To the Editor:

Re: “McCooey, Tombs Founder, Dies at 83,” A1, Aug. 26, 2014

One other contribution that Richard H. McCooey made to Georgetown was his part, with others, in helping to establish and maintain SursumCorda, a Department of Housing and Urban Development-subsidized apartment complex in which, since 1970, generations of Georgetown students have instructed K-6 children in language arts.

It was a contribution he recalled vividly some years ago, when in the course of conversation concerning the community, he revealed that SursumCorda’s highly unusual townhouses had come about because the architecture contract had been carefully put out to tender, so that the final design departed markedly from the practices then usual. It was his work, along with that of others, that provided the form that has now served the community for some 44 years.

I remember our conversation as formal and courteous, and I well recall the gentle and perceptive man who contributed so much to his university.

John C. Hirsh
Professor of English