Arthur A. Feder, a well-known tax counsel, died at home in New York city on Oct. 19. He was 94.  

He was the son of Leo and Bertha Franklin Feder. His father ran a small manufacturing business in New York’s garment district and his mother was an expert bookkeeper.

He grew up in Brooklyn, graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1945, and enlisted in the U.S. Navy’s elite radio technician program. He graduated from Columbia College in 1949 and then from its law school in 1951. Arthur won honors at all of his academic institutions.

After two years of practicing corporate law, Arthur moved to the corporate tax world. He served as a research assistant to Professor Stanley Surrey at Harvard from 1953 to 1954. He then joined the firm that later became Roberts & Holland and where he became a partner. In 1965, Arthur moved his practice to Willkie, Farr & Gallagher. 

Later, he moved to the firm that became Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson, where he practiced until 1996. During that time, he was chairman of the tax section of the New York State Bar. In 1996, he became senior counsel to the executive committee at Herzog, Heine & Geduld. When that firm was sold, he joined Cougar Capital, Buzzy Geduld’s private office, where he worked until his death. 

Arthur met Ruth Musicant in 1947 when he was at Columbia College and she was at Barnard. They married in 1949 and had a long, rich and fulfilling life together, surrounded by family and friends who loved them dearly. 

For the past three decades, they spent every August in Chilmark, playing tennis at the Community Center, eating fish from Larsen’s and corn from Morning Glory Farm, visiting with friends, and going to the farmers market, flea market, fair, and the Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival. They loved taking long walks on the beach, sometimes in bathing suits and sometimes in matching Chilmark fire department sweatshirts. Ruth cooked and made French toast with the grandchildren, and Arthur barbecued and made s’mores with them. They watched the sunsets together until her death in 2019. Arthur returned in 2020, and just before his death in 2021.

In 2020, at the age of 93, Arthur flew from Katama Airport and circled his beloved Vineyard in a bright red biplane. He gloried in this second flying lesson, which picked up where his last one left off in 1939. When he was 13, he had won a raffle, biked the six miles across Brooklyn to Floyd Bennett Field and presented the winning ticket. Once in the air, the instructor told him to take the controls and he flew his first biplane. He biked home and only then told his parents.

He is survived by the family he and Ruth shared: their children Gwen, Leslie and Andrew, son in law Garrick Leonard, and grandchildren Bliss, Isaiah, Andries, So A, Calypso, Catalina, Alex and Aviva.

A memorial service will be announced later. At his request, it will be held at the University Club in New York city, where Ruth’s memorial service was held.