[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 124 (Wednesday, September 22, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11273-S11274]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     THE LIFE OF FREDERICK P. ROSE

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to celebrate the life of 
Frederick P. Rose who died last week at the fine age of seventy-five, 
after a life that enhanced the lives of so many others. He was, of 
course, a member of the celebrated Rose family which rose, if you like 
(and he would have done!) with New York City itself, ever upwards and 
onwards. His craft was building--he was a graduate engineer--his art 
was friendship, but his genius lay in the way he would use his own 
wealth and epic energies to engage the support of legions of friends in 
the widest range of

[[Page S11274]]

civic enterprise. The range was exceptional, from the New York Public 
Library, to the American Museum of Natural History, to Yale University. 
As his richly-detailed obituary in The New York Times records, most 
often his gifts were anonymous, although eventually most were known, 
for how could we not notice how things changed around him.
  He was for all this rather a private person, devoted to family, his 
wife Sandra, their children and grandchildren, his brothers Daniel and 
Elihu. These and also the musicians and chess players and plain fun-
loving folk with whom he cavorted through three-quarter's century of 
the life of New York with a grace rarely imagined and yet more rarely 
attained.
  We whom he leaves behind take consolation in Yeats' lines:

     Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
     And say my glory was I had such friends.

  I ask unanimous consent to have his full obituary printed in the 
Record.
  The obituary follows:

               [From the New York Times, Sept. 16, 1999]

Frederick P. Rose, 2d-Generation Builder and a Major Philanthropist, Is 
                               Dead at 75

                         (By Charles V. Bagli)

