David Rockefeller Trivia: 42 interesting facts about the famous banker!

David Rockefeller was an American banker who was chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Corporation. Let’s see some interesting facts and trivia about him!

1.David Rockefeller  qas born June 12, 1915 .

2. David Rockefeller was born in New York City, and grew up in an eight-story house at 10 West 54th Street, the tallest private residence ever built in the city.

3. He was the youngest of six children born to financier John Davison Rockefeller Jr. and socialite Abigail Greene “Abby” Aldrich. John Jr. was the only son of Standard Oil co-founder John Davison Rockefeller Sr. and schoolteacher Laura Celestia “Cettie” Spelman.

4. Abby was a daughter of Senator Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich and Abigail Pearce Truman “Abby” Chapman. David’s five elder siblings were Abby (1903–1976), John III (1906–1978), Nelson (1908–1979), Laurance (1910–2004), and Winthrop (1912–1973).

5. The home contained rare, ancient, medieval and Renaissance treasures collected by his father—with some, such as the Unicorn Tapestries, held in an adjoining building at 12 West 54th Street. On the seventh floor was his mother’s private modern art gallery.

6. The property was subsequently donated by David’s father as a site for a sculpture garden that is now part of the Museum of Modern Art. The house was demolished by the family in the early 1960s to make way for Museum of Modern Art. This was conceived and planned for by his mother Abby.

7. He spent much time as a child at the family estate Kykuit, where, in his memoirs, he recalls visits by associates of his father, including General George C. Marshall, the adventurer Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd (whose Antarctic expeditions had been funded by the family), and the aviator Charles Lindbergh.

8. Summer vacations were spent at the Eyrie, a 100-room house in Seal Harbor on the southeast shore of Mount Desert Island, in Maine.

9. David Rockefeller attended the experimental Lincoln School at 123rd Street in Harlem.

10. The school was the brainchild of Abraham Flexner, who had structured the institution after the educational philosophy of John Dewey.

11. It opened in 1916 and was operated by the Teachers College at Columbia University, with crucial funding in its early years from the Rockefellers’ General Education Board, a philanthropic educational institution later rolled into the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1936, Rockefeller graduated cum laude from Harvard University.

12. He also studied economics for a year at Harvard and then a year at the London School of Economics (LSE). It was at LSE that he first met future President John F. Kennedy (although he had earlier been his contemporary at Harvard) and once dated Kennedy’s sister Kathleen.

13. During his time abroad, Rockefeller briefly worked in the London branch of what was to become the Chase Manhattan Bank.

14. Having returned to the United States to complete his graduate studies, in 1940 he received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

15. His dissertation was entitled Unused Resources and Economic Waste.

16. After completing his studies in Chicago, he became secretary to New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia for eighteen months in a “dollar a year” public service position.

17. Although the mayor pointed out to the press that Rockefeller was only one of 60 interns in the city government, his working space was, in fact, the vacant office of the deputy mayor.

18. From 1941 to 1942, Rockefeller was assistant regional director of the United States Office of Defense, Health and Welfare Services.

19. After war broke out, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and entered Officer Candidate School in 1943; he was ultimately promoted to Captain in 1945.

20. During World War II he served in North Africa and France (he spoke fluent French) for military intelligence setting up political and economic intelligence units.

21. For seven months he also served as an assistant military attaché at the American Embassy in Paris. During this period, he would call on family contacts and Standard Oil executives for assistance

22. In 1946, Rockefeller joined the staff of the longtime family-associated Chase National Bank.

23. The chairman at that time was Rockefeller’s uncle Winthrop W. Aldrich.

24. The Chase Bank was primarily a wholesale bank,  dealing with other prominent financial institutions and major corporate clients such as General Electric (which had, through its RCA affiliate, leased prominent space and become a crucial first tenant of Rockefeller Center in 1930).

25. The bank also is closely associated with and has financed the oil industry, having longstanding connections with its board directors to the successor companies of Standard Oil, especially Exxon Mobil.

26. Chase National subsequently became the Chase Manhattan Bank in 1955 and shifted significantly into consumer banking.

27. It is now called JPMorgan Chase.

28. In a private capacity Rockefeller met with and advised every American President since Eisenhower and at times even served as an unofficial emissary on high-level business.

29. President Jimmy Carter offered him the position of United States Secretary of the Treasury but he declined.

30. He at an earlier point declined an offer from his brother Nelson to appoint him to Robert F. Kennedy’s Senate seat after Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968, a post Nelson also offered to their nephew John Davison “Jay” Rockefeller IV.

31. On account of his personal, political, and professional connections and his family name, Rockefeller has been able to act as bridge to various interests around the world, including Saddam Hussein and Communist leaders such as Fidel Castro, Nikita Khrushchev, and Mikhail Gorbachev

32. He married Margaret “Peggy” McGrath (1915–1996) on September 7, 1940.

33. She was the daughter of a partner in a prominent Wall Street law firm.

34. They had six children.

35. David Rockefeller died on March 20, 2017 at the age of 101 at his home in Pocantico Hills, New York.

36. As of November 2016, his net worth was estimated to be US $3.1 billion, which ranked him among the 200 richest people in the world.

37. Initially, most of his wealth had come to him via the family trusts that his father had set up, which were administered by Room 5600 and the Chase Bank.

38. In turn, most of these trusts were held as shares in the successor companies of Standard Oil, as well as diverse real estate investment partnerships, such as the expansive Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, which he later sold for considerable profit, retaining only an indirect stake.

39. In addition, he was or had been a partner in various properties such as a 4,000-acre (16 km2) resort development in the Virgin Islands and a cattle ranch in Argentina, as well as a 15,500-acre (63 km2) sheep ranch in Australia.

40. Another major source of asset wealth was his formidable art collection, ranging from impressionist to postmodern, which he developed through the raising of his mother Abby and her establishment, with two associates, of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1929.

41. He was not a collector of most modern art himself but, as chairman and honorary chairman, never hindered MoMA’s acquisition of the newer works.

42. He donated many works to MoMA over the decades and more will go there after his death