The Grand Mrs. Astor, a Young 90, Works Hard at Giving Away Money : Philanthropy: Always elegantly dressed and coiffed, the widow of Vincent Astor has about $1 million a year to donate.

Brooke Astor’s face lights up when she remembers the Manhattan of her youth, the city she fell in love with when she was 17.

“On Sundays, men would walk down Park Avenue in top hats and morning clothes,” she recalls. “People gave the most wonderful dinner parties. They would put out a red velvet carpet so women’s dresses wouldn’t get wet if it was raining. They also put up a canopy in bad weather. Can you imagine doing that today?”

Over eight decades, as she grew from wide-eyed schoolgirl to society doyenne, she has found “the city has changed, not for the better.”

“I think the cultural part has stayed very strong, but so much else has gone downhill,” she said. “I see these young men on drugs. Real estate has gone down so. Teachers are underpaid. Education has fallen apart, and I think education is the base of civilization.”

Don’t mistake Brooke Astor’s remarks for the sad laments of an old woman. The only thing old about her is her birth certificate. It says she will turn 90 on March 30. Her friends and admirers threw her a big, pre-birthday bash on March 5 at a New York City armory.

“I never imagined 90,” she said. ‘I used to think people at 40 were old.”

Once the mansions and townhouses of the very, very rich lined Fifth Avenue (now replaced, in many cases, by high-rise commercial buildings) and great names such as Astor and Vanderbilt dominated the city’s social life. (The very, very elite were the 400 who could fit into the great ballroom of Mrs. William Backhouse Astor, queen of New York City society in the late 1880s.)

The gala balls and soirees of the parents gave way in mid-century to the next generation’s nights out at the Stork Club and El Morocco. The great families have been overshadowed by the new rich of leveraged buyouts, junk bonds, mergers and the entertainment world.

Seated behind her commanding desk in the cozy Park Avenue offices of the Vincent Astor Foundation, Astor looks a good 30 years younger than her age. Her hair is a becoming shade of blonde; her makeup--eyeliner, mascara and blush--is impeccable. Dressed in a crisp Oscar de la Renta suit, she will heartily agree with all compliments about her appearance.

“I’ve never had a face lift!” she proclaims proudly in her vintage WASP lockjaw. Her only concession to age is the small hearing aid she slips on for an interview.

“I never dress down. People want to see Mrs. Astor. They don’t want to see me staggering around in some old dress.”

Brooke Astor is almost as well known for her lengthy reign over New York society as for her philanthropy as head of her late husband’s charitable foundation.

With her imperious bearing, blue-chip friends, Park Avenue apartment and house “in the country,” she is the quintessential “have.” Unlike some of her socialite friends, she is dedicated to the “have-nots.”

She is as familiar with homeless shelters and churches in some of the roughest neighborhoods of Harlem and Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant as she is with the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art--which have also benefited from the Astor largess.

“The foundation has been my life, and it’s the city that has made my life,” she says. “People have asked me to marry them, but I couldn’t. The foundation has been more important to me.”

She married three times. Her third husband, Vincent Astor, left her the foundation to run when he died in 1959.

“Vincent was a very suspicious man,” she said. “The fact that he had total confidence in me to run the foundation made me want to vindicate him, show him--wherever he is--that I could do a good job.”

At the time of his death, Astor’s foundation had about $67 million in assets. Since then, it has given more than $170 million to various institutions, almost all of them in New York. Now it has only about $1 million a year to spend.

Brooke Astor keeps up a busy pace in her quest to give away all of the foundation’s money before she dies. Since she insists on seeing everyone to whom she gives money, her schedule is full.

So full, in fact, that an interview must be booked weeks in advance. Even then, only 30 minutes is allowed. A photographer is whisked out after he shoots one roll of film, and the interview will be over when Mrs. Astor’s assistant brings your coat.