Rating NYU Building Namesakes with My Evil-meter

A totally factual and completely unbiased moral analysis of those who donate enough money to put their names on university buildings.

Graphic by author.

Do you ever walk past a plaque on the side of the building, see a name you’ve only ever associated with, perhaps, Chick-Fil-A or a library all-nighter, and wonder — who exactly is this person?

Here at NYU, we’re known for taking in the best and the brightest — like Jared Kushner, Perez Hilton, Woody Allen, and Ross Geller — and lifting them towards greatness.

But do these names on the buildings we frequent (or, um, used to frequent) hold up to this class and prestige?

Well, wonder no more: I researched 10 of those whom NYU deemed important enough to immortalize on their building plaques, and gave them an evil-ness rating based entirely on my own Googling and personal assumptions.

Kaufman Management Center

In the first line of Henry Kaufman’s Wikipedia page, it is noted that he has been granted the nickname, “Dr. Doom.” While, personally, I’d be the first to defend the OG Dr. Doom, I’m a bit more concerned given that this dude has a Stern building named after him. But after doing a bit more research, it seems the origins of the nickname may not be as bad as I thought.

However, moving past that… I’m having a hard time figuring this dude out. In a 1998 interview with Forbes Magazine, Kaufman stated, “There are two kinds of people who lose money: those who know nothing and those who know everything.” Well, 10 years later he lost money in the Bernie Madoff scandal, so I wonder which type of person he is.

One more fun fact: this guy went to high school with Henry Kissinger and Alan Greenspan… I wonder what that prom drama was like.

Verdict: ??/10, more dumb than evil.

Gould Plaza

NYU Board of Trustees member Jeffrey S. Gould is the President of PortAble, Inc., a sustainable shipping and storage company, according to their LinkedIn. That sounds pretty solid. However, after clicking on their website link, I’m led to this eerie page that’s labeled “forbidden”. So, either it’s sketchy or they have to update their web department.

A bit more scrolling, and this guy doesn’t seem to have any internet presence at all. Definitely leaning towards sketchy.

Verdict: 2/10, +1 for being almost completely off the grid in the age of Tik Tok, +1 because no totally innocent person is a “trustee.”

Image via PortAble.

Weinstein Hall

While visiting campus in 2018, my father looked horrified when I casually mentioned that I was going to pick up groceries from Weinstein. I quickly clarified, no, it’s not named after *that* Weinstein.

Joe Weinstein, on the other hand, seems alright. He founded the J.W. Mays Department store chain, which closed two decades after his death in the 1980s. He was pretty charitable during the Great Depression and towards organizations aimed toward helping Jewish immigrants. But, because we can’t have nice things, he was also formerly president of the Swan Finch Oil Corporation.

Verdict: 3/10, it would be more, but he died in the ’60s. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt about climate change.

Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

The infamous Skirball Center is named after Jack H. Skirball, a college-dropout-turned-Rabbi-turned-psychology-and-sociology-student-turned-Hollywood-producer. A typical Gallatin-type guy.

I’m not finding a lot of dirt on this guy at first glance — however, he did produce a few Hitchock films, which is essentially a war crime in my book.

Verdict: 4/10, for Laura Mulvey.

Silver Center for Arts and Sciences

Despite the building’s more infamous history, the most recent namesake of 32 Waverly Place has kept a bit of a lower profile (no, wikipedia, I definitely don’t mean “Julius Caesar”). Julius Silver, a class of 1922 NYU grad, donated $150 million of his fortune to the university in 2002, shortly before his death. Silver seemed like a pretty standard NYU-grad-turned-Columbia-law-grad-turned-NYC-lawyer. Still, apparently, he also helped found Polaroid Corporation, so as a photographer and former-Halsey-listener… mild respect for that.

But, I’m not letting him get off that easily.

Just for agreeing to put his name on a building haunted by actual human rights violations and the original testing grounds for the first revolver: 5/10, half points for each.

Helen and Martin Kimmel Center for Student Life

No, Google, I promise you I did not mean Jimmy Kimmel NYU. A few more algorithmic tries, and I find Martin Kimmel: philanthropist and co-founder of the largest strip mall-building business in the country. Are strip malls a war crime? Not exactly. Plastic bag over the head of the environment? Yeah. Soulless affront to God? Yes.

Helen, on the other hand, seems to have dodged immortalization in a Wikipedia page. Other than a Barnard professor position named after her, she’s a ghost.

So, for the crimes of the husband: 6/10, +5 for climate crisis, +1 for suburban trauma.

King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center

As a Jewish person, I am a bit weary of Spanish royalty on principle. I was a bit confused as to why exactly we had a building named after this guy at first (excuse me for not keeping up on the recent history of antiquated figure heads).

But with a bit more research, I learned King JC took over the throne two days after Francisco Franco’s death. Despite initially swearing loyalty to Franco’s regime (definitely an evil guy move), he orchestrated the democratizing efforts of the late ‘70s, and pushed back against military efforts to return to a Fascist state (alright, maybe not so much of an evil guy move).

Okay, not a terrible start.

Flash forward to the 2010s, the King’s neck-deep in corruption scandals, including mistress pay-offs, slush funds, and secret monetary gifts from the Saudi regime. He abdicated in 2014 and decided a global pandemic was a good time to dip into self-exile in an undisclosed location. (It ended up being in Abu Dhabi, in true NYU sophomore spring fashion.)

So, maybe my instincts were right.

Oh, and this dude hunts elephants. Bond villain type shit.

Verdict: 7/10, +4 for the corruption, +1 for the elephants, +2 for my own anti-monarchical prejudice.

Lipton Hall

While the horrifying portrait at the top of this New York Times article was enough to launch Mr. Martin Lipton towards the bottom of my list, further reading only made it worse. Lipton not only handpicked John Sexton for (former) University President (who… um…), but he was also instrumental in creating the Abu Dhabi campus. Oh, and since he did so great with the last guy, he also helped to handpick good ole’ Andy Ham.

So for debilitating gentrification, slave labor, and the weekly emails telling me how these are “unprecedented times”: 8/10

Elmer Holmes Bobst Library

Oh, Bobst. Bobst, Bobst, Bobst. Bringer of so much horrifying content to our humble little blog.

10/10, for obvious reasons.

Washington One (Social Work Building)

Now, you may be asking yourself, wait a minute, why is Washington One on this list? That’s a street name, and George Washington died long before NYU was founded! That’s right! But the truth of the matter is, besides the slaves, and the rapes, and the genocide — without Georgie here, NYU would never even exist.

And so, allowing that to happen? Unknowingly paving the way for me to be sitting here, in my overpriced one bedroom, creeping towards my one year anniversary at Zoom U?

That’s the biggest crime of all.

100000000/10