Stewart Tabakin, an entrepreneur who helped extend the horizon for area arts organizations, died peacefully on July 17 at his home in Truro. Mr. Tabakin, who endured a long and valiant struggle with esophageal cancer, was 62.
Born in New York on June 19, 1952, Stewart Joseph Tabakin was the younger son of Charles and Dorothy Rose Tabakin. His father was a businessman who owned a conglomerate of scrap metal companies in Clarksburg, Wheeling and Wellsburg, West Virginia and Steubenville, Ohio that among other things provided equipment to compress cans for recycling in the early years of that industry. His mother was a registered nurse who had served in Europe after World War II with the Joint Distribution Committee of the United Jewish Appeal. Both were prominent leaders in Steubenville’s Reformed community, leading the drive to sell bonds that helped fund industrial and agricultural projects in Israel and to raise funds for health and community organizations there. He attended Steubenville’s public schools, as well as the religious school of its Temple Beth-El. Early on, he nurtured competing interests in theater and engineering. He graduated with honors from Steubenville High School in May 1970.
Before completing a college degree, he went to Paris at the height of the Vietnam War, took some classes, including cooking lessons at Le Cordon Bleu, and worked for the International Herald Tribune, for whom he travelled to India and reported on businessmen there. He spoke fluent French and did occasional translation work.
On returning to the States, he completed a B.A. degree and graduated from Ohio State University in August 1976. He turned to business, having decided against a higher degree in medicine and become interested in small enterprise during his time overseas, and, at the invitation of a friend, moved to Boston. There he reigned as the king of Boston courier’s world. He founded Marathon Messengers in 1977, Boston’s first business messenger service: working out of his apartment, he employed two bicyclists who if they were lucky together executed ten orders a day. By the time he sold his business in 2006, more than 70 of his couriers buzzed through Boston’s windy and narrow streets daily delivering over a thousand packages. Given the difficulties cars had in negotiating Boston’s complicated street plan and the inefficiencies of the postal service, bicycle messengering was an innovation – or rather reintroduction, for it had once flourished in the nineteenth century only to be eclipsed by the car. Mr. Tabakin understood the city, his cyclists, and his clients (law firms and travel agencies working when the fax machine was rare and the internet non-existent), and shrewdly managed all three.
Since retiring, Mr. Tabakin and his partner Salvatore Fiumara split their time between Palm Beach in the Winter and Truro and Boston the rest of the year. Stewart’s passions included cooking, house restoration, antique collecting, gardening, and potting. All these interests converged on the refurbishment of “Windy Willows,” the house on the Little Pamet River that Stewart and Sal called home for the past twenty-five years. Effervescent host, extremely fond (and knowledgeable) of food, wine and gossip, his home was renowned for its parties.
In Boston Stewart actively assisted local organizations and events. He joined the Young Boston Businessmen’s Association upon his arrival there. He contributed to the planning of Operation Sail 1986. He served on condominium management boards, as President and Vice-President. After he and Sal purchased a second home in Truro in the early 1990s, he also became active in local get-out-the vote efforts. And since 2000 he served as a Volunteer Docent at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.
The enjoyment of and support for art became Stewart’s greatest passion. He and Sal carefully collected painting and furniture; they voraciously travelled to and studied art. And he encouraged others to create and appreciate as well. Towards this end, he sat on numerous arts organizations’ boards. As a member of the Board of Directors of the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach since 2012, he took charge of fund-raising for the visual arts school where he had once studied. Much the same occurred on the Cape. In Truro, Stewart began studying pottery in 2009 at the Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, which promotes instruction in arts and crafts, especially in painting and clay, and interaction among international and local practitioners and laymen. From lessons to service, Stewart joined its Board in 2009 and served on its Finance and Nominating committees ever since; he chaired its annual auction, and promoted its agenda, attending openings, buying works on display, introducing friends to it, and corralling interested parties into making decisions about the future of the institution.
It may be his work at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum for which Mr. Tabakin is best known. From 2006, he served as a member of the Board of Trustees, as Chair of the Development Committee and a Co-Chair of both the Annual Gala and the Centennial Committee. His commitment was unprecedented and his enthusiasm tireless. He was instrumental in moving PAAM’s fund-raising initiatives forward and helped increase membership at all levels. Whether he was on the Cape, in Boston or in Florida, he was always recruiting - a loyal. He was extremely involved with the planning of PAAM’s 100th Anniversary, and on August 23, 2014, PAAM’s town-wide birthday celebration will be dedicated to him for his continuous support and dedication.
To whatever cause or event, Mr. Tabakin imparted something unique. He could be brassy, tart and iconoclastic, and at the same time warm, impassioned and romantic. Mischievously ebullient, he possessed a Gothic ability to spin a tale – to make a detail or a moment (no matter how minor) seem major and memorable. Publicly unabashed, privately guarded, he was impatient with delay but warm and encouraging to those who delayed. His friends miss him.
Stewart Tabakin is survived by his partner of thirty-two years, the artist Salvatore Fiumara.
A Service will be held on Sunday, August 3, 2014, 11:30 a.m., at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, 480 Commercial Street. In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to either PAAM or the Center for Cancer Research at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Prayer Service at South Cemetery, Truro will follow.