Al Ephron: A Life of Grit, Opportunity, and Legacy
When Al Ephron was born on Nov. 16, 1929, in Brooklyn, NY, the Great Depression was just getting started.
“It was very good for me because it formed my entire personality,” Ephron says. “I had terrible parents who should never have married. There was nothing but yelling and screaming. My father had a gambling problem, and during the Depression, we were very poor. But it made me who I am.”
By the age of 13, Ephron decided he wanted love and good things in his life. He exercised a sort of emancipation from his family, only using the house for sleeping. In school, he met his first business partner, Alan Friedman, another kid who suffered from a broken home. The young entrepreneurs chose photography as their first business venture. Armed with a camera, they negotiated with a neighbor with a coal-fired bin to allow them to shovel out the cellar in return for the space as a darkroom.
Thus was born Arista Photographers. The name comes from the Arista chapters of the National Honor Society in New York’s middle and high schools at the time, an irony played on by Ephron, who was academically challenged.
“I never belonged to Arista,” he says. “I weighed about 240 pounds, was held back twice in elementary school, and couldn’t read, write, or spell.”
While walking past a laundromat, Ephron got an idea.
“I look into the laundromat, and I see all of these mothers with their kids, waiting for their laundry,” he recalls. “We talked to the manager and got permission to put up a sign offering everyone who used the laundromat a free 8×10, shot in their home. With the proofs, we made ‘mother-in-law’ albums, which sold like crazy.”
Ephron explains they earned the up-front money for the photography by starting a coat check business in the Jewish Community Center and Catholic Youth dances where kids would hang out. “We put New York Times newspaper on the floor—we didn’t have coat hangers. While they waited for the dances to be over, we took pictures of the kids who would pay for them.”
Watching all of this was Harriet Levine, a fellow student he had met while working at a summer camp in the Poconos. “She said to me, you’re not stupid,” he recalls fondly. “I think you have dyslexia.”
Shortly after high school, Ephron served in the Korean War where he was trained as a wheels mechanic but was spared combat. Returning to New York in 1953, he married Harriet and got a new business partner in photography, Lou Beanstock, a portrait and wedding photographer. Ephron brought in advertising and modeling business off the streets. Using models from the Barbizon School of Modeling, he shot models to help build their portfolios, all while building his own. It was a good arrangement.
Then one day the Mafia came to the studio, demanding payment for “protection.” Ephron would have none of it, especially after a similar business in the neighborhood was blown up after rejecting the “union” being demanded by the Mafia.
With no way of making a living, Ephron went to the library to try to determine another career. He learned about a profession called architecture, but in reading the requirements, he learned he needed a five-year degree plus three years of apprenticeship to qualify for state board exams.
“I kept reading, thinking there is always another way when you really want something,” he says. “Sure enough, about 20 pages later was a paragraph that said in lieu of a formal education, candidates with 12 or more years’ experience could take the state board exams.”
Ephron found the Institute of Design and Construction run by Vio Batista. With the Army paying for his education, and Harriet supporting them on her modest $3,000 annual teacher’s salary, Ephron earned his junior draftsman license. A year later, he joined the firm where he would work for more than 12 years, finally earning his architecture license. He and several of his coworkers founded Schuman, Lichtenstein, Claman & Ephron. The company started with two draftsmen; when he retired in 1998, there were over 100 on staff, and they had buildings built around the world, including the Metropolitan Tower, Two Grand Central Tower, and the NY Hospital Helmsley Tower in New York; and the American Express Center in Beijing, to name just a few.
During these years, he and Harriet raised two children, son Paul and daughter Meryl. Paul would join the firm as an engineer after college. Meryl grew up to be a dentist in New York but died suddenly in her sleep in 2014. A street in New York, Meryl Ephron Way, bears her name in tribute.
The Ephrons started visiting Arizona in 1969. Vacations followed, and then they would spend 10 days a month in Tucson during the winter months. Paul partnered with a developer and built several custom homes in the Foothills.
In 2007, Harriet suffered a debilitating stroke. In 2008, when travel became too difficult, they purchased a home in the Skyline community. Ephron, who had been so active, cared for his wife 24 hours a day. By 2011, the couple moved to Splendido so Ephron could have assistance with Harriet, but he didn’t want to give up his independent living.
A friend introduced him to Alice Gilligan, a homecare specialist to whom he attributes having saved his life. After just two weeks, he formed Arista Homecare in order to hire her away from her employer, and she became Harriet’s full-time caregiver and personal secretary to Ephron. Harriet passed away in 2015, after 63 years of marriage.
After Harriet’s passing, Ephron was able to engage more with the community. He has taught classes on body language, networking, and his beloved photography throughout the community. Recently, he looked online and discovered the Oro Valley Historical Society, and now serves as vice president on the board. He says his goals are to help grow the board and raise the resources to complete the restoration of Steam Pump Ranch, formalize the OV Historical Society Museum, and develop a traveling exhibit so that people throughout Arizona are aware of the rich historical assets in Oro Valley.
“Every day, opportunity goes right past you,” he says as a way of summing up his life. “Eighty percent of people don’t even see it. Fifteen percent see it but don’t do anything about it. Only five percent take advantage of those opportunities. I’m in that five percent.”
Mary Minor Davis is a freelance writer in Tucson. Reach her at [email protected].