Even by the dizzying standards of New York City philanthropy, a recent $US6.24 million ($8.3 million) donation to the Henry Street Settlement, a community services agency, was a whopper — the largest single gift from an individual to the social service group in its 125-year history.
It was not donated by some billionaire benefactor, but by a frugal legal secretary from Brooklyn who toiled for the same law firm for 67 years until she retired at age 96 and died not long afterward in 2016.
Her name was Sylvia Bloom and even her closest friends and relatives had no idea she had amassed a fortune over the decades. She did this by shrewdly observing the investments made by the lawyers she served.
“She was a secretary in an era when they ran their boss’ lives, including their personal investments,” recalled her niece Jane Lockshin. “So when the boss would buy a stock, she would make the purchase for him, and then buy the same stock for herself, but in a smaller amount because she was on a secretary’s salary.”
Sylvia Bloom and her husband, Raymond Margolies. Source: HANDOUT
Since Bloom never talked about this, even to those closest to her, the fact that she had carefully cultivated more than $US9 million among three brokerage houses and 11 banks, only emerged at the end of her life – “an oh my God moment,” said Lockshin, the executor of Bloom’s estate.
“I realised she had millions and she had never mentioned a word,” recalled Lockshin. “I don’t think she thought it was anybody’s business but her own.”
“She was certainly not a spendthrift,” Lockshin added. “She didn’t have any minks.”
Bloom’s will allowed for some money to be left to relatives and friends, but directed that the bulk of the fortune go toward scholarships of Lockshin’s choice for needy students.
Lockshin, the long-standing treasurer of the settlement’s board, called the group’s executive director, David Garza, and asked him if he was sitting down.
Jane Lockshin, the treasurer of the Henry Street Settlements board, was not surprised by her aunt's decision to support education. Source: The New York Times
“We were all agape, just blown away,” recalled Garza, who said the money would endow the settlement’s Expanded Horizons College Success Program, which helps disadvantaged students prepare for and complete college.
While her aunt’s wealth was a surprise, her quiet plan to help students was not, Lockshin said.
Bloom, who never had children of her own, was born to eastern European immigrants and grew up in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. She attended public schools, including Hunter College where she completed her degree at night while working days to make ends meet.
In 1947 she joined a fledgling Wall Street law firm as one of its first employees. Over her 67 years with the firm, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, it grew to its current size, with more than 1,200 lawyers, as well as hundreds of staff members, of which Bloom was the longest tenured, said Paul Hyams, a human resources executive for the firm who became good friends with Bloom over his 35 years working there.
Bloom’s husband, Raymond Margolies, who died in 2002, was a city firefighter who retired and became a city schoolteacher with a pharmacist career on the side, relatives said.
Even when she married, Bloom kept her given name, which was indicative of her independent nature, said a cousin, Flora Mogul Bornstein, 72.
The couple lived modestly in a rent-controlled apartment, though “she could have lived on Park Avenue if she wanted to,” Hyams said.
Bloom was known for always taking the subway to work, even on the morning of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center, not far from the firm’s offices.
Sylvia Bloom and her husband Raymond Margolies lived in a modest rent-controlled apartment even though they could have lived on Park Avenue. Source: Supplied
That day, Bloom, at 84, fled north and took refuge in a building before walking over the Brooklyn Bridge and taking a city bus — not a cab — home.
Just before she retired, Hyams said he saw the 96-year-old Bloom trudging out of the subway and headed to work in the middle of a fierce snowstorm.
“I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ and she said, ‘Why, where should I be?” he recalled.
After retiring, Bloom agreed to move to a senior residence mainly because “she wanted to find a good bridge game,” said Bornstein, a retired social worker.
To scout them out, and finally to move into one on the Upper West Side, she insisted on taking the subway, Bornstein said.
Hyams said Bloom regretted never going to law school.
Still, he said, he was “completely astounded” to learn of her wealth after her death.
“She never talked money and she didn’t live the high life,” he said. “She wasn’t showy and didn’t want to call attention to herself.
A lover of chocolate but not lavish gifts, she only would accept his gifts of special chocolate in small quantities.
“She was a child of the Depression and she knew what it was like not to have money. She had great empathy for other people who were needy and wanted everybody to have a fair shake.”
Jane Lockshin says it was "an oh my God moment" when she realised her aunt had amassed millions of dollars. Source: The New York Times
Lockshin said an additional $US2 million from Bloom’s bequest would be split between Hunter College and another scholarship fund to be announced.
Garza called the gift “the epitome of selflessness,” and a fitting gesture by a woman to the settlement, which was founded in 1893 by public health pioneer Lillian Wald.
Bloom’s view of education was informed by her own public school experience and by working with successful lawyers from highly rated colleges and law schools, he said.
“She had that dual perspective,” Garza said, “and it’s probably why it resonated so deeply in her heart and her gut.”
