Walter N. Rothschild, Jr.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announces with great sorrow the death June 20, 2003, of Honorary Member of the Corporation Walter N. “Bill” Rothschild, Jr. at Huntington Hospital on Long Island of complications from surgery. He was 83.

Rothschild was a long time WHOI Associate, joining the program in the early 1970s. He was elected an Honorary Member of the Corporation in 1992.

Born in 1920, he graduated from Harvard in 1942 with a BA degree before enlisting in the U.S Army in World War II.

The great grandson of a founder of the department store chain Abraham & Straus, Walter Rothschild was the fourth generation of his family to serve as the company’s president. He stepped down as President of Abraham & Straus in 1969 after nine years to pursue a civic career. He served as chairman of the New York Urban Coalition from 1970 to 1973, and as chairman of the National Urban Coalition from 1973 to 1977. He also served on the New York state commission that investigated the riots at Attica prison.

Walter Rothschild, Jr. was a Trustee of St. Luke’s/Roosevelt Hospital Center and an Honorary Trustee of the Josiah Macy. Jr. Foundation and the US Trust Company of New York. He served as a director of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center’s Operating Corporation, was a member of the Advisory Committee on the Arts at Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, and served on The President’s Council of the United Hospital Fund.

He is survived by his wife, Virginia Rothschild, of Syosset, NY; one son, Trip, of Newfield, CT; three daughters, Nina Rothschild-Utne of Minneapolis, MN, Suzanne Rothschild of Arlington, MA, and Jane Rothschild of Sydney, Australia; two sisters, Carol Noyes of Syosset, NY and Phyllis Farley or Manhattan; and 10 grandchildren.

A funeral will be held Tuesday, June 24, at 11:30 a.m. at Temple Emanuel, 65th Street and 5th Avenue, in New York City. A reception will follow at the Cosmopolitan Club, 122 East 66th Street.