Gilbert Tilles, '35
Developer and Patron of the Arts,
1917-1990
Gilbert Tilles, Philanthropist, Developer,...
By Phil Mintz and Charles V. Zehren.
Newsday, Long Island, N.Y.:Nov 15, 1990.
Gilbert Tilles, 73, the developer and arts philanthropist who changed the physical and cultural landscape of Long Island, was chairman of the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts at the C.W. Post campus of Long Island University in Brookville,
Long Island University President David Steinberg said last night: "He was a supportive, warm and generous man. He had a dream of bringing a level of culture to Long Island it had not had before, and he did that. There is immortality in many ways. The Tilles Center is a form of immortality. He took much joy from it." Steinberg described an anecdote Tilles told him Monday: "He was in a parking lot somewhere, and he heard someone say, `I'll meet you in front of Tilles.' He said, `I suddenly realized I had become a place.' "
For decades, Tilles was well-known among the business and political community as a builder and developer capable of putting together high-profile deals and occasionally suffering some equally high-profile defeats despite his reputation for political connections. "Mr. Tilles was the founding father of Long Island," said Vincent Polimeni, a developer and longtime competitor of Tilles. "What Bill Levitt did for housing, Gil Tilles did for commercial real estate."
More than three decades ago, Tilles was at the vanguard of creating the strip shopping centers, massive commercial office complexes and industrial parks that in large part made Long Island into what it is today. Developers said yesterday that Tilles was the first among them to house numerous light-industrial companies on one large parcel of land, unifying them with joint transportation, sewer and utility systems."The idea was to foster economic growth by merging the strength of all the individual companies," Polimeni said.
Among Tilles' largest and most significant developments are the Nassau Crossways International Plaza in Woodbury and the adjacent Gateways Executive Mall and shopping centers in Levittown and Huntington. But perhaps Tilles' most visible role in the business community in recent years was as the founder of the Association for a Better Long Island, which he helped form four years ago. The group was formed out of its members' dissatisfaction with the representation of the business community by existing groups. Under Tilles' leadership, the ABLI was aggressively critical of what it felt was an anti-business attitude by some local political and business leaders.
Developer Wilbur Breslin said, "Gil had charisma, but he was also a doer - a man who you went to when you want to get things done." In negotiations, Tilles was "honest, a good planner, a good numbers man and very stubborn," Breslin said. "Now some people call that being too tough. Not me. I call that a man who knew his business and knew where he wanted to go."
To the Long Island community at large, Tilles was best known for his connection with the 2,200-seat performing arts center at C.W. Post that was renamed for him and his wife, Rose, after he gave $1.25 million in 1985 to renovate the hall, which has since become the most important venue in the metropolitan area outside of Manhattan for big-name orchestras and soloists. "I believe it's the most important part of an area's way of life," Tilles said two weeks ago on the eve of the center's 10th anniversary gala. "If you don't have a performing arts center, there is something missing in your life. I'm talking about a center with top-drawer people."
Jack Kulka, another major builder, said, "He led by example; when he asked you to contribute to a charity, you felt you couldn't say no, because of what he did himself."
The son of a Queens builder, Tilles grew up in Jamaica, graduated from Jamaica High School and went to college at the University of Michigan, where he studied journalism. But after he graduated in 1937, he found journalism too low-paying and went to work for his father's firm. He spent the World War II years building government housing in Connecticut and pushed through controversial developments in Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Tilles had contended that his developments were economically and environmentally good for Long Island.
Tilles also was an art collector, filling his Turtle Cove Lane home with modern and historical pieces. Along with his chairmanship of the Tilles Center, Tilles also had been national vice chairman of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and was vice chairman of Long Island University and was on the board of Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
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