Good Excuses To Stretch At the Library
'It's always good to be an excuse for a stretch," the donor of the New York Public Library's largest gift in history, Stephen Schwarzman, said Wednesday at the dinner in his honor after the 180 guests gave him a standing ovation.
Later, they serenaded him with "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow."
The attention acknowledged not just his gift of $100 million, but the timing of his gift.
"At a time of some retrenchment, some stepping back, Steve is not stepping back, he is stepping up," a board member of the library, Joshua Steiner, said.
One of Mr. Schwarzman's motivations is that the library itself is stepping up with transformations to be funded by a $1 billion capital campaign.
Referring to construction at the flagship Research Library on 42nd Street, which will be renamed the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the president of the library, Paul LeClerc, said, "We will turn this historic building into the most extraordinary, comprehensive library that has ever existed in human history."
"Imagine an area three football fields large, 31/2 stories high, hallowed out for use by the public," Mr. Schwarzman said.
And just what is his football-field-sized ambition for the Research Library? To become the most visited cultural institution in New York City — taking the laurel away from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he said.
Mr. Schwarzman, who is a co-founder and chief executive of the Blackstone Group, also welcomed his family, including his mother and younger twin brothers. He then said he was like everyone else in the room — a room, by the way, filled with such philanthropic luminaries as Barbara Goldsmith, Lewis Cullman, Marshall Rose, Elizabeth Rohatyn, and Annette de la Renta.
The biographer of Andrew Carnegie, David Nasaw, was summoned to give some grand historic context.
"Somewhere Andrew Carnegie is watching us with a $100 million smile on his face. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than money well given. This is money well given," Mr. Nasaw said, adding that Mr. Schwarzman's gift "shouts out to the city that books and knowledge matter more than ever."
Mr. Schwarzman's mother had her own thoughts about the gift. "Because he's Jewish, he knows about tzedakah, which means when you make it, you are obliged to give back. That is what his grandfather Jacob and father, Joseph, taught him," Arline Schwarzman said from her seat at the dinner, next to Rabbi Arthur Schneier.
Mr. Schwarzman sat for dinner (of asparagus, halibut, and sorbet) in between Caroline Kennedy and the chairman of the library, Catherine Marron, who, with her husband, paid for the event. Mr. Schwarzman's wife, Christine, sat next to the Mr. LeClerc at another table, where Edward Cardinal Egan was also seated.
agordon@nysun.com
