Education: Joy in Giving

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Like many another U.S. millionaire, William Black, president of Chock Full O' Nuts Corp., has discovered one of the true pleasures of hard work and good fortune. Last week short, chunky Bill Black gave $5,000,000 to Columbia University toward an 18-story medical-research building. It was the largest gift from a living person ever received by Columbia. Said Black: "I have found that there is a tremendous joy in giving. It is a very important part of the joy of living." Brooklyn-born Bill Black had no such joys when he worked his way through Columbia by loading potatoes in a waterfront market. He could barely afford nickel meals of bread pudding. But after graduation (1920), he took to selling nuts in a cubbyhole Times Square shop, soon had 18 stores. When the Depression killed nut sales, Black shrewdly converted the stores to lunch bars, featuring coffee and nutted-cheese sandwiches. Today his 28 New York-area restaurants serve 125,000 customers daily, add up to a $30 million-a-year business fattened (60%) by sales of Chock Full 0' Nuts coffee in 14 states. Black now lives on a New Rochelle estate formerly owned by Millionaire Tommy Manville, and is married to Singer Jean Martin, who once warbled "heavenly coffee" Chock Full O' Nuts TV commercials.

Black is so generous with his 1,000 employees, whose personnel manager is onetime Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson, that he gives them 10% of his profits as a Christmas bonus. But his big-scale generosity began in 1957, when his chief company auditor contracted Parkinson's disease, joining 1,500,000 other U.S. victims. Black promptly launched the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. He has given the foundation $250,000—just part of the total $1,000,000 that he had already given to medical causes before his outright gift to Columbia.

Where Black got that much ready cash is partly explained by a comfortable business transaction that he made in 1958. Black converted Chock Full O' Nuts from private ownership to public by selling 400,000 shares of the 720,000 he owned (out of 800,000 outstanding) at $15 a share. After taxes and brokers' fees, he cleared a neat $3,800,000. He still owns 33-5% of the stock, which was listed last week on the New York Stock Exchange at $46.50 a share. In his philanthropy, Black shows no less financial hustle. The one string he attached to his Columbia gift is a stipulation that the Parkinson's Disease Foundation get all the interest on the $5,000,000 until Columbia gets to work on the new medical building. Since delay means a sizable loss to Columbia (at least $175,000 yearly), the university hopes to start construction immediately. Says Philanthropist Black: "I want to see with my own eyes the results of my good intentions."