Vartan Gregorian, genial savior of the New York Public Library, dead at 87

Vartan Gregorian, a philanthropist and scholar widely credited with saving a down-on-its heels New York Public Library system in the 1980s, died Thursday in Manhattan after being hospitalized for stomach pain.

He was 87. Gregorian was a former president of Brown University, which he led from 1989 to 1997, and had headed the Carnegie Corporation of New York since leaving the Ivy League university.