The New York Circle of Translators (NYCT) was born out of a shared passion for language, culture, and connection. In the late 1970s, a handful of translators in New York City came together, united by their love for words and the camaraderie that flourished when professionals gathered to exchange stories, share knowledge, and learn from one another. These gatherings were as much about cultivating friendships as they were about advancing in the translation and interpretation fields. Early meetings were filled with laughter, lively discussions, and the shared joy of being part of a burgeoning community.
As the Circle grew, it gave rise to enduring traditions and countless memories—some of which still resonate today. Translators like Tom Snow, Charles M. Stern, and many others were instrumental in establishing the foundation of the Circle. Their stories and contributions have shaped the ethos of the NYCT, which remains a welcoming space for professionals to this day.
Below is a reflection from Alex Gross, one of the Circle’s early members, offering a glimpse into the camaraderie, warmth, and professionalism that defined those early days.
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In Memoriam: Thomas Snow, 1930 – 2005
by Alex Gross*
Tom Snow passed away in Klagenfurt, Austria, on January 28 of this year. He was 74 years old, and the cause of death was general weakness arising from emphysema and osteopororis, leading to a final bout of pneumonia. Many translators of the New York City area will remember both Tom and his widow Almut from early NY Circle meetings. Almut seems in good spirits and agrees with me that Tom could perhaps be best described as an idealist and a perfectionist, traits many of us had an opportunity to note during his many years among us.
But there was also a more surprising side to Tom, which few of us knew. Although he served in the Korean War during his youth, he would soon take on some of the character traits common among Upper West Side intellectuals. For instance, he did not consider himself a Christian and asked for no religious rites to mark his passing, which in catholic Austria meant that Almut ended up conducting a secular service in his memory. He was also a fervent environmentalist, opposed to all forms of pollution, which did not deter him from smoking like a furnace despite his knowledge that this might cause emphysema. And although he was also a member of Zero Population Growth, he himself was married three times and during his last two marriages sired four sons. He also cared for and raised a daughter from his second wife’s first marriage.
Tom and I were probably as close as two men can be, so I am of course unhappy that he is no longer with us. I don’t want to make what follows sound unduly personal, but I find myself unable to separate my memories of Tom from those dramatic events in 1979 that led to my earliest meetings with technical translators and even to the founding of the New York Circle of Translators. Since these events present a quite lively side of Tom, it may in fact be best to include them.
Back in 1979 I picked up a book and found a claim by former ATA President-Elect Dale Cunningham that there was ultimately not that much difference between literary and commercial translation. Since I needed some extra money at the time, I wrote Cunningham and asked how one went about switching from the one field to the other. He wrote me back telling me that it might involve a bit more work than I expected (it did), but I soon also received a letter (no email back then) from one Eva Berry inviting me both to stop by her office and to attend a dinner where New York translators would be trying to set up some sort of official group.
This is how I came to know Tom. I no sooner entered Eva’s office than I confronted not only Tom but some of the other figures who would form the nucleus of the NY Circle. Steve Winfield, the gifted mimic and multilingual voiceover artist, was among them, as was il Principe Paolo, a genuine Italian prince who could tell risqué stories for hours. About half an hour later Charles Stern wandered in, and of course busily watching over all of us like a mother hen was Eva herself. Although translation can be a tedious and demanding craft, for some reason an air of joviality immediately enveloped all of us when we were together, especially during early NY Circle dinners, where we all frequently shared a table.
The laughter often became quite intense, with Steve, Paolo, and myself at its wildest center. Tom’s contributions were also quite funny, though they sometimes had a skeptical undertone to them. We all began to feed small reports and announcements about translation to Eva, who would assemble and mail them off to others listed on her enormous rolldex, and out of this process the Gotham Translator, NYCT’s newsletter, slowly began to emerge. From the beginning Tom did his best to give me good advice about the profession and urged me to “find a niche” where I could use what I knew best. He was quite right, and I was able to do this to some extent by translating foreign news stories into journalistic English for the World Press Review over several years.
It was Tom who also provided me with an insight into the financial side of translating. Once at the very beginning of a gala occasion in the upstairs banquet hall of a Spanish restaurant, an affair which somehow managed to combine a fabulous meal, an address by Gregory Rabassa, a flamenco recital by Eva Berry, and translators dancing the night away afterwards, Tom drew my attention to an older businessman being earnestly accosted by Eva across the hall. He explained to me that the businessman was the director of New York’s busiest foreign language radio station, which owed the agency a fortune in unpaid bills. He told me that if her entreaties were not successful, everyone might go unpaid and the agency might even go under.
If I remember correctly, it was Tom who also presided over the first word processing program at Eva’s agency, the IBM DisplayWrite system. This may have been in 1980, the year before the first PC appeared, soon to be followed by the first PC clones. Tom also used DisplayWrite at home and continued to swear by it even after the rest of us finally caught up with him and started using Word and WordPerfect. I don’t know how long he kept using DisplayWrite, but Almut tells me that even in Austria (where he emigrated in 1998) he continued to insist on repairing an older I-Mac when he could have acquired three or four new computers for the cost of the repairs.
Almut tells me that Tom’s last months weren’t too comfortable but that he still took delight on Sundays and holidays in presiding over broad boards of Austrian cheeses accompanied by fruit-flavored Schnapps.
Around 1996, when I was putting together a seminar for the NYU translation program, I asked some of our colleagues to contribute proverbs, bons mots, or other summations that they felt best summed up the art, craft, or business of translating. Tom provided two such citations, which I included in the seminar and am appending below. If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the tone of his voice:
“I can’t pay you that much. It’s more than I’m charging the client.”
“I think you left out three paragraphs.”
© Copyright Translation Journal and the Authors 2005
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