Wall Street Potentate Picks Up the Tab for Viagra for the Poor

The sex--$1 million worth--is on Alan “Ace” Greenberg.

The chairman of investment firm Bear, Stearns & Co. is donating the pile of money to buy Viagra for poor men.

“I made the money and I’m going to give it away any way I want to,” Greenberg said Wednesday. “The public interest in Viagra says a lot about how many people have been suffering in silence.”

It’s not the financier’s first unusual donation. Several years ago, he gave the Israel Museum in Jerusalem money to renovate its bathrooms and had a plaque installed in one to honor his brother.

Greenberg’s Viagra check is going to the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. His wife, Kathy, is a board member. He said he decided to donate the money last week after reading that some insurance companies and state health programs are refusing to cover the impotence drug, which sells for $8 to $10 a pill.

“It’s a matter of quality of life,” said Greenberg, who received a $20-million bonus last year. “I asked my wife what she thought. She said, ‘You’re usually nuts, but if you really want to do it, go ahead!’ ”

Despite his philanthropic streak, Greenberg is known for pinching pennies at work. He cracks down on Bear, Stearns employees who take unauthorized cab rides and exhorts them to save paper clips.

The Viagra won’t be available until the fall, after a committee of doctors works out a plan for dispensing the drug through urologists or centers for the elderly.

Has the 70-year-old Greenberg taken Viagra himself? “I’m not answering that,” he said.