In Memoriam: Jon Peterson (1935-2023)

The History Department mourns the passing of our colleague Professor Jon Peterson, who died of cancer on July 1. Jon retired from Queens in 2005 after a nearly forty-year career. He was a specialist in US urban history, best known for his award-winning book The Birth of City Planning in the United States 1840-1917 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). He was also a beloved teacher whose courses included the history of New York City and the history of the borough of Queens. Born in Ohio, Jon came to Queens College in 1966 after earning a BA at Swarthmore College, an MA at Ohio State, and a Ph.D. from Harvard. At Queens, he was a key member of the History department who served as chair from 1991 and 1995, as well as many other committees. He also performed an unsung but vital service to the college during the renovation of Powdermaker Hall in the early 2000s. When the original blueprints called for a more corporate layout, Jon applied his architectural expertise and, as former chair Frank Warren put it, “in his quiet and efficient way” humanized the plans to make them more academically friendly. That sense of humaneness and decency is how those of us who knew him will remember Jon.