Legal Secretary Amasses $9 Million Fortune, Gives Most Of It To Students
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A legal secretary who grew up in the Great Depression and quietly amassed over $9 million through decades of investments has donated most of it to needy students.
The New York Times reported Monday that $6.24 million from the estate of Sylvia Bloom has been given to the Henry Street Settlement; another $2 million will be split between Hunter College and another scholarship fund to be announced.
Bloom grew up in Brooklyn and earned a degree from Hunter at night while working days to make ends meet.
As CBS2's Scott Rapoport reported, Bloom spent many years living in a rent-controlled apartment, always took the subway to work, never had any children of her own and valued the importance of getting an education.
In 1947, she joined the firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.
"She was a secretary in an era when they ran their boss' lives, including their personal investments," said 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."
Paul Hyams, a human resources executive for the firm who became good friends with Bloom, recalled seeing her trudging out of the subway toward work in the middle of a fierce snowstorm when she was 96.
"I said, `What are you doing here?' and she said, `Why, where should I be?"' he recalled.
She retired around that time, agreeing to move to a senior residence mainly because "she wanted to find a good bridge game," said a cousin, Flora Mogul Bornstein.
"I was speechless," Henry Street Settlement Executive Director David Garza said of the donation. "We are talking dozens of scholarships every year in perpetuity."
Bloom died not long after, in 2016.
Bloom's late husband, Raymond Margolies, was a firefighter who retired and then became a schoolteacher with a pharmacist career on the side, relatives said.
Lockshin said it's "very possible" that not even he knew the size of his independent-minded wife's fortune.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)