Brooke Astor, a civic leader, philanthropist and high society fixture who gave away nearly $200 million to support New York City's great cultural institutions, died Monday. She was 105.
Astor died of pneumonia at her suburban estate near New York, family lawyer Kenneth Warner said.
Brooke Astor, 95, is seen at the Merchant's House Museum in New York in May 1997. She gave away nearly $200 million US to arts groups and other causes.
(Serge J-F. Levy/Associated Press)
Although a legendary figure in New York City and feted with a famous gala on her 100th birthday in March 2002, Astor was mostly interested in putting the fortune that husband Vincent Astor left to use helping others.
Her efforts won her a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the U.S., in 1998.
"Money is like manure, it should be spread around," was her oft-quoted motto.
There has been a lot to spread in the family ever since Vincent Astor's great-great-grandfather, John Jacob Astor, made a fortune in fur trading and New York real estate.
Brooke Astor gave millions to what she called the "crown jewels" of New York — among them the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Carnegie Hall, the Museum of Natural History, Central Park and the Bronx Zoo.
She also funded scores of smaller projects such as Harlem's Apollo Theater, a new boiler for a youth centre, a church pipe organ and furniture for homeless families moving in to apartments.
It was a very personal sort of philanthropy, as she liked to vet projects herself through the Vincent Astor Foundation.
"People just can't come up here and say, 'We're doing something marvellous, send a cheque.' We say, 'Oh, yes, we'll come and see it,"' she had been quoted as saying.
Astor recently was the centre of a highly publicized legal dispute over her care with her grandson Philip Cryan Marshall, alleging that her son, Anthony Dryden Marshall, was cutting corners on her nursing and medications.
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