Children’s Museum Honors Taper : Philanthropist Given Heartfelt Thanks

Gramps, as he is known by at least one of his nine grandchildren, went to the Los Angeles Children’s Museum this week, and the children clapped.

Gramps, 82, is the retired-but-active financier and real estate developer S. Mark Taper--well-known as the philanthropist, too. Because he had given $50,000 early on before the museum at Fletcher Bowron Square in downtown Los Angeles ever opened and because of his continued support, the museum’s director, Jack Armstrong, and his staff felt sentimental and decided to say a sort-of Valentine thank-you this week.

Also on Hand

Thus, museum board directors such as Jane Eisner, Leonore Hausner, Susan Franklin, Frederick Heim (board president), Morris Pynoos and Richard Spelke joined with Taper’s daughter, Mrs. Henri Lazarof, and others such as Rita Pynoos, the Joseph Stablers and the Steven Stablers for the occasion. Children from the nonprofit private Sheenway School and Culture Center in Watts dropped by in their starchiest herringbone uniforms.

And, with Taper in the center, they all watched as the 10th Street Dance Group, trained by Rosemary Watson, made like Michael Jackson and the Joffrey Ballet on the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

At one point, singing along with folk artist Jackie Brekger, young and old were miming five tasks at once--fanning, tapping a foot, rocking like a rocking chair, scissoring and chewing gum--to the words, “My aunt came back from old Japan . . . (from Holland, etc.). . . .” Taper and Jane Eisner, wife of Michael Eisner, president of Disney, were especially well coordinated.

Morris Pynoos presented Taper with one of the Willem de Kooning limited edition (250) silk-screened prints the museum reserves as gifts of appreciation to supporters who donate $1,500 or more. Signed, of course.

Taper also received a bright red museum sweat shirt and proclaimed, “Now, I can go trotting--I mean jogging.”

(The agile Taper exercises on his rowing machine and treadmill more than an hour each day and walks three times a week.)

Near-Life Replica

The Mark Taper Foundation contributed the funds that enabled the museum to build the Mark Taper Emergency Unit of the Health Education Learning Project (HELP) exhibit. It’s a near-life replica, hands-on, of an emergency unit with an ambulance, paramedics equipment, life-size rag dolls. A few steps away is a hospital emergency room with patient tables and IV apparatus. Taper dedicated it to the memory of his 20-month-old grandson, Adam Eric Taper, who died after a pool tragedy.

The mixed-generation affair seemed to make Taper happy.

He is the retired chairman and chief executive officer of First Charter Financial Corp., then the owner of savings and loan associations now known as American Savings. He also constructed, between 1941 and 1955, more than 35,000 single-family homes as the joint developer of what is now the City of Lakewood.

“Some of those houses were $7,000 in 1951,” Taper said. “Now, they sell for $130,000.”

Taper philosophized about giving, as he set off on a tour of the Children’s Museum, which hopes to grow from 17,000 to 100,000 square feet in the future:

“I gave seed money, before the museum even opened. That’s important in almost every project. Somebody has to begin; others follow. Most people will follow, but very few will begin.”