Bernard Spitzer

Bernard Emmanuel Spitzer (April 26, 1924 – November 1, 2014) was an American real estate developer and philanthropist.

He was the father of Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

Spitzer was born to Molly and Morris Spitzer, Jewish Austrian immigrants from Tulste, Poland (now Ukraine) to New York's Lower East Side after World War I.

They operated a print shop.

Bernard received an engineering degree from City College of New York in 1943 at the age of 18.

He earned a degree in engineering from Columbia University School of Engineering in 1947.

Spitzer initially tried his hand at civil engineering shortly after his graduation from Columbia but turned instead to real estate development (under Spitzer Engineering).

Spitzer was based in New York City where he operated apartment buildings and built several landmark buildings around the city including The Corinthian, which was the largest individual apartment building in New York City when it was built.

Among the buildings Spitzer has built are:

They had three children: daughter Emily Spitzer (born 1955), a lawyer, Daniel Spitzer (born 1957), a neurosurgeon, and Eliot Spitzer (born 1959), former New York Governor.

According to biographers, during a game of Monopoly between father and son, the elder Spitzer would order his seven- or eight-year-old son, Eliot, to sell him a piece of property, which, later in the game, the future governor could not afford.

In this way the father taught his son: "Never defer to authority."

To support Eliot's foray into politics, Bernard made a loan to his son of $5 million during the first two campaigns and paid him $200,000 per year.

His New York buildings are leased by his subsidiary Urbana Properties, created in 2005.

In addition, Spitzer purchased several prominent commercial properties over the years, including:

As of 2006, the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust had donated at least $140,000 to organizations led by political allies.

In 2007, Governor Eliot Spitzer (son of Bernard) appointed Dale Hemmerdinger president of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Before being confirmed for that position, Hemmerdinger had to resign from the all-white, mostly Jewish Harmonie Club.

It was then revealed that Bernard had been a member of the club for more than 30 years.

Also in August 2007, Republican strategist Roger Stone was accused of leaving this message on Bernard's office answering machine during the "Troopergate" scandal in which his son Eliot was accused of using state troopers to spy on Majority Leader of the New York State Senate Joseph Bruno: "This is a message for Bernard Spitzer. You will be subpoenaed to testify before the Senate committee on investigations on your shady campaign loans. You will be compelled by the Senate sergeant at arms. If you resist this subpoena, you will be arrested and brought to Albany. And there's not a goddamn thing your phony, psycho, piece-of-shit son can do about it. Bernie, your phony loans are about to catch up with you. You will be forced to tell the truth. And the fact that your son's a pathological liar will be known to all."

Stone initially denied involvement but eventually resigned as a consultant to the New York State Senate Republican Campaign Committee, at the request of Joseph Bruno.

He was married to Anne Goldhaber whom he courted in the Catskills.

As of 2008, he had an estimated net worth of $500 million.

He left each of his three children $50 million and donated $250 million to the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable trust.

Bernard Spitzer died on November 1, 2014, from Parkinson's disease at the age of 90.