Abstract of Recording

This is a sound recording of a memorial service held for Gustave L. Levy, who died on November 3, 1976. Levy was Chairman of the Mount Sinai Boards of Trustees from 1962-1976. This service was held at the Stern Auditorium in the Annenberg Building at Mount Sinai School of Medicine on January 10, 1977. The speakers are: Thomas C. Chalmers, MD, President/Dean of Mount Sinai; Sheldon R. Coons, Mount Sinai Trustee; Senator Jacob Javits, Senator from New York; Hans Popper, MD, PhD, former Chairman of Pathology and the first Gustave L. Levy Distinguished Service Professor of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine; S. David Pomrinse, MD, Executive Vice President of the Medical Center and former Director of The Mount Sinai Hospital; Hugh Biller, MD, Chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology of the School and of the Hospital; Alfred Stern, Vice President of the Boards of Trustees and Chairman of the Development Committee of the Boards.

Transcript of Levy Memorial Service (EVE 0007)

Sound Recording of Levy Memorial Service (EVE 0007)

Biographical Sketch

Gustave L. Levy was Chairman and then President of the Mount Sinai institutions from 1962-1976. Gustave Lehmann Levy became a trustee of The Mount Sinai Hospital in 1960. At his death on November 3, 1976, he was Chairman of the Boards of The Mount Sinai Medical Center, The Mount Sinai Hospital, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Gustave Levy was born in New Orleans on May 23, 1910. He was educated at Tulane University and took his first job on Wall Street in 1928. He spent the rest of his life working in the financial district of New York. He became a partner at Goldman, Sachs and Company in 1946 and was still with that firm at his death. In 1934 he married Janet Wolf. They had two children: Peter A. and Betty Levy Hess.

Mr. Levy was very involved in philanthropic activities. The list of organizations he worked with, or was an officer of, is tremendous. Of note here is his work with the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, beginning in 1954, and the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York, Inc., from 1968.

During his years at Mount Sinai Mr. Levy oversaw the most intense period of change in the institution's history. When he became a trustee in 1960, the planning for the medical school was in its initial stages. The ensuing years, with Levy as President and then Chairman, saw the establishment of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the achievement of a university affiliation, the $154 million fundraising effort for the medical school building and endowment, the planning and erection of the Annenberg Building (in recognition of Mr. Levy's contributions the library was named after him and his wife), the purchase and renovation of the Cummings Basic Science Building, the recruitment of faculty including the first Dean of the medical school, and the graduation of the first classes.