Sad news this holiday as Real Estate Weekly is reporting that industry icon Stephen B. Jacobs has passed away last week at the age of 82. 

Jacobs was a Holocaust survivor who went on to become one of New York’s most influential architects.

Born in Lodz in June of 1939, Jacobs was interned at Buchenwald and credited an underground resistance group with his survival. 

“I have fleeting memories,” Jacobs said of his experience. “I have memories that are not chronological, particularly the last few weeks because that was a very traumatic and dangerous time because they were trying to liquidate the camp.”

After being liberated, Jacobs moved with his family to Washington Heights in Manhattan, where he went on to study at the Art Students League of New York before eventually enrolling at the Pratt Institute, where he earned his Master’s degree in Architecture in 1965. 

Jacobs enjoyed an illustrious and multifaceted career which began in the offices of Whittlesey, Conklin and Rossant and was extended when he founded his own eponymous practice in 1967.

Jacobs' firm is credited with the transformation of many of the city's neighborhoods including Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. He was a genius of adaptive reuse whose long list of projects included the influential renovation of the Gansevoort Hotel and came full circle last year when he completed a design for a memorial to the many Albanians who aided in their country’s incredible effort to rescue Jewish families from Nazi hands.

“I thought this was a very important story that needed to be told,” Jacobs told the Times of Israel. “This is not simply about designing. This is sort of a personal experience.”