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Home My WebLink About1979-05-17 For George Delacorte, Adorning The City Is a Dream Come True (New York Times)Copyrigto (0 1979 The New York Times X 7-;‘,„-,, 3/77/79 Metropolitan Report New York, New Jersey, Connecticut For George Delacorte, Adornin The Cityls a Dream Come. Try Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park By LINDA CHARLTON In this age of angst, George Dela- corte is. an outrageous anomaly. He is rich and -not ashamed of it; he likes giv- ing lavish presents and getting credit for it, and he is probably, even, a happy nian. He also will be 85 years old on June 20. , which is worth mentioning largely because it becomes almost irrelevant within a few seconds of meeting him. It is not that his lean,- tanned frame is sprightly, or that his voice and manner could be those of almost any age above youngest manhood. It's , just that for George Thomas Delacorte, aself-made very rich man and a self -designated adgrner of his na- tive city, there is so much else going on that it seems unlikely he gives much thought to being nearly 85. While it is true that he has been "re- tired" from Dell Publishing for more than five years, it is also true that every day in season — that is, when he is living in his 20-room apartment on Fifth Avenue in the 80's and not in Palm Beach or Connecticut or skiing at Klosters -- he still walks the two miles or so to his office. And always, . both ways, he tries to go through Central Park. He's got a lot of things to look at there, like the Delacorte Theater, the Alice in Wonderland statue, the zoo's musical clock with its revolving ani- mals or the Columbus Circle fountain. Of course, he could vary his route and still find, plenty of objects for his fond, proprietary interest. There's the fountain down in City Hall Plaza, the gates at Columbia University, another fountain at Bowling Green and the jet d'eau in the East River (as soon as the current mechanical problems are solved and it is back in operation). Soon, if all goes according to plan --- and it usually does, for George Dela- Continued on Page B7 inerlew rdrx itrnes/Paul Ho6efroa George T. Delacorte at Central Park Zoo's clock Ex -Lufthansa Agen t Guilty In $ S Million Airport ''heft By DAVID BIRD A 46-year,-old former Lufthansa cargo agent was found guilty yesterday of help- ing to plan and carry out the $6 million armed robbery last December at the air- line's Kennedy International Airport cargo terminal. Louis Werner, the only person charged so far in the case, was convicted of being the inside man in what turned out to be the largest cash robbery in the nation's. history. None of the $5 pillion in currency and $1 million in jewels that was taken has been recovered. - Mr. Werner was also found guilty of stealing $22,000 iri foreign currency from the same Lufthansa terminal in 1976. The jury, which began its deliberations at 4:15 P.M. Tuesday and announced its verdict at 3 : 35 P.M. yesterday, found Mr: Werner guilty of three of the six charges ,stemrning from the two thefts. He faces up,ta 25 years in prison. During Mr. Werner's 10-day trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn before Judge Mark A. Costantino and the jury of 10 men and two women, the prosecution relied heavily on testimony by Peter Gruenewald, a fellow Lufthansa em- ployee and a former close friend of Mr. Werner's. Witness Describes Plotting • Mr. Gruenewald said he had helped Mr. Werner, who had worked for the air- line for more than a decade, in an earlier theft from Lufthansa and that the two of them then .plotted in detail last year's much larger robbery. Although he admitted his involvement in the earlier theft, Mr. Gruenewald said he bowed out of last year's robbery when he grew disenchanted with the men re- cruited to stage it. Mr. Gruenewald was granted im- munity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony. In describing the earlier theft, Mr. Gruenewald said that Mr. Werner turned up at his house shortly after midnight on Oct. 9,1976, with a cardboard box bearing a Lufthansa sticker and containing $22,000 in foreign currency. Mr. Gruene- wald said he hid the money first in a gar- bage dump,. Later, he said, he and Mr, Werner re- trieved the money and buried it in Mr. .Gruenewald's backyard. Mr. Gruenewald testified that he be- came extremely nervous and did not feel the $5,000 cut he received was worth it. He continued: . "I told Werner not to bother me again with any money like that. It was not worth putting my job on the line for $5,000. I said it would have to be a million. We started to plan the big heist. We knew Lufthansa always stored $3 million to $5 million in the valuables room, and it was for us pretty attractive. We talked file quently about a big heist. And by August, 1978, we had a plan." The plan they developed, according to the prosecution, is virtually the same one. used by the five masked gunmen who burst into the Lufthansa cargo building and grabbed the cargo of cash and jew- elry on Dec. 11 at 3 A.M. Two other men, Angelo Sepe and James Burke, both known criminals and described by investigators as suspects, have been arrested on charges of violat- ing parole by associating with each other but have not been charged with the Luft- hansa robbery. . Mr. Werner's attorney, Stephen Laifer, charged that prosecution witnesses were trying "to take themselves off the hook" and that the case against Mr. Werner was built on a "foundation of mud." Also called by the prosecution was Janet Barbieri, Mr. Werner's 36-year-old girlfriend. She resisted testifying at first, saying that problems with her heart made it dangerous for her to take the stand. Later, after she was arrested as a ma- terial witness for the prosecution, she col- lapsed three times in court and at one time responded to questioning while lying on a spectator's bench with a psychiatrist at her side. Mrs. Barbieri was released after testi- fying that Mr. Werner had told her that "he never robbed Lufthansa." For Delacorte, Beautifying City Is Dream Come True 'Continued