Writer and editor of scholarly music journal, his life was cut short by AIDS. Fund at The Trust dedicated to foster the arts and protecting the environment.
Adam Patrick Joseph O’Connor (1959-1996)
Adam Patrick Joseph O’Connor’s life was cut short by AIDS, but he left a treasure trove of papers and reflections on life for generations to come.
He was born in 1959 in New York City and studied journalism, music, and philosophy at the University of Chicago. He graduated in 1981 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1986, Adam accepted a writing position at Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (International Repertory of Music Literature or RILM) at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Five years later, he was promoted to editor-in-chief.
A.P.J. O’Connor died on April 17, 1996, at age 36.
“His loss is a great tragedy to RILM and to all who knew him,” his successor, Barbara Dobbs Mackenzie, wrote. “It was under his hand that [RILM] began to flourish again,” she said. RILM is a nonprofit founded in 1966 that offers digital collections and advanced tools for locating research on all topics related to music.
In 1999, Mackenzie donated the Adam O’Connor Papers on behalf of Adam’s estate to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center known as The Center in Greenwich Village. The Center’s National History Archive houses thousands of photographs, newspaper articles, videos, and more.
The Adam O’Connor Papers include correspondence from his 1976-1986 tenure as director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Journalism Workshop at the Fortune Society, sketchbooks, and reviews published in the New York Native, a biweekly gay newspaper.
Journals and letters range from college papers to reflections on travel and daily life in Brooklyn and Manhattan to caring for friends dying of AIDS. His fiction and poetry often focused on relationships—with family members as well as friends and partners.
Shortly before he died, Adam established the A.P.J. O’Connor Fund in The New York Community Trust to foster young people’s participation in the arts and for the environment.