It is with incredible sorrow that I write to share the news that we lost Neil Smith in the early hours of this morning. He had been hospitalized on Wednesday afternoon with organ failures, and despite some moments of hope, could not greet another day with us. Words cannot describe this sudden tragedy. Neil was larger than life, brilliant, an inspiration and loved by so many.
I will provide the CPCP community with further updates as they are available. We invite you to share your thoughts below.
With deepest regrets and many tears, Padmini
Amid the grief I’m reminded how truly fortunate we are that there are people in this world like Neil. Truly blessed to have worked with and known him. RIP, brother.
Dear dear Neil,
I cannot believe that you are gone. The news has left me with great sadness. I remember your brilliance, your great warmth and humor and love of life, all our conversations about scale and poetry, about space and the measures of music that language can make in the search for social justice, way back when, the very first year of the Center.
With love and in memory
Meena
(From Parma, Italy)
A sad day for geography. We lost a brilliant man. Thank you, Neil, for being a wonderful teacher and inspiration to so many. Even though I didn’t know you very long you made a great impact on me. You will be sorely missed.
Kate
Ciao Neil, we do miss you lots and lots. Thanks for the distinguished and precious activities you carried out and the laughs we shared.
Goodbye from old europe
I miss you already Neil… I promess we will honor your memory in France. Thank you for everything.
RIP.
This is a terrible loss. I can’t imagine the path that I’ve taken without Neil’s inspiration – first of his brilliant and beautiful writing, then his kind and generous mentorship at CPCP. And I know there are hundreds like me. He helped to create a uniquely non-hierarchical space at the GC -and in the academy- for critique, humor,and the imagination of alternatives. He will be profoundly missed.
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Hello Neil Smith,
I don’t know what your illness is, but just wanted to say that your writings have been an inspiration to me for 10 years. I sincerely wish that you have a speedy and complete recovery.
With deepest sorrows from Barcelona and the Universitat Autònoma where you came several times and where you have very good friends. You were a very courageous critical geographer and an exceptional human being. Neil, we will really miss you a lot but your legacy remains with us
My heart literally aches at the news of your death.
I was so hoping for a belated happy childhood for you, Neil. So hoping your enthusiasms would be allowed to come out and play. You had such a big heart, bigger than that very big brain of yours. I miss you being here on earth with us. Please visit after you settle in.
Be at peace, you sweet, sweet man.
Kate
Neil Smith has been influential to my scholarly development. He is part of the reason why Im at CUNY. Wish i would’ve made sure I stopped by his office earlier this semester. He lives forever in his works. RIP.
Tragic news … Neil was one of the brightest, most innovative & politically committed, minds in our field. I was always remember him for his generous friendship – and the serious intellectual engagement with which he offered during the many long evenings we spent deep in conversation – beginning when I was just a graduate student (at another university). He was one of a very few people who truly impacted the way I think. He will be sorely missed.
oh Neil ! still in disbelief and so sad. thinking of you now – a revolutionary angel to watch over all of us who have learned much from you, you continue to fire us up with your passionate critical geography to move and shake the world and demand for justice. thank you for all you have given us. your generous bright spirit, fierce intellectual commitments and love live on and will continue to inspire generations to come.. thank you. we will miss you.
This news leaves me very sad. I met Neil 30 years ago when I was in my first or second year of graduate school. He invited me to work with him on a project on the gentrification of Harlem even though I wasn’t one of his students, and wasn’t at Columbia (his university at the time). I’ll always be grateful for this opportunity. He was an original. Brilliant, energetic, idealistic, funny, and friendly. i will miss him.
Estimado Neil,
Hoy llueve en Barcelona, sus calles echarán de menos tus risas, tu pasión y tu compromiso.
Hasta siempre compañero.
Xabier
Neil,
You are now gone but I had a dream two nights ago that time had passed and you were ok. Deb was there in the background and Lauren was with me too. You are ok now…somewhere.
