Syd’s Memories Are Made of This

The cover was lifted, slightly, undramatically, this afternoon on Syd Kronenthal’s most precious secret, fittingly at the outset of his funeral service at Hillside Memorial Park. Dana Jean Ginsberg, Uncle Syd’s niece, revealed that he was born Dec. 27, 1922.

This means that every guesser was wrong about the age of the 92-year-old former director of the Culver City Parks and Recreation Dept., whose work ethic was a model for every City Hall employee hired after 1946.

Fifty-two of his 92 years were invested as the best known non-studio worker in the history of Culver City.

Belatedly we learn that Uncle Syd was 76 years old when he retired in 1998, 24 when he was hired in 1946, 70 when he was singularly honored in 1992 as the name of McManus Park was changed to Syd Kronenthal Park. He had a good run in retirement, 16 years, the last five under close care.

The Way He Was

The quietly generous bachelor, who never seemed to age, was brilliantly eulogized, anecdotally, this afternoon by two enduring Culver City personalities who knew Uncle Syd intimately. Paul Jacobs served a record-tying 16 years on the City Council. Mike Cohen, himself known best as Mr. Culver City, worked under Uncle Syd for 20 years in Parks and Recreation. Mr. Cohen wanted the largely aged crowd of Kronenthal cronies and friends to know that while Uncle Syd is remembered for building a city throbbing with green space parks, while he is credited with pushing for the building of the Vets Auditorium among other facilities, his central interest was the people who inhabited the facilities, not the inanimate objects themselves.

“He convinced the City Council (in the early 1950s) to pass the bond money to finance what is now the Vets Auditorium,” Mr. Jacobs said.

“We lost an icon on Sunday. There is so much to be said about him and so little time.”

He was a man of and for people, both Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Cohen agreed.

Mr. Jacobs first met Uncle Syd in 1973 when he was selected for the Planning Commission. Their friendship blossomed three years later Mr. Jacobs was voted onto the City Council. “That was when I came to know Syd very well,” Mr. Jacobs said.

“I had an opportunity to work with many people – engineers, developers, administrators, architects. But I never worked with a man who was so intense and passionate about his work. It was incredible.

“The organizational chart said Syd worked for me,” Mr. Jacobs said. “There was no doubt though that I was working for Syd.”

Mr. Cohen reeled off dandy one-liners about his old boss, who did not accept a backseat as a timeless orator.

“One time Syd told us he was 60 years old. We just didn’t know when.

“He could write and he could talk,” Mr. Cohen said. “Syd needed no introduction. He needed a conclusion.

All Gone?

“Sometimes he would look at me and say, ‘Mike, you had so much potential.’

“Council members not only looked at their watches when Syd was speaking. They shook them.”

Another side of Syd Kronenthal:

“He was ambivalent about having outlived so many of His contemporaries,” Mr. Cohen said. “Syd was keenly aware of his mortality. I would often hear him from his corner office, answering a question on the telephone, ‘I am great, considering the alternative.’”

He grew fidgety at his wedding, said Mr. Cohen. At great length, Uncle Syd “had identified only half the people in the audience when the best man spoke up and said the bride and groom had a flight to catch in two hours.”

On a bachelorian note, “Syd was seen everywhere with a woman, except at the altar. His wallet was full of near-Mrs.”