The Perfect Holiday Gift for Your Mogul
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Are you struggling to find the perfect gift for your mogul? Is his sweater drawer overflowing? Do you despair that he has too many cuff links, and only two arms?
It’s that time of year, and for many, true panic has set in. After a stupendous year on Wall Street, the heat is on to reward loved ones with outsize holiday gifts. But, how can last year be topped?
Here are some suggestions, in the nick of time. How about giving your mogul two 40-foot dinosaurs wrapped in festive lights and greenery? They can be named for him, or for someone he loves, for only $25,000 apiece. Imagine the thrill of taking the grandchildren to the American Museum of Natural History, where they will find that the dinosaurs on the front steps are named after them.
For extra fun, couple this discovery with a viewing of “Night at the Museum,” a new movie teeming with dinosaurs and other beasts rampaging through the museum — it is sure to be a hit with the under-15 crowd. Maybe the museum folks would give your youngsters an after-hours flashlight tour of the halls as a special attraction.
Or, if you have a mogul who is really swept up in dinos, how about forever after putting his name on the 125-foot Barosaurus mount in the Theodore Roosevelt Rotunda? This is available for the first person to come along with $3 million. This one rivals Carl Icahn’s 30-foot sign on Roosevelt Island for sheer glory.
Here’s another terrific idea: For a mere $2 million, you can name the 550 elm trees that surround New York’s grand Central Park. Imagine the warm and fuzzy feeling even the toughest of moguls would enjoy while walking down Fifth Avenue and knowing that all those gorgeous trees are “his.”
For those who have not quite reached maturity (we know a few moguls that fall into this category), how about being a ringmaster at Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus? The Salvation Army offers this up for $250,000, as part of their special night at the circus. Not only can your mogul cavort around center ring with the iconic (and most flattering) red coat and whistle, he also can treat 10,000 tri-state children and their families to an unforgettable night at Madison Square Garden.
These suggestions are directed at those who are tired of thumbing through the Neiman-Marcus catalog, and who are physically afraid of making their way down Fifth Avenue this time of year. We suggest thinking outside the box — be it blue, red, or covered with Ls and Vs. Instead of another ho-humbug gift, why not do something really cool for your significant other, and something good for your community?
After all, it’s not as though the new mogul crowd can’t afford to be generous. In case you missed it, the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans this year included only billionaires. Imagine, there are more than 400 billionaires among us, and guess what? Many of their names do not appear on the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s top donors list.
Many of our newly wealthy countrymen are quite young and simply haven’t gotten around to thinking about the great things that can be done with their money. Charities, meanwhile, are making it more fun every year to give money away. Just as going to museums 30 or 40 years ago was a pretty dreary business while today those institutions have become monuments of inspiration and design, so it is with charities.
Gone are the stern-faced ladies in tweed skirts and sensible shoes who doled out good works like so many doses of cod liver oil. These days, organizations are raising money in ever more creative ways, including coming up with fun one-off adventures and naming opportunities.
For instance, how about giving your mogul a bench at the Metropolitan Museum of Art? For $50,000 you can put your name on a resting place for thankful and weary visitors, and become a member of the museum’s Founders Fund, which confers all sorts of nifty benefits. Or, for $2 million you can name the Teachers Resource Center in the museum’s renovated Uris Center for Education.
Does your mogul love opera? How about giving him a “Ziegfield for a Night” package at New York City Opera? This donation will help to launch a new young singer, and let you be part of the process. For $5,000, you will meet an artist before their debut, attend their opening night performance, have your name in the Playbill that night, and get to mingle with the cast afterward. How fun is that?
There’s even a rumor that for a gift of significant size, you can walk on as part of the opera chorus; singing, however, is not allowed.
Or, if your mogul is among the dozens racing to buy a newspaper, how about letting him practice on a Newspaper Group sponsored by Partnership with Children? This organization was founded in 1908 as Big Sisters and today works with children in some of our neediest schools. For $12,500 you can underwrite a publication team that meets weekly during the school year and puts out a monthly paper that will acknowledge mogul’s sponsorship. The mogul will even be interviewed for a feature story, allowing him to brush up on his public relations technique.
The environmentalist mogul may enjoy helping the nature conservancies Adopt an Acre or Rescue a Reef, both of which can be tapped into for as little as $50.
Or, let’s suppose your mogul enjoys ballet. For $1 million, you can endow and put his name on New York City Ballet’s performances of an iconic Balanchine ballet for all time. What a thrill to see his name in the Playbill each time a particular work is performed.
Balletomanes might also be inspired by the opportunity to put their name, for $1 million, on a new all-glass studio at the incomparable School of American Ballet. The new space is designed by Liz Diller, whose recent credits include the High Line Project and the Boston Museum of Contemporary Art. For only $250,000,a mogul could endow toe shoes for the students rehearsing and performing in the once-a-year (and always sold out) Workshop, when the school’s extraordinary students strut their stuff.
The good thing about all these gifts is that fit is not an issue, and, yes, they can be delivered in time for Christmas. We doubt very much that you’ll have to deal with returns, either. One more point: You’ll make your tax accountant very, very happy.