Among other properties, he owned more than 50% of Pepsi Cola and was its chairman. By the time Barbara and her sister were born, he was extremely affluent. Then, when the law changed so that he could not give tax advice, he went back to night school and became a lawyer. He got a degree in accounting and opened an accounting firm. Her father, the youngest, while working during the day, spent 13 years studying at night to gain an education. Her father’s father emigrated from the Russian-Polish border at the turn of the 20th century to the Lower East, where he sold goods from a pushcart and, according to her father, moved from apartment to apartment with his family of eight kids whenever the rent came due. She is also a well-known New York philanthropist.īarbara has had a wonderful, exciting life, and I was pleased to have lunch with her recently, where we got into a long discussion about it. She’s well-known in the literary world, not only for her books, some of which have risen to #1 on The New York Times best seller list, but also for her earlier career when as a recent, brilliant graduate of Wellesley College, she began writing about the art world, civil rights and celebrity, ushering in the style of New Journalism. Who’s Here: Barbara Goldsmith Writer & Philanthropistīarbara Goldsmith is a celebrated New Yorker who has summered in the Hamptons for more than half a century.

Obsessive Genius by Barbara Goldsmith