in Somerset, Pa., he was a descendant from a line of 18th Century English and German immigrants to western Pennsylvania, many of whom became rooted in the Pennsylvania Dutch traditions.

Michael dedicated his life to quality, character, and economy in architecture of the dwelling and the city. A leader in urban housing since 1965, with a particular focus on serving low-income, homeless families, and single individuals, his architectural work in this area included Karin Court, the campgrounds arrangement of housing for the Princeton Housing Authority, Trent House Park, townhouses and apartments in Trenton, the expansion of graduate housing for the Lawrence Apartments at Princeton University, and a synagogue in a historic neighborhood in Montclair, N.J.

Michael received a 1985 New York City AIA Design Award for his study of designs for SRO Rooms and Furniture, a NJ AIA Design Award for Amandla Crossing, a transitional residence for homeless families, and an award for Excellence in Downtown Development in 1990 for Cityside, family housing in renovated structures in Trenton. Amandla II, permanent housing for homeless women with children, won a NYC AIA Design Award in 1995.

A 1960 graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Michael was in the ROTC and as a Navy midshipman, he trained on the USS Wisconsin. As member of the engineering corps, stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, he rose to rank of Lieutenant in the US Naval Reserve. Michael went on to receive his graduate degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

For the past 30 years, Michael Mostoller was a professor of architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and a past director of its undergraduate program. He was a devoted teacher and mentor to students and young faculty. He taught history, housing, and design and won two University Excellence in Teaching awards, was named Distinguished Professor of Architecture in 1995, and named a Master Teacher in 2005. Before joining the faculty of the newly forming school of architecture at NJIT in 1975, he was a professor at Rensselaer, Harvard, Yale, and Columbia.

His scholarship and research focused on residential design, affordable housing, and housing the homeless, and his work influenced professional design, code reform, and community and political awareness. He authored and edited many publications including a history of housing design in the United States. His drawings have been published in Progressive Architecture, Inland Architect, New Jersey Architect, Skyline, Express, and the New York Times. His artwork has been exhibited at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Cooper Union, Columbia University, and locally at the offices of Hill Wallack and the gallery at Bristol Myers Squibb. In May 1994, he was invested into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects for his work in education, scholarship, research, and practice.

Actively engaged in local civic issues, Michael was elected to two terms on the Princeton Regional School Board, serving as president his last two years. He was a founding member of Princeton Future where, as co-chair of the design committee, co-led a study of the Witherspoon Street Corridor and the design process to create Hinds Plaza. It was during this civic engagement that he met a new colleague and a future partner, Yina Moore.

To Michael, a life well lived was one of work, action, and good deeds, making a difference in other’s lives. Michael loved his NJIT family of colleagues and students. He was pre-deceased by his parents and brother, Mark; and leaves to mourn a large loving family including wife, Yina, children George, Margaret, Charles, David, Jesse, and stepdaughter, Gisela, his grandchildren Edward, Jackson, and Franklin; and his extensive relatives from his birthplace, Somerset, Pa.

Michael’s life will be celebrated in a memorial service on Thursday, April 6 at 10 a.m. at the Universalist Unitarian Congregation of Princeton at 50 Cherry Hill Rd. in Princeton.

Arrangements are under the direction of Mather-Hodge Funeral Home.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to the “Foundation at New Jersey Institute of Technology” with specific notation to the “G. Michael Mostoller, FAIA Scholarship”, and mailed directly to the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Office of University Advancement, 323 Martin Luther King Boulevard, Newark, New Jersey 07102.

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James Elison

James Elison passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family, his closest childhood friend, his books, and his beloved piano music on March 21, 2017. He was 73 years old. James was a loving father and grandfather who was very devoted to his children, a gentle giant who had a kind smile and a mischievous glint in his eye for family and friends.

He was a banking executive by profession and spent decades commuting to Manhattan for work, but his true loves were music and history. He was a talented, classically trained pianist who could play a piece by ear after hearing it once and then create his own variations. His home often resonated with Chopin’s Polonaises and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, among many others. He was never without a book in hand and was a knowledgeable historian as well as a brilliant tactician who rarely lost a chess match.

James is survived by his two daughters, Jasmine and Victoria Elison, and his grand-daughters Chiara and Ariana Bazan. His melodies will linger on in the hearts of those who loved him.

A memorial service will be held in his honor at the Mather Hodge Funeral Home in Princeton, NJ on Saturday, April 15, 2017 at 1 p.m.

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Peter R. Weale

Peter R. Weale, 66, of Princeton passed away on March 25, 2017. He was born in Addison, N.Y., the son of Durland and Martha Weale. He received his BS in agricultural life sciences from Cornell University in 1972. Upon graduation, he served in the United States Marine Corps (’72) as 1st Lieutenant and went on to receive his MBA from Cornell University in 1976.

Mr. Weale was a father, educator, entrepreneur who enjoyed challenging the status quo. In his 33 years residing in the Princeton/West Windsor area, his commitment to the community resulted in years of involvement with the school district and community organizations like West Windsor Little League, well after his children were able to reap the benefits of his efforts to improve the community for everyone. An avid collector of antiques, he had an affinity for collecting antique furniture, cars, bars, and pretty much anything that was older than he. Residents of West Windsor and Princeton Junction fondly recall memories of Peter driving his Ford Model T Pickup with a lawn mower as he took the initiative to mow and maintain areas such as the Penns Neck Circle, not only for aesthetics but for the safety of complete strangers.

