Max Kargman; pushed affordable housing

Max R. Kargman, always quick with a story or quotation, never failed to educate a listener.

''He always had a story to direct you," said one of his sons, Bob. ''Everybody that came in contact with him was going to the University of Max."

Mr. Kargman, a real estate developer, died Friday at Mount Auburn Hospital Cambridge. The Belmont resident was 96.

A Chicago native, Mr. Kargman, the son of Russian immigrants, grew up living in low-income housing. At age 20, after putting himself through evening classes, he graduated from Chicago-Kent College of Law. While practicing law, he attended afternoon and night classes to earn his bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago.

He was married with three children when he was called to military duty in 1944, serving for two years as a judge advocate in the Marines. He was then accepted into a Harvard University doctoral program in education and relocated his family to Boston.

Mr. Kargman earned his doctorate and later started his real estate development business, First Realty Co., and began purchasing and renovating buildings in downtown Boston. During the Depression, confidence in building projects was low, his son said, causing others to doubt that his work would be successful.

''Everyone said he was going to go bankrupt," Bob Kargman said. ''Then they'd go to his buildings because they liked his buildings."

In the early 1960s, Mr. Kargman helped revitalize Tremont Street with his residential development, Tremont-on-the-Common, and built Riverview Apartments in Cambridge as part of the federal government's urban renewal program. Later, he built High Point Village in Roslindale and President Village in Fall River, two of many affordable housing buildings his company developed.

Mr. Kargman greatly influenced other developers of his time, his son Bill said.

''Most of the major developers in Boston who are still living learned from him and worked for him for some period of time in their career," he said. ''Then they went out on their own and began developing their own properties."

Mr. Kargman chaired the Boston Bar Association committee that drafted the first law allowing condominiums in Massachusetts, and successfully turned Riverview Apartments in Cambridge into condominiums in 1972.

From the mid-1960s through the 1980s, he also owned Commonwealth Mortgage, which was at one point the largest single-family home mortgage company in Massachusetts.

Mr. Kargman worked until the age of 91, when he suffered a heart attack, his sons said.

Even after retiring he remained influential, providing insight to his son Bill, who took over First Realty.

''I went to work for him in 1972, and this is a man that came to the office every day, religiously, until he was 91 years old," Bill Kargman said.

An extremely active father who enjoyed reading and tennis in his free time, Mr. Kargman always made time for his children, his sons said.

''He hardly ever said no; he was a father who was very supportive of his kids and assisted us to try to accomplish whatever we indicated that we wanted to do," Bill Kargman said.

In addition to his sons, Mr. Kargman leaves his wife of 70 years, Marie (Witkin); a daughter, Donna Donaghy of Connecticut; and five grandchildren.

A funeral will be held tomorrow at noon in Beth El Temple Center in Belmont. Burial will be in Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.