       Frederick P. Rose, a highly successful builder who poured 
     his energy into two dozen major apartment projects and an 
     equal number of institutions that adorn the New York skyline, 
     from Lincoln Center to Rockefeller University and the 
     Children's Aid Society, died Tuesday night. He was 75.
       He died at his home in Rye, N.Y., after a brief illness, 
     his family said.
       A second-generation member of a New York real estate 
     dynasty, Mr. Rose could be found until earlier this year 
     supervising construction of a 50-story apartment house, the 
     Belvedere, at 29th Street between Fifth and Madison Avenues.
       It was the latest project for Rose Associates, which owns 
     or manages 12,000 apartments in New York and four million 
     square feet of commercial space.
       At the same time, and with equal enthusiasm, he was 
     overseeing construction of the $150 million Frederick Phineas 
     and Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space at the 
     American Museum of Natural History, the giant sphere that 
     houses the new Hayden Planetarium. Mr. Rose not only wrote a 
     $20 million check for the planetarium but also was the 
     project leader for the trustees.
       ``He was a builder in every sense of the word, not just of 
     buildings, but of institutions,'' said Ellen Futter, 
     president of the American Museum of Natural History.
       Over the years, Mr. Rose also donated $5 million to the 
     Metropolitan Museum of Art, $15 million to the New York 
     Public Library and $18 million to Lincoln Center; in all, he 
     gave away more than $95 million.
       A forceful man with a reputation for keeping his word, Mr. 
     Rose could breeze into a meeting, as he did earlier this year 
     with his longtime friend and partner, Charles Benenson, and 
     within minutes size up the situation and agree to a $24 
     million real estate deal for land on 44th Street, near Third 
     Avenue, for a 51-story apartment house.
       Mr. Rose was still building tall buildings while his 
     nephew, Joseph B. Rose, current chairman of the New York City 
     Planning Commission, labored to change the zoning laws to bar 
     oversized towers in Manhattan.
       Although the Rose family's buildings were known more for 
     efficiency than architectural detail, Mr. Rose was most proud 
     of building two towers that won awards for design: the 
     Bankers Trust Building at 280 Park Avenue, near 48th Street, 
     and a 40-story apartment house at 45 East 89th Street.
       His interests ranged widely.
       Mr. Rose always carried a stack of foreign currency and 
     American dollar bills, which he would fold into intricate 
     origami figures of birds, cows and walruses and present to 
     his delighted friends.
       At the end of a stuffy board meeting at Lincoln Center, Mr. 
     Rose would often stroll over to a piano and play a few songs 
     for the amusement of the other directors. He played golf up 
     to four times a week and, last year hired a national chess 
     champion to sharpen his skills.
       Mr. Benenson, who had been a partner in many of Mr. Rose's 
     real estate deals since the early 1960's, said he called his 
     friend two months ago, suggesting that they raise $100,000 
     from each of 10 people for the refugees in Kosovo.
       The next day, Mr. Benenson recalled, the developer called 
     back and said, ``O.K., we'll do it through the American 
     Jewish Committee, because we want to show the world that 
     Jewish people are helping Muslims.''
       ``Two or three days later,'' Mr. Benenson concluded, ``we 
     had $1.4 million.''
       An engineer by training, Mr. Rose wrote in a 1994 journal 
     commemorating the 50th anniversary of his graduation from 
     Yale University that the central focus of his life had been 
     his family. He wrote that he had been on the boards of 35 
     organizations, from Con Edison to Yale University. He took 
     pride in being a builder.
       Finally, he wrote: ``I don't read trash, watch TV or have 
     an interest in spectator sports. This leaves time for active 
     participation in things I enjoy: music, chess, tennis, golf, 
     travel, skiing and friendship.''
       Mr. Rose's insistence on providing advice and hiring 
     consultants for projects to which he had contributed 
     sometimes rankled other developers, but institutions and 
     their directors embraced him.
       Until recently, Mr. Rose was chairman of the real estate 
     company started by his father, Samuel B. Rose, and his uncle, 
     David Rose, in the Bronx around the time he was born, in 
     1923. The two brothers built small apartment houses in the 
     Bronx before moving into Manhattan a decade later. Samuel had 
     three sons, Daniel, Elihu and Frederick, all of whom joined 
     the company after World War II. Frederick's son, Adam, is now 
     president of Rose Associates.
       Mr. Rose married his teen-age sweetheart, Sandra Priest of 
     Rye, in the early 1940's. She survives him, along with a 
     daughter, Deborah Rose; two sons, Jonathan F. P. Rose and 
     Adam R. Rose, both of New York; two brothers, Daniel and 
     Elihu, and three grandchildren, Ariel, Rachael and Sarah.
       Mr. Rose served in the construction battalions of the Navy 
     Seabees during World War II, rising to the rank of lieutenant 
     before he returned to New York and Rose Associates. He took 
     charge of design and construction, while Daniel did the 
     planning and finances and Elihu took over management of the 
     family's apartment houses.
       Mr. Rose built more than 2,000 units of middle-income 
     housing under the state's Mitchell-Lama program, as well as 
     the family's first office tower, at 280 Park Avenue.
       But unlike some developers who showed up in the gossip 
     columns during the 1980's and 1990's, Mr. Rose and his family 
     avoided publicity. He usually contributed money to charities 
     anonymously, and word of the donations rarely leaked out 
     until years later.
       ``He built good-quality housing and he was devoted to 
     community service,'' said Robert I. Shapiro, a real estate 
     broker who knew Mr. Rose.
       A longtime opponent of rent control, Mr. Rose converted 
     more than 3,000 apartments in Manhattan during the early 
     1990's to condominiums and co-ops. Many people in the 
     industry thought it was a risky move, given the recession.
       But unlike many landlords at the time who were struggling 
     with enormous loans, the Rose family had buildings that were 
     largely free of debt, and the conversion went off without a 
     hitch.
       ``He secretly believed he was the finest construction 
     superintendent in the city,'' said his brother Daniel, who is 
     now chairman of Rose Associates. ``He liked to kick the 
     bricks.''
       Mr. Rose applied the same energy enthusiasm and discipline 
     to his philanthropic work as his professional work, his 
     brother said. When Mr. Rose, along with his wife, gave $15 
     million to Lincoln Center, he also helped engineer the 
     construction of the Rose Building, a 31-story tower that 
     houses rehearsal space and dormitories for the Juilliard 
     School of Music and offices for the School of American Ballet 
     and the New York Philharmonic.
       ``He had a mercurial mind and it was fun trying to keep up 
     with him,'' said Beverly Sills, the chairwoman of Lincoln 
     Center. ``He was a man of the world in every sense of the 
     word. I'm really going to miss him.''

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