Name: Tracy Adler
E-mail address: tadler [at] hunter [dot] cuny [dot] edu
Location: New York City

Comment (Mon Jan 22, 2007):
Oliver and I lost touch in the past couple of years so I was surprised and deeply saddened when I
heard of his passing. I always assumed that we would see each other and reconnect in the usual New
York way. Oliver was one of those people who every time you talked with him, you found out something
completely new about him. He had a million lives and was so knowledgable about so many things. When
I first met Oliver, I was working at the Jewish Museum and Oliver and I clicked right away. He was
someone you could count on to do the job right, with affability, calm and humor. He really was a
great guy. You could ask him a question about anything art-related and be sure to get an
intelligent, informed answer. He and Marcia came to my wedding 4 years ago and they were welcome
guests. What an amazing guy and what a life...

Name: Thomas Dunham
E-mail address: kdunham [at] milchev [dot] com
Location: Bethesda, Maryland

Comment (Mon Jan 22, 2007):
I had the good fortune to be Ollie’s best friend in high school. His worldly attributes were
already on display. His Versailles birth and French qualities were evident to the girls in school.
He was almost cherubic.

We drowned our fears and anxieties by downing several Ballantine ales, and jumping on his red motor
scooter to ride around Bethesda, singing “She was just seventeen, you know what I mean . . . . “ (or
any other Beatles song).

His songwriting and singing materialized with innumerable, hysterical versions of current songs,
some a bit rowdy. His painting of a Spanish warrior hung in a hall in his house. This was the
genesis of a young Renaissance man in pre-Vietnam Era days.

The most representative of our activities was going together to see the Beatles first-ever concert
in the U.S. at the Washington Coliseum on the snowy day of February 11, 1964.

The world needs more people like Oliver Hirsch.

Love,
Tommy Dunham

Name: Bob Holman
E-mail address: holman [at] bowerypoetry [dot] com
Location:

Comment (Sun Jan 21, 2007):
OV, oy vey.

Oh the songs cut sharp edges with their gentle pushes, tempered anger, bluegrass politico calm and
dandy.

Annie, who carries it on, and to the rest of the family, solace and condolence -- here was a man,
solid and yielding. The figure of Outward, old Friend.

Name: Drucie Ramey
E-mail address: dstender77 [at] aol [dot] com
Location: New York

Comment (Sun Jan 21, 2007):
Oliver (or "Ollie", as he was known as king of the playground in the sixth grade at
Bradley Elementary in Bethesda, Maryland, and king of the dance floor for many years thereafter) is
so entwined with my new life in New York City(after 35 years in San Francisco) that it is simply
inconceivable that he won't be sitting there with me at Seven on 7th Avenue, black coffee in
place, slouched back with that perfect Herschian insouciance in one of those ridiculous chairs,
smiling that enigmatic and knowing smile, sharply cynical about all things political but
heartbreakingly loving, tolerant and kind when it came to friends and his infinitely beloved and
magnificent daughters, grandchildren, brothers and wife, Marcia the Beautiful (in all senses of the
word), all of whom he loved above rubies.

As Marcia has aptly observed, Oliver and I constantly gossipped and shared occupational
annoyances and personal heartaches like two best girlfriends (perhaps the highest badge of honor
women can confer on a guy)--from his transcendent occupational triumphs and my latest fundraising
coups to our mothers' deaths and, in the past year, the depredations of the cruel disease he
fought with every fiber of his being.

In reminiscing this week with one of Oliver's myriad fans, Sandra Levinson of the Center
for Cuban Studies, I qvelled as she spoke of how she had shared with him her plan to produce a TV
show called "Just Ask Oliver", where people would bring in their unframed jewel of a
painting or historic manuscript and learn the optimal way to preserve and exhibit its inner as well
as outer beauty. In her (widely shared) view, there was nothing that Oliver didn't know about
such things, and, as the consummate teacher, nothing in the way of information that he couldn't
impart to a hungry world.

But I believe my absolute favorite memory of Oliver is of his seraphic smile as the City Clerk
declared him and Marcia husband and wife--captured, tellingly, by the only extant Polaroid camera
in the City of New York--a mainstay of my technological arsenal.

In thinking about all this, I guess the only way I can bear to look at this uncomprehensible
loss is to focus on how lucky I and my family were to have shared the planet with this remarkable
man.

With all my love, Drucie

Name: Pamela Davis
E-mail address: iampam [at] hotmail [dot] com
Location: New York

Comment (Sat Jan 20, 2007):
Oliver was an admirable, likable, intelligent man. I feel honored to have him as a part of my
family tree. At this time it is important to balance the feeling of how much he will be missed with
the knowledge that his memory will be treasured. This website is a wonderful tribute, fitting an
outstanding man who touched so many lives.