Lillian Goldman

Lillian Goldman made a major contribution to the reconstruction of the library at Yale Law School, in part because it was among the first law schools in America to admit women. In 1992, Mrs. Goldman gave Yale University Law School what Guido Calabresi, then its dean, called ''probably the biggest gift in the history of American legal education'' -- more than $20 million, principally for the reconstruction and expansion of its library, which was renamed the Lillian Goldman Law Library. Lillian Schuman Goldman was born Jan. 17, 1922, in New York City. At 19, she married Sol Goldman, who had bought his first building at 17 and whom she urged to leave his family grocery business in Brooklyn and plunge full time into the world of New York real estate. Mrs. Goldman played an active role in the real estate activities of her husband, who by his death in 1987 was one of the largest private landlords in New York City. After her husband's death, she turned her attention increasingly to philanthropy, creating the Lillian Goldman Charitable Trust to administer her gifts. In 1998, she made a $5 million gift to the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan for the family center there, and a few weeks before her death, she gave $1 million for renovation of the Kane Street Synagogue in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. In addition to her son, Allan, of New York City, Mrs. Goldman is survived by her daughters, Amy Goldman of Rhinebeck, N.Y., and Jane Goldman and Diane Kemper of New York City.