I have never met anyone who has believed in me more then you did. You made me believe in myself, my ideas and my vision and like you did for so many others, you cultivated it and believed in it too. You are gone now and the GC, New York, and the world intellectual community will be affected by your loss (yes all the scales of influence you had) but you have inspired so many of us to be bigger, think harder and see life, nature, space, the world in general differently. Thank you for everything you gave me and I will be one of many who will continue legacy.
Love forever
Elizabeth
I am writing to you from Girona (Catalonia). Some years ago, Neil stayed with us at the University of Girona for two weeks, along with David Harvey, Cindy, John Paul, Geraldine,… We still remember those days. Neil: you will stay with us for ever. Girona, this medieval city you enjoyed so much, will always keep your smile.
With my/our warmest regards and solidarity,
Joan Nogué
Professor of Human Geography. University of Girona (Catalonia)
Neil,
What a tragedy for us all! You have been a giant of our field and beyond: Generous and towering intellect, passionate socialist, and a warm-hearted gadfly with whom every conversation left a lasting impression. I mourn your departure even as I cannot believe that someone with your spirit is no longer with us.
With regrets. A large community will miss you.
Dear Neil,
You were an amazing professor, one of the best I ever had.
I feel so lucky I had the opportunity of meeting you and hanging during OWS.
We will all miss you!
rest in peace
Neil,
We only met a couple of times, but you have always been a well-known and admired scholar for me and an inspiration for my students. We will miss you tremendously, but your publications and former students will continue to inspire.
Ray
mourning such a deep loss for so many and celebrating all you were and shared and ignited in others…thinking of how hard you worked and how openly you gave!
this is such sad news. neil was such an important part of what made
cuny such a significant political space for many of us. and he was always
warm and helpful. his work has been so useful to so many of us..
with much sadness,
preeti
I still had some things I wanted to talk about with you…saudades!
Neil,
you helped create a place for so many of us in critical and radical geography. Your generosity, intellect, and spirit will be sorely missed by all of us. I would say rest in peace, but I’m sure you will be making a ruckus, and rightly so, wherever you are! Lawrence
Dear Neil, my thinking would not have been possible without your surpassing scholarship. You will always be in proximity. Thank you for your felt thought and transgressions, for the arsenal of fighting ideas, for your warmth and unstinting generosity.
I am so deeply saddened to learn we lost Neil, just devastated. I was hoping to go see him today, but that wasn’t to be. Neil’s brilliance, sense of humor, capacity for fun, and great warmth infected us all. We will miss him so much, the Graduate Center & CPCP will be diminished and yet enriched forever by his intellectual and political and personal vibrance.
My heart goes out to you, Deb – how lucky Neil was to have you at his side til the end. You really are precious. Love, Ros
Rest in peace, Neil Smith. You will be dearly missed and your legacy will live on in the hearts of geographers and in the spirit of writing on Marxist thought.
My last image of Neil was his standing in the back of the auditorium in Berlin fully participating in the one event and poised to lend his voice to another shout out for change. Other images are pushing in my mind as like others I try to absorb this loss to all of us. Jackie
This is such a loss for all of us. Neil, your work will live on in words and your passion will live on in our hearts. Rest in Peace.
Neil was such an incredible person and mentor during my years as a graduate student. I was among the first group of fellows at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics. He created such a wonderful community asn was always so generous with his time and encouragement.I have remembered that time as my happiest in CUNY. This is such a terrible loss!
Neil will always be remebered for his personal qualities and his intellectual creativity and generosity. Thank you for sharing with us Neil!
Susana
It has been a privilege to be Neil’s friend for the last quarter century. He gave me ideas, fun and love, and leaves many mutual friends. Thanks kid.
This is heartbreaking. Neil had so much to give to others. He was generous to a fault. I miss him so.