From Page BI corte, as for many men of wealth and the determination to match the preci- sion of their intentions — there will be another fountain, this one in Times Square, his fifth. He has always loved fountains, and has in mind something, with Broadway's classic comedy - tragedy theme for the newest Dela- corte fountain. ,What About a Waterfall? And it almost certainly will have a plaque somewhere, neither vulgarly proclamatory nor foolishly modest, proclaiming that he gave the city this fountain, as he has given it the others, and the theater and statues, and' would like to give it a lot of other things, in- cluding a waterfall rippling down from Belvedere Castle if the engineering snags can be worked out. Mr. Dela corte loves giving things to the city, and he isn't interested in the traditional anonymity.On the contrary. His clock pleases him, with its bronze carrousel with dancing animals that perform every hour to the accompani- ment of gay glockenspiel tunes. On a recent after oont the usual -crowd of several dozen had gathered 'below for the hourly show as the hands touched 4 P.M. But the electronic timepiece that controls the machinery — and keeps more accurate time was perhaps two minutes behind. "We have a lot of trou- ble with that clock," he said with a sigh. Carousel's Timing Is Off Then came the quarter-hours being struck, and then a discouraging lapse of a second or two before the monkeys atop the carrousel began to strike the time. The veterans in the crowd, who knew What was happening, were un- rnosting, but other began to drift away. "I don't like the gap, but there's noth- ing you can do about it," he said as the last of the four strokes faded and, after o nanosecond's hesitation, the .carrou-. sel began to revolve. The. bear, as al- ways, played his tambourine, the ele- phant squeezed an accordion and the goat, the most endearing of the ani- mals, capered as it played the flute. The cro,,A„ charmed and sated with snapshots, moved off, and George Delacorte with it, smiling. "We change ths music four times a year," he said. A few steps awa7,7, he nudged his com- panion and said: "There's a man with two Dell books — I can tell by the blue- green," meaning the color of the page - edgings. He started Dell in 1921. Gazing Fondly at Alice "I made $56,000 my first year, never had a lost year," said this dapper man of medium height, his black loafers beating a regular, moderate pace along the paths of the park. "The last COi was in the business I did $100 million in business." He also proclaimed, "I'm not interested in the business of buying -and selling." What he is interested in lay around the next few curves. "Look at it — even today," he -said, gazing. fondly at Jose de Creeft's translation of Alice and sev- eral of her friends into a statue that draws children as hot toast does butter. (Mr. Delacorte calls Mr. de Creeft "old de Creeft. he's 95.") A soccer ball lay nestled between the paws of the White Rabbit, the stern of whose watch is the only part of the statue that has actually had to -be re- placed, although much. of it is kept'brilliantly polished by the.continuing pres- sure of small feet, knees, hands and adoration. The IPTthlera of Graffiti Not ar away is the bench near which his late first wife, Margarita, used to sit in the afternoons in her wheelchair .during herilwaliclism; the statue is in her honor because she "loved all chil- dren." Even on this quiet late weekday afternoon, a considerable number of children were returning the compli- ment. There is 2. continuing 'problem of graffiti; today, Mr. Delacorte noted, the message. was "Sex Is Fun." "Well, that's all right," he said. "I think:I'll leave it there, - Vandalism., of which graffiti are the least part, cost him between $15,000 and $20,000 a year. In making his gifts to the city, he has also guaranteed their maintenance for 2.5 years ("I'm going to live to be 115," The says) and left funds in his will for their upkeep. He has a staff of three taking care of "my things all around the city." It isn't so much that George Dela- torte gives a great deal of his money away, it is the way in which he does it. He doesn't just give some money for this or that, but for a specific this and a specific that. The Roosevelt Island Jet "X have given money all my life to various charities — still do," he said, "but then I never saw anything for it, never got any pleasure except just mailing a check and getting a letter." And then there was the day when be was talking to the late Newbold Morris, then Commissioner of Parks, about, plans for a Shakespeare Theater in Central Park. It hasn't always been easy. Take the jet of water at the tip of Roosevelt Is- land, for instaneeeIt has been plagued with problems since the beginning, such as the filth of the East River that clogs the water -intake system (filth that has included, thus far, 11 drowned bodies, Mr. Delacorte avers) and a hit- and-run tug that caused major damage° at one point. And the flower beds that he optimistically plants in the parks and then is forced to replace with con- crete. But he has great visions for the future ("I would hire to redo the Plaza"). even though there are continu- ing discouragements. "But then" he said, striding toward the 79th Street exit of the park, arid home, "if you get discouraged you wouldn't do anything." Immigration Inspectors Added WASHINGTON, May 16 (AP) — An additional 81 inspectors will be on duty at United States ports of entry beginning July 1 to help detect illegal immigrants and counterfeit immigration documents, the Justice Department said today. Sixty- six of the new inspectors will be stationed in Texas, California and Arizona, with 16 going_ to San Ysiffiro„ Caiif., and 13 going to El Paso, Tex, Anthony Lewis on the Op -Ed Page Monday and Thursday The New York Times THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURWA The NewYork Times Shower Curtains! Repeal of Prohibition, December 6. 1933. Make a big splash with this great . news story. Sports of The Times. 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