Tragedy on UWS
SUV kills donor
A wealthy philanthropist who gave millions of dollars to charity and other good causes was struck and killed by an SUV just blocks from her Upper West Side home, cops said.
Stephanie Brooks Dains, 69, was killed when an 18year-old man in an Infiniti plowed into her as she was jaywalking across Broadway at West 75th Street around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.
The driver remained at the scene and was not charged.
Dains was taken to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital, where she later died.
“She was such a good person,” said her doorman Tommy Geraghty.
“When I heard the news I was shocked.”
Dains, who lived with her husband, John, on West 60th Street, was originally from Philadelphia and had worked as a teacher and art therapist at the California School for the Blind.
She met her husband, the CEO of the San Franciscobased Helm Financial Corp., when they were students at Washington University in St. Louis, according to the school’s Web site.
The couple’s support for their alma mater for more than 45 years, included a $5 million donation that created a scholarship for disadvantaged students.
“Scholarships are important to us because we want everyone who is qualified to be able to attend Washington University,” the couple said in a statement posted on the university’s fund-raising Web site.
Dains also founded a nonprofit in honor of her late mother, Marjory Moore Brooks, called Art4Moore, which donates art supplies to children in San Francisco.
In addition to being a philanthropist, Dains was a big tipper to the guys who worked in the building, acording to Geraghty.
“She took care of everyone,” he said. “That’s the kind of lady she was. She was beyond generous.”