Neil was, for me and so many, that first charismatic inspiration to think and act radical and have bawdy fun in the process. In Baltimore thirty years ago, he regularly dragged me from my guitar lessons at Peabody Conservatory up Charles Street, just by force of personality. And while putting finishing touches on his doctoral masterpiece, he still hosted unforgettable teach-ins and political meetings, slowly but surely teaching me and the most open-minded Hopkins students a profound version of historical geographical materialism, bottom-up, with revolutionary ambition and unstinting rigour. No greater initial mentor and life-long inspiration! Many of us here in South Africa are utterly indebted to his scale-jumping crits of uneven development and no one will do it as well and with such gusto and eloquence as did Neil. His 1995 visit to this region is still talked about. And his memory, influence, comradeship will keep visiting.
oh my god this is awful
his contributions in writing and practice were so important
he will be sorely missed but we mustn’t let his contributions be forgotten
Such a terrible tragedy! It’s a great loss to radical scholarship and progressive movements all over the world. RIP, Neil.
Neil personifies everything I treasure about intellectual life in our time. I was so glad to come to the Graduate Center as his friend, and shall miss terribly his warmth, comradship, and persistent, independent critique.
As I’m sure everyone is, I’m feeling shocked by Neil’s sudden death.
Neil was my intellectual lodestar for many years at CUNY. When I first arrived, he welcomed me into the vibrant intellectual life of the Center for Place, Culture, and Politics. He demonstrated what it was to be a politically engaged, radical intellectual. Most of all, he modeled the qualities of humor, compassion, and fiery intelligence that make life worth living.
This is devastating — I will miss running into you and laughing hysterically. I also appreciate how you always supported activist scholars!! Rest in peace dear friend. Here is a cut and paste Tom Leonard poem that makes me think of you. xo
Being a Human Being
(for Mordechai Vanunu)
not to be complicit
not to accept everyone else is silent it must be alright
not to keep one’s mouth shut to hold onto one’s job
not to accept public language as cover and decoy
not to put friends and family before the rest of the world
not to say I am wrong when you know the government is wrong
not to be just a bought behaviour pattern
to accept the moment and fact of choice
I am a human being
and I exist
a human being
and a citizen of the world
responsible to that world
—and responsible for that world
You will be missed. Thanks for always having time to chat, provide guidance and inspiration.
Neil was an extraordinary human being and an extraordinary intellectual. I was never very close to him in personal terms, but our paths would cross from time and time, and I would always come away from these brief encounters with an incredible sense of Neils’ life-affirming warmth. Geography has lost one of its most brilliant practitioners.
Can’t really absorb this news. Neil was my Ph.D. advisor and a good friend. This is a terrible loss for his family and everyone who knew him. I am so sorry Neil is no longer with us.
Dear Neil, I remember my first semester your discussion of geography as a once-moribund field. You lit it afire. Your insistence, passion, and deep commitment will be missed. So will your warmth, wit, kindness and occasional mention of bird-watching.
Babette
Brilliant, generous, insubordinate, loving, just. Revolutionary qualities. Neil’s. Impossible to imagine we’ll never have another drink or embrace. Crushing.
Dear Neil,
Such amazing writing. You changed our world.
The struggle continues, in your memory.
Charity
Sorrows from Brazil. We all here are sad with this news. Neil is a great mind that inspire us in our struggle to produce a geography focused in social moviments, democracy and liberty.
Certainly his work will guide many generations of dreamers.
See you later Neil!
This is an unexpected, terrible, and painful loss. Neil was a great mentor and he was extraordinarily nice to me both when he came to Barcelona to conduct a seminar and during my stay in NY. I will never forget the day I landed at the CUNY Graduate Center, knowing barely anyone, how he welcomed and showed me around, making me feel like at home with amazing ease. Today there is a great absence in the Graduate Center’s corridors and in the social sciences, but the intellectual avenues Neil opened for us will be an enduring legacy that we must continue to explore.
Dear Neil,
We will miss you so much.
T
With shock I’ve just learned this morning the sad news. Neil Smith’s work on gentrification was an eye opener for me. He had much more work to do and has been taken too suddenly and too soon. My condolences to Neil’s family and many friends.