Josephine “Josie” Tucker Robertson, 67, philanthropist, namesake of plaza in front of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Hoodoo
By Elaine Ayala - Express-News
06/15/2010 12:00 CDT
http://www.mysanantonio.com/obituaries/robertson_was_a_new_york_philanthropist_and_volunteer_96346494.html
New York philanthropist Josephine “Josie” Tucker Robertson, whose name
adorns the famed plaza in front of the Lincoln Center for the Performing
Arts, died last week after a long battle with breast cancer.
The San Antonio native was 67.
Though a longtime New Yorker, Robertson was in the Alamo City several
times a year to visit family, eat at her favorite Tex-Mex haunts and
play in a golf tournament at the San Antonio Country Club.
“She never left Texas, and Texas never left her,” her son Alex Robertson
said. “She loved San Antonio.” On her 67th birthday last month, her
family gathered in her home for a Tex-Mex celebration with piñatas. “She
loved it.”
Her husband, Julian H. Robertson Jr., a former hedge-fund investor,
donated $25 million to the Lincoln Center in her honor. The renovated
plaza, an iconic open space containing the famous Revson Fountain, is
now known as the Josie Robertson Plaza.
In 1996, the couple established the Robertson Foundation, which
distributes $60 million to $70 million a year to educational, medical,
spirituality and environmental causes.
The Canary Islanders descendant was born to Robert and Josephine
“Pimmie” Spencer Tucker. Robertson graduated from Saint Mary's Hall in
1961 and received its distinguished alumni award in 2002.
In 1966, she was queen of the Order of the Alamo. She attended
Briarcliff College, since closed, and graduated as an art major from the
University of Texas in Austin in 1965.
“She was three years my senior and was always my hero,” said cousin
Zelime Matthews. “At 13, she wrote a version of ‘Romeo & Juliet' so that
her cousins and brothers and sisters could perform it for our family. I
was Juliet. She was Lord Capulet.”
In the late 1960s, Robertson and her sister-in-law ran Tuckertown, which
produced Christmas ornaments that sold in department stores.
She married in 1972.
Robertson served on the boards of New York-based nonprofits, including
for the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the Boys' Club of New
York. In 2007, she was honored by the latter, and friends raised funds
for its Josie Robertson School of Music and Art.
Robertson was a director of Classroom Inc., a dropout prevention
project, and was on the board of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
In 1998, the Robertsons funded the restoration of the 59th Street Pond
in Central Park.
In San Antonio, Robertson was the catalyst for a courtyard renovation at
St. Mark's Episcopal Church, which was named in honor of her mother.
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