Len Tow

We have lost a most generous soul. I have lost a benefactor, mentor, and friend. Leonard Tow died Sunday at age 97. 

Len held a PhD in economic geography from Columbia and taught at Hunter and Columbia before deciding to leave for business, first in theater and then in the infant industries of cable TV and mobile telephony, where he founded and built the nation’s fifth largest cable company. There he lead in technological innovation as he fought to defend freedom of expression in the new medium. That was enough accomplishment for a life. But in 1988, he and his beloved wife Claire created the Tow Foundation. In 2012, they signed the Giving Pledge. They supported so much important work in medicine, the arts, higher education, civic engagement, juvenile justice, and innovation. Please read the family’s and foundation’s celebration of his amazing life here. 

I came to meet Len almost twenty years ago, when he became concerned about the state of journalism in democracy. Len was a major backer of Brooklyn College at the City University of New York— his alma mater — and he told CUNY’s then-chancellor, Matt Goldstein, that he was planning to give money to Columbia Journalism School to nudge them into updating their curriculum. Hold on, said Goldstein: CUNY is starting a journalism school. 

And so Len came to meet with the founding dean, Steve Shepherd, and me, and we told him about our plans to build a new school around the innovation that was — and still is — so desperately needed in the field. Len held a competition between us and Columbia. Well, put air quotes around “competition.” We both won. Len gave each of us each matching grants, ours for $3 million to start a new center for innovation. 

Steve and I didn’t know what the hell we were doing in fundraising. Thank goodness, Len’s daughter, Emily, who leads the foundation, took us under her wing and schooled us in how to support our work. We missed the match deadline, but the Tows lent us slack. The Knight Foundation met Tow’s challenge and the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism began. I was its director. Columbia opened the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, recruiting friend Emily Bell, who did indeed bring its curriculum into the future. 

Thus began a wonderful relationship with Len and the foundation. He and Emily have been magnificent funders — never interfering, always ready to give advice when asked, eager to make useful connections, encouraging of every success, patient with lessons learned. I was fortunate to visit Len occasionally, and we could talk for hours. I would learn about his pioneering in media technologies and he would quiz me about innovations in the internet and artificial intelligence. I asked him for his wise advice on the next steps in my career. Whenever I tried to thank him for his support, he’d pshaw me away. 

Len had a wonderful habit of coming up with his own ideas for supporting us. After Steve Shepherd retired and Sarah Bartlett became dean, I saw Len at one of the fundraising galas we held then, featuring the inspiring work of our graduates. Len pulled me over and said he’d just decided to create a scholarship in investigative journalism named for Steve. He also funded annual faculty awards. 

One day, Len surprised me with the news that he was endowing the Leonard Tow Chair in Journalism Innovation, and I had the immense privilege of filling it. 

There are countless stories like mine of Len encouraging and supporting work: doctors researching cures to devastating diseases, playwrights developing their talents, professors building curricula, young people making new lives for themselves.

I am so grateful to have known and learned from Len. My heart goes out to Len’s and Claire’s children, Andrew, Emily, and Frank, and their grandchildren. I am grateful to the family for their continuing work in the Tow Foundation and for generously sharing Len with so many of us. 

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