Billionaire developer and owner of U.S. News & World Report and the Daily News Mortimer Zuckerman has donated $100 million to Memorial Sloan-Kettering for cancer research. The NY Times says it's the biggest in the hospital's history, and one of the largest to a medical institutiong overall. Since the donation is unrestricted, MSK will be putting most of it towards their new research building on First Avenue and East 68th Street. The 23 floor building, designed by Skidmore Owings Merrill, will be named after the mogul. Zuckerman said, "New York is a city that inspires philanthropy. There are more people who support more eleemosynary institutions than any other place by far. It's one of the reasons I love this city." Yeah, we had to look that up too, but, hey, big word for big donation.
Thing we wonder if billionaires find amusing: Former Citibank chairman Sanford Weill's generous donations to Cornell's medical school - hence it being called Weill Medical College; Zuckerman's company owns Citigroup Center at 53rd and Lexington. If billionaires can inspire each other to donate more, we're all for it, at any rate. Zuckerman writes an opinion column for the Daily News - here's his latest, about the war on terror - and does the same for US News.
