Henry H. Minskoff

Minskoff was born to a Jewish family in New York City[1] the second of six children of Sam Minskoff and Esther Kernstein Minskoff,[3] immigrants from Russia and Poland, respectively. He had four brothers: Leo, Jerome, Myron and Walter and one sister, Muriel.[1] He grew up in the Bronx.[4] He graduated from Lehigh University and then joined his father's real estate business he had founded in 1908.[1] They went on to build dozens of office buildings, apartment buildings, and shopping malls in Manhattan, Queens, Westchester County, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Detroit including 1 Astor Plaza on Times Square; the MGM Building, the Rolex Building, 250 Broadway, the Brevoort, Brevoort East, 710 Park Avenue, and 1 East 66th Street.[1]

Minskoff was a member of the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers; was a lecturer on real estate at New York University; served as director and vice chairman of Gemco National Inc., and as a director of both the Sterling National Bank and Trust Company and the Sterling Bancorp.[1]

Minskoff served as president and chairman of the United Home for Aged Hebrews in New Rochelle, New York; and as the director of the Lexington School for the Deaf.[1] He and his wife were founders of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and benefactors of St. Mary's Hospital in Palm Beach, Florida.[1] Minskoff also built the Sam and Esther Minskoff Cultural Center and the Park East Day School in Manhattan.[1] The Minskoff Theatre is named after his father.

On November 17, 1935, Minskoff was married Marjorie Folgeman;[5] they had three children: James Minskoff Sterling; Alan Minskoff; and Jean Minskoff Grant.[1][3] Services were held at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan.[1] Minskoff Brothers was dissolved and in 2008, descendants of Henry, Jerome and Myron Minskoff filed suits against each other in Manhattan federal court over the company's assets.[3] His son, James, (who changed his last name to Sterling) is married to Carolina Somoza, daughter of former Nicaraguan president Anastasio Somoza Debayle and Hope Portocarrero; and granddaughter of Anastasio Somoza Garcia.[6]