His humor and wit are survived by his two children; Daughter, Jessica (30) of Miami Beach; and son, Zachary (27) of Hoboken. He also leaves a sister, Alice (68); and his father, Durland (94, Cornell Class of ‘44) of Addison, N.Y. In lieu of funeral services, the family will be holding a celebration of life at the family home in Princeton Junction on Good Friday, April 14, from 4-8 p.m.

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Donald Kitchell Conover

Don Conover passed away on Tuesday, March 28th near his home of 30 years in Newtown, Pennsylvania. He was 85 years old. He went peacefully and in gratitude for a full life, knowing he was loved deeply by friends and family alike, and in the arms of Patti Kohlmayer Conover, his wife and true love.

Born on July 25th, 1931, in Brooklyn, N.Y., Don was the son of Earl, head of the math department at Poly Preparatory Academy, and Hazel, a homemaker who had once worked in the secretarial pool for Thomas Edison. He is pre-deceased by his older sister, Patricia Lott, and survived by his younger sister, Sally Andersen. He is also survived by his two sons, Malcolm and Paul, and Paul’s two children, Catherine and Matthew.

Most who knew him would describe Don as distinctly “old school.” Like so many from the so-called “greatest generation,” he had a sense of decency and humility, and a commitment to positive contribution that, to him, was more important than the accolades that came along with his accomplishments. In describing his own childhood, rather than focus on the privations of the depression or the war, he’d speak of his good fortune — subway trips with his father to visit the World’s Fair, visits to an uncle’s farm or, later, a simple beach house on the Jersey shore, attending Poly Prep on a scholarship, and spending idyllic summers at Camp Hawthorne in Maine. Writing about his life, Don described himself simply as “a very lucky boy, growing up in the warm embrace of family, friends, school, and church.”

Don graduated from Princeton University in 1953 with a Bachelor’s Degree in engineering. Later, in 1964 and 1965, he attended MIT where he was awarded a Sloan Fellowship and earned a Master of Science degree in industrial management. For most of his career, Don was in the Bell system, first with Western Electric and then with AT&T. He served on the management team of several factories, including the famous Hawthorne Works in Chicago where he directed engineering and manufacturing of electro-mechanical switching equipment for the telephone network. He became Western Electric’s director of corporate planning, a post he held for nearly ten years, and ultimately held the position of vice president of corporate education for AT&T, running the Corporate Education Center in Princeton, New Jersey, and heading up business education worldwide.

Like his maternal grandfather, Don was a “Telephone Pioneer” and took great pride in having helped to build something of fundamental value in our society. But, especially after the breakup of the Bell system, he worried about the erosion of loyalty between employers, customers, and employees. In time, he came to evaluate decisions against a deceptively simple mantra: “Choose actions that shorten response time and which increase trust.” The idea of shortening response time, and providing excellence in the customer’s terms, is easy to understand in today’s hyper-competitive world. The idea of increasing trust is perhaps more subtle. As organizational relationships are less defined by hierarchy or chain of command, what is the glue that can hold us together? For Don, that glue was an active effort to build trust and human caring across the organization. Modern thinking for an old school guy!

Don could also be considered ahead of his time in quietly rejecting the prevailing model of “the organization man,” a model suggesting that one could and should give all to the company and, in turn, could expect near complete fulfillment in that role. He was deeply satisfied in his professional life, but he also understood the importance of a balanced life.

For Don, that balance certainly included “giving back.” For years, he was an active member of the Princeton Chamber of Commerce and the Princeton Rotary Club, serving as president for a term with each organization. He was a member or officer of the Board Advisory Group of the Girl Scouts, the Business Advisory Council of Manhattan College, the World Future Society, the Academy of Management, the American Society of Training and Development, and the Board of Directors for the Thomas Edison State College Foundation. After a long absence from any church, he came to St. Andrew’s in Yardley, Pa., where he was a devoted member for nearly 20 years.

His idea of balance included a quiet passion for so many things! He built and flew kites and model planes with his boys, read thrilling poems and stories aloud to them, painted perhaps a hundred worthy canvasses, wrote stories and essays and reflections. Don stayed in deep touch, over great distance and time, with many, many dear friends. He joined discussion clubs and he respectfully sought out those who might think differently. He had a nearly lifelong obsession with Spain in general and the pageant of bullfighting in particular, becoming an officer in at least three taurine fan clubs. He worked out at the Newtown Athletic Club for decades. He was a tireless builder of sand castles with his grandchildren. He loved to snorkel. Even when he had turned frail, his grandchildren noticed how he would come alive with power, grace, and fascination when underwater. He did his best, with his dear Patti, to travel every corner of the world. As long as they were together, it probably didn’t matter all that much, but Don was always planning a trip to somewhere new, and a return to this or that “favorite” place.

In this and every favorite place, we will miss him.

A celebration of Don’s life will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, April 22, at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 47 W. Afton Ave. in Yardley, Pa. 19067.