With the help of a $7.5 million donation from a member of Duke’s Board of Trustees, the Washington Monument will be repaired from the extensive damage it suffered in the August 2011 East Coast earthquake.
David M. Rubenstein, Trinity ’70 and vice-chair of the Board of Trustees, has a long history of donating to charitable causes—many to Duke. He is one of the co-founders of the Carlyle Group, the world’s second-largest private equity firm, and is #148 on the Forbes Billionaire list.
Rubenstein heard about the damage to the monument through news reports after the 5.8 magnitude East Coast earthquake, as well as his position on the board of directors of the Smithsonian Institution, Carlyle Group spokesman Christopher Ullman said. The donation, which National Park Service officials believe is the largest single individual donation in the agency’s history, matches a Congressional allocation of $7.5 million in December that required private matching funds.
“He decided that this would be an important means of giving back to America—he’s also a history buff and loves George Washington, so it was a nice intersection of interests,” Ullman said.
Although the large private donation might seem out of the ordinary for public entities, a historical precedent was set with the construction of the Washington Monument itself. The monument was built entirely through private donations in the 1840s, with giving limited to a dollar per donor so as to increase the number of donors contributing to the building.
“We are absolutely thrilled with the donation because it’s going to allow us to go forward with this,” National Park Service Spokeswoman Carol Johnson said. “The American people are very anxious and eager to get back into the Washington Monument. It’s one of our favorite destinations. We wouldn’t be able to do this without him.”
The earthquake caused six large cracks in the marble exterior of the 127-year-old monument’s pyramidion, as well as other damage that left the monument unsafe for visitors and vulnerable to further deterioration if not repaired.
Once the repairs are completed by fall of 2013, the monument will have been closed to the public for two years. The National Park Service plans to begin repairs on the monument sometime this September, depending on how contracting for the work proceeds. Once the repairs are underway, park officials estimate contractors will complete the job within 10 to 12 months.
Rubenstein is just one of a long line of individuals who have given their own funds towards the national monuments and parks located on the National Mall, Ullman noted.
Building on that history, the National Parks Service Trust has pledged to raise $350 million from the public to help fund $650 million of work that the organizations said is needed to restore the National Mall.
“The tradition of public-private partnerships is alive and well,” Ullman said.
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