Famed Physicist Richard Garwin Passes Away at 97 in Scarsdale

Perhaps Scarsdale’s most renown resident passed away quietly at his home at Christie Place on May 13, 2025. Richard Garwin, who worked on the first atomic bomb and created the breakthrough mechanism for the more powerful hydrogen bomb -- along with  many more pioneering discoveries, died at the age of 97. He was a Scarsdale resident for 64 years and raised three children here. He and his wife Lois lived in Greenacres on Ridgecrest East until 2010 when they moved to the apartments on Christie Place. While living in Scarsdale Lois worked as a substitute teacher in the Scarsdale elementary schools and volunteered for the Alzheimer's Association in White Plains.  She passed away in 2018 and he is survived by three children, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

To get some idea of the breadth of his accomplishments, here are remarks made by Scarsdale Mayor Jon Mark on December 13, 2016 when Garwin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama:

“On November 22, 2016, President Barack Obama presented Dr. Richard Garwin with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Dr. Garwin is a long-time resident of the Village. In making that award, the President noted that Dr. Garwin is a polymath physicist who earned a Ph.D. under Enrico Fermi at age 21 and subsequently made pioneering contributions to U.S. defense and intelligence technologies, low-temperature and nuclear physics, detection of gravitational radiation, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computer systems, laser printing, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. He directed Applied Research at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center and taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and Harvard University. The author of 500 technical papers and a winner of the National Medal of Science, Dr. Garwin holds 47 U.S. patents, and has advised numerous administrations. So, Dr. Garwin we congratulate you on this high honor in recognition of your accomplishments and contributions.”

This week, the New York Times published an article about Garwin’s personal crusade to undo the damage of the bomb that was dropped at Hiroshima, killing at least 70,000 people. The article says, “… what drove him, what made him eager to advise presidents, was not his gift for coming up with marvels of discovery and innovation but, courtesy of Fermi, a personal crusade to save the world from his own creation.” Read more here.

In Scarsdale Garwin was a member of the Scarsdale Forum and there are several articles about his participation in Forum events on Scarsdale10583. Following a storm in 2010 that flooded the Village and left 80% of Scarsdale residents without electric power for many days, Garwin spoke with Jonathan Lewis at the Forum’s Sunday Speaker Series on “Dealing with Local Disasters: What Can Nuclear and Pandemic Disaster Planning Teach Us?”

Former President of the Forum and Village Trustee Jonathan Lewis said this about Garwin: “Dr. Richard Garwin was an extraordinary patriot, who served his country quietly, behind the scenes, making the nation safer during the most challenging years of the Cold War and beyond. His sense of duty was an example to us all. He advised Presidents, and as a Scarsdale resident he devoted time to helping us as a community think more deeply about safety issues. I had the privilege of speaking with him at Scarsdale Forum presentation on public safety. In our preparation for the meeting I was impressed with his commitment to doing the best possible job to help his community understand the issues. A great public servant.”

In 2015, Garwin appeared at the Forum again when they showed a documentary about his life.

Garwin’s participation in the life of the Village of Scarsdale went beyond science. In fact, in February 2016 when the Village Board of Trustees was considering enacting the Homestead Option, which would have changed the tax treatment of the Christie Place condominiums, Garwin wrote a letter to object and it was also posted on Scarsdale10583.

Here is what he said at the time:

I am Richard Garwin, living with my wife Lois Garwin at 1 Christie Place, Unit 402W since September 2010—5 years ago. We had lived for 55 years in a house at 16 Ridgecrest East which we sold in order to buy our condominium apartment at Christie Place. Our ages: 87 and 88. Our three children attended and graduated from the Scarsdale schools.

For Scarsdale to adopt Homestead would be a misuse of the law, the stated purpose of which is to "prevent any large shift to the residential class of properties" as a result of revaluation. Homestead would apply only to the 42 residential units on Christie Place and not to the cooperative apartments in Scarsdale that are of comparable size and market price. Contrary to the implication that the traditional valuation of residential condominium units is "special interest legislation" for Christie Place, it was the only valuation approach possible under NYS law. Although the NYS legislature passed Homestead legislation in 1981, Scarsdale could consider it only after the revaluation of 2014, when the Village Board unanimously rejected the Homestead option.

The Christie Place development is an award-winning public-private partnership which made possible the 42 residential suites that can be sold only for occupancy by a resident over 55, two restaurants and three commercial units, plus off-street parking for the residents, the short-term municipal garage on Christie Place, and underground commuter parking, for which the Condominium provided the mortgage—all on 1.73 acres of land. The Village controls, manages, and profits from 310 of the 370 parking spaces; on weekends and holidays the 234 underground commuter parking spaces are available to all for free.

According to the Village Assessor at the Joint Board meeting of 02/01/2016, the 42 condos are valued for tax purposes in 2016 at $31 million, and under Homestead they would be valued at a market sales price of $59 million, so that the tax bill would just about double if Homestead were adopted. As a matter of fact, without Homestead, my own tax bill doubled last year as a result of the 2014 revaluation and would apparently double again if Homestead is adopted.

The Town of Greenburgh will consider adopting Homestead as it completes its revaluation, but Greenburgh has 5,000 residential condominium units in contrast to the 42 in Scarsdale, If Scarsdale adopts Homestead it risks turning Christie Place from a triumph of public-private partnership into a travesty.

It was not in the distant past that the Village leadership saw the Christie Place development as a good package deal, including the traditional approach to real estate tax on the 42 residential condominium units. Less than two years ago, the Village Board confirmed that judgment. I ask it to do so again.