Arthur Sekoff, Book Horizons Owner, Passes Away At 89

The big voice and even bigger personality that sold books, UM merchandise, and school supplies to students in Coral Gables for six decades is gone: Book Horizons owner Arthur Sekoff died Friday, just a month shy of his 90th birthday.

Sekoff and his wife Leah opened Book Horizons in 1953 on Ponce de Leon Boulevard, moving 5 years later to the store's current home at 1110 South Dixie Highway. "The Big A" worked at the store until 10 days before he passed away, resisting new technology according to his sons and sticking to his longtime uniform of walking shorts and a polo shirt.

“He was a walking textbook on how to get along with people," son Will Sekoff, who works at Book Horizons, told the Miami Herald. “You watched him and you knew what to do, the way he conducted his life, his work ethic, the way people responded to and treated them."

Sekoff, a Brooklyn native who served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during World War II in Italy and North Africa, is survived by his wife Leah Sekoff, sons Jed, Will, and Roy, the founding editor of The Huffington Post, 3 daughters-in-law, and 7 grandchildren.

Sekoff's family will hold a private funeral. In lieu of flowers, donations are requested to the HOPE Public Interest Resource Center and the Children & Youth Law Clinic, both at the University of Miami School of Law; the Southern Poverty Law Center; and the National Yiddish Book Center.