February 10, 2013 | Read Time: 4 minutes
Amount donated in 2012: about $88.8-million
Top beneficiary: New York Community Trust
Other notable gifts: $20-million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and $15-million to the New York Public Library
Background: Mrs. Astor was a prominent New York philanthropist and the widow of Vincent Astor, an heir to a real-estate fortune.
Mrs. Astor, who was 105 when she died in 2007, left $42-million to the New York Community Trust to establish two funds: $35-million to create the Brooke Astor Fund for New York City Education to support reading programs for elementary schoolchildren; and $7-million to support education programs throughout New York State. Money for the first fund is to be spent over five years and the second within one year.
A doyenne of New York society for decades, Mrs. Astor also bequeathed roughly $20-million to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for curatorial programs and art acquisitions. She had been a trustee of the museum since 1963. The Met donation includes $3-million given in place of an iconic painting—Flags, Fifth Avenue, by Childe Hassam—that Mrs. Astor had promised the museum but that her son, Anthony Marshall, sold in 2002. Its current location is unknown.
The sale of the painting is one troubling episode of many that came to light during a lengthy series of court battles that erupted before her death and held up her charitable bequests for five years after she died.
More than a year before her death, some of Mrs. Astor’s friends voiced concern about the way her son, a Broadway producer and former diplomat, was caring for her. Her grandson, Philip Marshall, filed a lawsuit accusing his father of trying to enrich himself with Mrs. Astor’s fortune while neglecting her basic needs. Anthony Marshall denied the accusations, but in a 2006 settlement he agreed to stop directing Mrs. Astor’s health care and finances, and he and his wife, Charlene, agreed to give up their positions as executors of his mother’s estate. A judge named a court-appointed executor after Mrs. Astor’s death.
Legal Battles
Meanwhile, the court battles continued. In 2009, Anthony Marshall and a lawyer, Francis Morrissey Jr., were convicted of stealing millions of dollars from Mrs. Astor during the final years of her life and collaborating to have the philanthropist amend her will so that a significant amount of money meant for charity could be redirected to Anthony Marshall. He and Mr. Morrissey appealed that verdict in 2011, and it is currently pending.
Last March, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced the settlement of Mrs. Astor’s estate, which freed up the money meant for the many charities she had named in her will. The settlement also slashed Anthony Marshall’s inheritance by more than 50 percent, enabling more money to go to charity.
“Brooke Astor was at the center of New York philanthropy for nearly half a century,” said Mr. Schneiderman in his announcement. “Her legendary generosity and charisma touched New Yorkers of all backgrounds. I am pleased that my office led the way to an agreement that honors Mrs. Astor’s final wishes and benefits New York’s landmark educational and cultural institutions.”
Those institutions include not only the New York Community Trust and the Metropolitan Museum but also the New York Public Library, which received about $15-million. Mrs. Astor had served as a trustee of the library since 1959. In addition, Rockefeller University received more than $2.6-million, and $2-million went to New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development to establish a program to provide New York schoolteachers with international study trips and other types of travel abroad.
A Variety of Gifts
Of the other New York nonprofits that received bequests, the Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates New York zoos and an aquarium, got nearly $1.9-million; the Morgan Library & Museum received more than $1.5-million; the Central Park Conservancy, about $1-million; and Prospect Park Alliance, roughly $900,000.
In addition, Mrs. Astor left gifts to nonprofits in two other cities in New York, including about $1.2-million to Historic Hudson Valley, in Tarrytown, and $10,000 to Trinity Episcopal Church, Ossining. .
She also left gifts to nonprofits in Maine, where she had a vacation home: roughly $500,000 to the College of the Atlantic; $100,000 to the Mount Desert Land & Garden Preserve to endow its azalea garden; and nearly $57,000 to Northeast Harbor Library.
In addition, she left bequests to the Brooklyn Museum, Carnegie Hall Corporation, Marine Corps University Foundation, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, and the United Nations, but since the estate has not finalized all of Mrs. Astor’s gifts, the amount of those donations could not be confirmed.
