D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A H O R T I C U LT U R E S O C I E T Y O F N E W YO R K ’ S “ G R E E N B E A N ” B A S H
Paige Malik
terms on the City Council. He was defeated in his effort to win nomination for President of New York City Council and then experienced another defeat when the Supreme Court overturned his very narrow victory in a county committee election for nomination to fill Ed Koch’s Congressional seat, which he vacated when elected mayor. Amanda and Carter Burden were divorced in 1972 after six years of marriage. Five years later, he married Susan Lombaer, to whom he remained married until his untimely death 18 years later from heart failure at age 54 in 1995. As a man of great fortune, he kept close watch on his financials. In 1969, the same year he first 30 QUEST
Alison Strong and Kamie Lightburn
Sloan and Alex Overstrom
won the City Council seat, he became the principal owner of the Village Voice, which at the time was the country’s largest circulation weekly newspaper. Six years later, he merged the Village Voice with New York magazine. The following year, he sold those assets to Rupert Murdoch. He also founded Commodore Media, which owned and operated 20 radio station on the East Coast, and remained a managing partner of his family’s William A. M. Burden Company, a family investment partnership founded by his grandfather. Philanthropically, Carter Burden became a major supporter of the New York Public Library; the Morgan Library (to which he bequeathed a
Mr. Green Bean
Erica Armstrong and Heather McAuliffe
major portion of his collection of first-editions and authors’ papers, now on exhibit); the New York City Ballet; the Brookdale Center on Aging; Wellesley College; and an organization for survivors of domestic abuse. His Burden Center for the Aging—now known as the Carter Burden Center for the Aging to clarify the meaning of the word “burden”—has become a major center on New York’s Upper East Side, where it serves hot lunches every day for many of the neighbors and services the needs of the community with many programs supervised by scores of volunteers (and professionals). Susan Burden, his widow, took on the mantle of her hus-
band’s philanthropy and has grown these enterprises enormously to expand their assistance to the community. Mrs. Burden is also one of the principal (hands-on) supporters of New Yorkers For Children (or NYFC), which was the brainchild of former Commissioner of the Administration for Children’s Services Nicholas Scoppetta. NYFC, started in 1996, has with donations from individuals, corporations and foundations been able to support the child welfare community focusing on the individual needs of young people in foster care. Each year, NYFC directly affects the lives of almost 1,000 youth in foster care with a Back to School Package Program, the Youth Advisory
PAT R I C K M C M U LL A N
Melanie and Kevin Chisholm with Kristen Genovese