Chicago Tribune | Lawyer shows appreciation for his U. of C. education

Lawyer shows appreciation for his U. of C. education

By Charles Storch

Tribune staff reporter

Published April 13, 2006

Still vital at 92, Gerald Ratner works daily at Gould & Ratner, the law firm he co-founded in 1949. Although in a compromise to age, he did cut back his usual shift of noon to midnight and now goes home at 10 p.m.

It's a daunting pace, but Ratner said that, for him, "it's a way of staying alive."

And the longer he does, the more appreciation Ratner showers on his alma mater, the University of Chicago. He gave $15 million toward a $51 million athletics center there that opened in 2003 and bears his name. On Thursday, the U. of C. is to announce that Ratner is giving $6 million, apportioned between its Law School and Smart Museum of Art.

With the donation, the U. of C. said it has climbed past the $1.5 billion mark in its $2 billion Chicago Initiative capital campaign launched four years ago.

"Mr. Ratner has been a very generous and involved donor for more than 40 years," said Ronald Schiller, U. of C. vice president for development and alumni relations. "This is the latest in a series of wonderful gifts," made extra meaningful because of the campaign benchmark.

"The university has been good to me, and I am trying to be good back," Ratner said.

He said $1 million of the gift will go to the Smart Museum, where a gallery will be named after his wife, Eunice, who died a year ago. Because she had been interested in art since her undergraduate years at Northwestern University, "I thought this would be a fitting memorial to my wife," he said.

The Law School will receive $5 million and establish the Gerald Ratner Distinguished Service Professorship. "Hopefully, some legal all-star will bear my name," he said.

Ratner is not shy about having his name attached to his good works. "It's a way of saying, `I lived. I did something worthwhile,'" he said.

The lifelong Chicagoan grew up in the Brighton Park community, where his mother, an immigrant from what is today Belarus, ran a tobacco and candy shop. His father deserted the family when Ratner was a child, and the family made do living in the back of the store.

With a scholarship from Marshall High School covering his tuition, Ratner enrolled at the U. of C. in the early 1930s, drawn by its academic and athletic reputation. He excelled at his studies and as a switch-hitting outfielder on the baseball team.

His dreams of a baseball career lingered long after his U. of C. student days (undergraduate and Law School) ended in 1937. A scout from the then-Brooklyn Dodgers saw him play on an Army team during World War II and gave him his number. Nothing came of it, but Ratner still carries the agent's card.

He realized a career in the law could last far longer than one in sports. "As a lawyer, you can keep going forever, unless you get disbarred," he said. "And lawyers don't need steroids."

After the war, Ratner began to represent the interests of Chicago's Crown family, and he and his firm have continued to do so for successive generations of the wealthy and influential clan. This and his expertise in real estate law made him a wealthy man, but he and his wife did not have children and he outlived his two siblings.

Though he has contributed to other causes, he has focused his philanthropy on the Hyde Park campus. He has lived to see the completion of the Ratner Athletics Center and its heavy use by students. Soon he will see visitors enjoy art in a gallery named for his wife.

"I think people should give while they are alive so they can have the satisfaction of giving," he said. To which he adds, "Living longer, that's the secret."

Grants: The National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded four grants totaling $721,999 to Chicago's Newberry Library for collection-preservation and project-planning purposes. Among other big NEH grants in Chicago were $248,976 to the University of Chicago and $228,000 to the American Institute of Indian Studies.

A $400,000 grant from the Searle Funds at the Chicago Community Trust to DePaul University's Egan Urban Center is to help expand center programs in the Chicago Lawn, Lawndale and Humboldt Park communities.

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cstorch@tribune.com