|
|
 |
|
| Building Your Family's 100 Year Plan: The Series |
100 Year Plan Part III: The Good We Do
Daniel Gross
02/02/2004
|
She also found a way to continue and bolster Astor traditions. As part of her Crown Jewels Program, she funded the city’s great public institutions: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bronx Zoo (where she gave $5 million to support construction of the Wild Asia exhibit) and Channel 13. Chief among her favorite jewels was the New York Public Library, which prior generations of Astors had supported, however grudgingly. Brooke Astor became a regular fixture at the vast Beaux Arts New York Public Library at the corner of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, as well as at branches around the city. By 1997, when she formally closed the foundation, Brooke Astor had directed $30 million of the foundation’s $195 million in net donations to the New York Public Library.
By giving shape and form to her husband’s instincts, Brooke Astor not only managed to rehabilitate crucial and historic institutions in the city that had provided so much of the Astor family’s wealth, she also managed to rehabilitate the family’s historical image.
Photography courtesy of the Rockefeller archive, Underwood & Underwood, and Corbis
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
