Albert Sampson Gross (1907-1998), was a longtime Bergen County resident and well known for his mastery of law and stainless steel. Born to Russian immigrants in 1907, Mr. Gross attended Harvard College on scholarship. A brush with scarlet fever sidelined his medical school studies. Taking that as a sign, he switched career tracks and entered Harvard Law School also on scholarship. He met his future wife, Rose, of Leonia, during those formative years.

Mr. Gross clerked in Manhattan before hanging a shingle in Bergen County. Around the courthouse in Hackensack, Mr. Gross was known for bow ties and oratory of distinction. Some may recall his work as a dapper defense lawyer whose clients included police killer Thomas Trantino in 1963.

For many years, Mr. Gross spent his spare time and vacations painting. In 1968, in his mid-50s, he fired up a welding torch. Two years later his works were in two Madison Avenue galleries. One sculpture is a stainless steel pipe sculpted into a gentle “S” reaching to the sky located at Bergen Community College in Paramus, NJ. It is titled “Reap the Whirlwind,” a reference to the Book of Hosea: “For they shall have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

When he retired to West Palm Beach with his wife around 1980, Mr. Gross left at least 200 stainless steel works, some of them located in the 3 acre garden of his son Paul Gross.

Paul Gross has donated four of these sculptures to the Borough of Hillsdale and are located on the grounds of the Free Public Library. Paul and Gayle Gross have been residents of Hillsdale for over 50 years. They are delighted to share these creative works with the public.