-From George Lodge at the 60th Anniversary Memorial Service
Albert Lenoir Key, a stockbroker and former investment banker who, as a trustee, president and chairman, helped steer the New-York Historical Society through its heaviest turbulence in the 1980’s, died on Friday at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was 71 and lived in Locust Valley, L.I.
The cause was postoperative complications related to lung cancer, his family said.
At his death, Mr. Key remained a society trustee. He joined the board in 1984 and was its president and chairman from 1986 to 1989 as the society painfully pulled itself out of a crisis, with bankruptcy and the forced dispersal of its treasures looming all too real.
At 196 years old, the New-York Historical Society, on Central Park West and 77th Street, is the oldest of its kind in New York State and the state’s oldest museum. Its collections have ranged from works of the Old Masters to old American manuscripts to Americana to Hudson River paintings, not to mention its stately landmark home.
At the root of the problem was the depletion of its endowment in an ambitious quest for growth. As its difficulties mounted, state and city support for a rescue effort was in serious doubt.
Under the guidance of Mr. Key and his fellow trustees, the society underwent a drastic regimen of cutbacks in staff, visiting hours, shuttered exhibits and assorted other economies. To clinch the survival with state help, it had to sell off some of its possessions in 1995 in an auction that brought in $17.6 million.
”He was the leader during a very, very troubled time,” the current chairman, Miner H. Warner, said of Mr. Key yesterday.
Mr. Warner said he now liked to refer to it as the ”formerly troubled New-York Historical Society,” having seen ”troubled” as the accustomed precede to its name for so long. He said it was now ”doing extremely well, endowment way up and the plant completely refurbished.”
Mr. Key was born in Washington and graduated from Harvard College. He was in the diplomatic service in the early 1950’s, when he was posted to Israel to smooth the way for Jews wanting to emigrate from the Soviet Union.
Returning to the United States in 1955, he became a member of the New York Stock Exchange and a 20-year partner in the investment banking firm of Harris Upham & Company. Most recently, he was associated with H. G. Wellington & Company, an old-line stock brokerage firm.
He is survived by his wife of 46 years, Julia Bowdoin Key; their three sons, David M. and Albert L. Jr., both of Manhattan, and Robert L., of Denver; a brother, David M., of Vero Beach, Fla; a sister, Majorie K. Andrews of Atlanta, and seven grandchildren.
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