Exercising Harvard Pride: The Mogul Who Revamped the MAC

For Peter L. Malkin ’55, a partner in a prominent New York real estate firm and a notable philanthropist, graduation from Harvard did not mean the end of his commitment to the University.

“Harvard was something with which I wanted to be associated throughout my life,” says Malkin, who has in recent years donated heavily to the University and endowed several chairs in the subject he once studied, government.

Students at the College can even appreciate his contributions firsthand when they pass the Malkin Athletic Center—diminutively known as “The MAC”— on the way to the river.

Malkin has moved from the first floor of Wigglesworth to owning the Empire State Building, yet he has maintained his connection to Harvard’s undergraduate campus.

IMPRESSIONS OF HARVARD

Growing up in Brooklyn, Malkin attended Holy Prep, a New York day school. Though there was no expectation of coming to Harvard, Malkin applied and got in.

“My first impression was bewilderment—I had not been away at school...and it took me a while to find my way,” he says.

Arriving at Harvard, he was aware of the disparities in the student body. “It was very different then,” he says. “My recollection is that there were 1,100 young men in the freshman class and as little as 20 minority students.” By comparison, about 40 percent of the members of the Class of 2008 are minorities.

Malkin also noted the gap between the boys from different schools: “I would probably say half the class came from the elite prep schools, Exeter, Andover, Groton, and others....It took about a year for the public school boys to catch up, the day schools maybe six months,” he says.

Malkin focused mainly on academics in college—though he never considered a career in academia—and graduated summa cum laude with a degree in government. He was also involved in Crimson Key, the golf team, and the Hasty Pudding Social Club.

“I did not join a final club, but later on, my classmates inaugurated me as an honorary member of the A.D. club,” he adds.

As a government concentrator, he cites Professor Robert G. McCloskey’s American Constitutional History and Law course as an important step toward pursuing a degree at Harvard Law School (HLS). He also remembers taking courses with then-teaching fellows Samuel Huntington, Henry Kissinger, and Zbigniew Brzezinski.

“I’m still friends with [Huntington],” Malkin says.

Malkin reserves the most praise for the General Education courses, which he says “gave every Harvard student some shared intellectual experience....It was about exploring and understanding value systems.” He has kept up with the developments of the recent curricular review at Harvard, and he suggests that the University consider reimposing some kind of intellectual or academic experience which each student can share with every member of his or her Class.

“One problem is that the Core deals with methods instead of ideas....Another problem is that 1,600 students graduating from Harvard don’t have this common experience,” he says.

Malkin praises the emergence of freshman seminars and study abroad in undergraduate academic life. He says that in the 1950s, “If you took a year off to study something—it was called dropping out. I don’t recall a single person in my class who did that.”

Besides academics, he has much to say about the social life at Harvard, which he feels has undergone a momentous change since his days in the Yard.

“My impression is that we had more planned social events. There were freshman dances, mixers, and jolly-ups with the Radcliffe girls. The girls from Simmons and Wellesley came by buses. There was a freshman jubilee in the spring at Annenberg. Social life was more organized,” he says, contrasting this to the ubiquitous smaller room parties at the College today.

Malkin had slightly different motives from the rest of the spouse-seeking undergraduates, though, since he married his childhood sweetheart, Isabel Wein, the summer after his graduation. Wein attended Bradford Junior College while he was at Harvard.

“She was 18 and I was 21, and you could say I was very slow, because we’d known each other for 10 years,” he says, laughing.

According to a classmate, Malkin was approachable and personable in his student days.

Stephen E. Banker ’55, who lived across the hall from Malkin in Wigglesworth freshman year and has remained in touch with Malkin since, remembers him as an avid golf player and an outgoing and congenial personality.

“He was helpful, kind, and generous,” Banker says. “He was very approachable. That was characteristic of him then, as a freshman, and now.”

TRUMPING THE EMPIRE STATE

Malkin remained at Harvard immediately after graduation, receiving his degree from HLS in 1958.

The bulk of his career since then has been dedicated to real estate development in New York, where he is one of the partners of Wein & Malkin, LLP.

Malkin partnered with his father-in-law, who had in the 1930s developed the practice of real estate syndication in New York, and has since become one of the most formidable forces in the city’s real estate industry. Wein & Malkin owns several large properties in midtown Manhattan, including the Empire State Building, purchased in 2002. Malkin and his associates bought the building for $57.5 million from Donald Trump, after several years of bitter legal battles with Trump and his co-investor, Hideki Yokoi.

According to Banker, Malkin has joked that Bill Gates, Class of 1977, who lived in the same freshman dorm room as Malkin had lived fifteen years earlier, achieved his success “from the dust [Malkin] left behind.”

Malkin has also devoted much of his career to philanthropy, and has made a point of attracting high-level business-people to charitable causes.

Five years ago, Malkin co-founded the Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy­—whose membership consists of about 150 CEOs of top companies internationally—with John C. Whitehead and actor Paul Newman. According to the committee’s website, the members’ companies have accounted for about 45 percent of reported corporate giving.

GIVING BACK

Malkin says he will continue to support the University, and expresses his strong admiration for University President Lawrence H. Summers.

“I really support him. He’s doing some great work revising the curriculum, cutting back on grade inflation, spending more time teaching, developing new courses, freshman seminars,” he says.

Malkin is currently co-chair of the Reunion Gift campaign of the Class of 1955. He is director of the Harvard Alumni Association and is on the Board of Overseers. He is also on the Dean’s Council at the Kennedy School of Government, which he chairs, as well as that of HLS.

Malkin also contributed to the renovation of the MAC facilities in 1985, a gift that led Harvard to rename the athletic center after him. Before Malkin’s contribution to the renovation, women’s lockers and the ballet and martial arts facilities did not exist and the weight room was outdated.

“I understand it has also now become a place to meet and chat with other undergraduates,” he says of the MAC, with perceptible satisfaction.

Next year, Malkin will take on another commitment to the gym. In the off-season, $16 million will be spent to make some improvements to the MAC, including more air-conditioning. Malkin’s company has created a matching fund whereby all gifts are doubled, he says.

—Staff writer Sahil K. Mahtani can be reached at mahtani@fas.harvard.edu.