Cynthia Dogin

Cynthia Banks Dogin, Educator, Dancer and Reader Extraordinaire, dies at 80

August 21, 1939 - April 18, 2020

Cynthia B. Dogin passed away peacefully after a lengthy struggle with Parkinson's Disease and a brief battle with Covid-19. She is survived by her husband of 57 years, Henry S. Dogin, her two beloved daughters, Michele Bayliss and Jennifer Dogin, her three grandchildren, Alexia, Ian and Vanessa, her brother, Ralph Banks, her sister-in-law and sons-in-law, Susan Banks, Bruce Bayliss, and Bill Gatevackes, and her nephew Michael Banks.

She was a true New Yorker from the Upper West Side of Manhattan on West End Avenue who attended Music and Art High School and received a BA and MA from Hunter College. She later taught speech at DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx where she was beloved by her students.

Everyone loved Cynthia for her vibrant personality, sharp wit, and kind heart. She could shoot a withering arched eyebrow across a crowded room to quash an errant affront from her children; recite dozens of poems by heart including Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven; and draw out anyone's life story in a New York minute.

Cynthia loved dance, having studied at the New Dance Group and with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. She taught a stretch and flexibility exercise class in Armonk for over two decades to a devoted following who loved her classes which were always accompanied by her witty commentary on issues of the day, and reflections of the movies, plays and operas she frequented. She was an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction who never attended a sporting event without several books and magazines in tow. She proudly displayed on her kitchen wall the several Letters to the Editor of the NY Times she penned.

She was devoted to her family, as evidenced by the fact that she begrudgingly learned to drive in her 30's when the family moved out of Manhattan. Her two greatest regrets were giving up a rent controlled apartment overlooking the Hudson River and not buying the beach rental cottage in East Hampton where her family summered. While her husband Henry S. Dogin worked in the Justice Department and later served as acting head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, she did everything a supermom would do with the notable exception of learning to cook. She will be dearly missed. A memorial service will be held when it is safe to do so.