Story posted on Feb. 13, 2009

AP / Palm Beach Post Joe Goldstein

Legendary New York sports publicist Joe Goldstein, 81, died Friday at Boca Raton Community Hospital in Florida. He was a resident of New York and Florida.

The cause was a stroke.

Since 1969, Goldstein ran his own public relations firm. Among his current and past clients were ESPN (since its start in 1979), Six Flags, the New York Stock Exchange, New York City Marathon, Joe Frazier, Bob Hope personally and the Bob Hope Desert Classic, the Millrose Games, the national and international Grand Prix track and field programs sponsored by Mobil, Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon jump, the Armory Track and Field Center, the Jesse Owens International Trophy Award, the Seagram Send the Families Program for the 1988 Olympics, Bristol-Myers Squibb and the 1996 Kazakhstan Olympic team.

For 15 years (1954 to 1969), Goldstein made Roosevelt Raceway renowned for its harness racing. Goldstein employed pigeons to deliver post-position draws for events, rescued trotters from Argentine revolutions for a race, and had fans sending in artichokes for a horse who wouldn't eat anything else.

Goldstein began stringing for the old World-Telegram while at Seward Park High School, worked briefly for the Sun before it folded in 1950, and then assisted in the basketball department at Madison Square Garden before moving to Roosevelt Raceway. He was graduated from NYU.

Sports Illustrated published a full-length feature on Goldstein in 1987.

Goldstein was inducted into the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame earlier this year, and is a member of the Harness Racing Hall of Fame.

Born in Conway, S.C., in 1927, Goldstein moved to New York in 1940.

He was married for 44 years to the late Helene Goldstein, who died in 1999. Goldstein is survived by three sons: Robert, of Great Neck; Adam, of Atlanta; and Jared, of Manhattan, and two sisters Pearl Rosenberg of Albany, Ga., and Shirley Weber of Lakewood Ranch, Fla.

A funeral service will be held at Riverside Memorial Chapel, 180 West 76th St. (Amsterdam Avenue) on Wednesday at 11:45 a.m. Burial will follow at Montefiore Cemetery, 121-83 Springfield Blvd., Springfield Gardens, Queens.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to:

Garment Center Congregation
205 West 40th St.
New York, NY 10018

OR

United Jewish Appeal
130 East 59th St.
New York, NY 10022

A memorial service will be held at a later date.

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