Tom Goodkind

Tom Goodkind, a longtime fixture on the New York City music scene, best known as the co-founder of The Washington Squares folk revival group, died Thursday (Feb. 28, 2019) in the city after a long battle with a chronic degenerative illness. He was 65. A longtime resident of Gateway Plaza, in Battery Park City, Mr. Goodkind also served for decades on Community Board 1 (CB1), where he was a persistent, passionate advocate for housing affordability, and booster of local public schools. In service of each cause he cared about, Mr. Goodkind became known both for dogged perseverance and impish wit. An accountant by training, Mr. Goodkind served for years in executive leadership positions at large financial services and real estate organizations, such as the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America(where he oversaw that retirement fund’s property investments) and the Rosen Group, a real estate development and management consortium specializing in shopping centers and office buildings. But his true passions were music and Lower Manhattan. In recent years, Mr. Goodkind had become a familiar sight to local residents, in his red-and-white drum major’s uniform, conducting outdoor concerts of the TriBattery Pops, the community band he founded in 2004. In an indicator of the impresario’s wide and eclectic circle of friendships, the band’s logo was designed by comic book demigod Stan Lee, who was a neighbor in Mr. Goodkind’s youth. (He also counted as friends Allen Ginsberg, Billy Crystal, Abbie Hoffman, and Robert Duvall.)