Grad Associates, formerlyGrad Partnership andFrank Grad & Sons, was an architectural firm based inNewark, New Jersey. Founded in 1906 by Frank Grad (1882–1968),[1] the company was later run by his sons, Bernard (d. August 4, 2000)[2] and Howard (d. 1992).[3] The company closed its doors on February 19, 2010.[4]
Born in Austria, Frank Grad was educated at the Newark Arts School (the forerunner of Arts High School). He began his Newark architectural practice in 1906. Grad was capable of working in many styles, from the Beaux-Arts, YMHA on MLK Boulevard, to the Spanish colonialStanley Theater and Beth Israel Hospital, to theNeo-ClassicalNewark Symphony Hall, to theArt Deco1180 Raymond Boulevard (aka, the Lefcourt Building). Several of Grad's greatest commissions, the YMHA, the Stanley Theater, Beth Israel, and the Lefcourt Building, were for Jewish patrons. In the mid-1930s the name of the firm became Frank Grad & Sons. Grad died in 1968.[5]
His firm, Grad Associates was continued by his sons after Grad died. Grad Associates peaked in the 1980s when there were over 130 architects working there, but closed in the winter of 2010, a victim of the Great Recession. The firm added new partners in 1966, and became the Grad Partnership. In 1990, the firm became GRAD Associates, P.A.[6] At the time the firm closed the managing partners were Allen Trousdale and Vasant Kshirsagar. Grad was one of the first large firms in the New York region to invest in extensivecomputer-aided design facilities.
