Late Columnist Gets Own Ivy League Building
Here's a good argument for marrying rich: buildings named after you! If you are rich you can get big libraries and stuff, but the spouses of billionaires have to settle for century-old class buildings on Ivy League campuses. Ronald Perelman, recently in the news for his bitter divorce from Ellen Barkin, was once married to Page Six editor Claudia Cohen. Cohen, who more or less invented the mercurial and biting Page Six house style, was married to Perelman from 1985 until 1993. Perelman bought the naming rights to the University Pennsylvania's Logan Hall in 1995. Cohen died last year of ovarian cancer, and now Perelman has exercised those rights. You can probably imagine how academics feel about this!
"I, as an academic, am accustomed to seeing buildings with names like Newton, Copernicus, Darwin," said Ponzy Lu, a chemistry professor at the university. "Then to see the name of this person, who is very fresh in our memory, who is not associated with a pursuit of knowledge - a gossip columnist: it strikes me as being totally idiotic."
Oh, boo hoo. As if secretary to William Penn and university trustee James Logan wouldn't have appeared on Regis and Kelly, given the chance.
Hunter College better hope their alum Ms. Barkin remains healthy, and her relationship to Mr. Perelman remains limited to dueling lawsuits.
(We're going to marry Oprah and force NYU to rename Washington Square Park after us.)