Name Games
From concert stages to museum toilets, anything goes (up for sale) nowadays when it comes to what philanthropic organizations call naming opportunities. In the new issue of Contribute, I look at the naming marketplace, its pleasures and its pitfalls. The biggest one? As Page Six writes of the article today, “Forever is no longer forever.” As the families of André Meyer and Avery Fisher have recently learned.
UPDATE: MediaPost’s MagazineRack blog likes this article. They really like it. And I feel a little like Sally Field.
March 11th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
[…] I guess Blackstone Group chairman and 740 Park resident Steve Schwarzman has been reading his press after all. Today’s Times announced that he was entering the philanthropic pantheon at the very top, donating $100 million to the New York Public Library to totally transform the 42nd Street main library into a modern facility that will be renamed (albeit discretely) the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. The gift instantly catapults Schwarzman into the ranks of America’s most generous, alongside Andrew Carnegie, who financed much of New York’s branch library system, and John D. Rockefeller Jr., who used to own Schwarzman’s apartment. And takes off the focus off of Blackstone Group’s falling profits and stock price. But for one day at least, let’s accentuate the positive. Well done, Steve! […]