Brooke Astor called John D. Rockefeller III for advice. As she recalled in her memoir, Footprints, he said: "The person who has control of the money should also be personally involved in the giving."

For the next 40 years, the energetic Brooke Astor would devote her life to this work—and she did so with a distinctly un-Astorian sense of joy. "That is the fun of it all. Giving away money should be exhilarating," she said. She also did so with a sense of urgency. Since she and Vincent Astor did not have children of their own—Brooke had a son from a prior marriage—there was no logical heir to run the family foundation.

"As the original Astor fortune had been made in New York," she wrote, "I felt that the foundation money should be spent only within the five boroughs." Mimicking some of Vincent’s earlier efforts, she used funds to beautify public housing projects, creating "outdoor living rooms." She built tiny parks all over Manhattan and established projects in Central Park to teach children about gardening and conservation. Although always decked out in fur and pearls, Brooke Astor was no Lady Bountiful. "Giving the money away would not mean nearly as much to me if I never saw what comes of it."