Lavietes was an avid philanthropist, who both donated money to and volunteered at organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club and the United Way.

His greatest philanthropic dedication, however, was to Harvard’s basketball program.

The Ray Lavietes Basketball Pavilion was dedicated in 1996 after a $3 million gift by Lavietes funded a major renovation of the facility.

He supported the program in other ways too, befriending players and hosting parties for Harvard teams at his Connecticut home when they were in town to play against Yale. At one time, Lavietes served as chair of Friends of Harvard Basketball.

“He was constantly asking me and [Harvard Men’s Basketball Coach Frank Sullivan] about the quality of life of the people in the basketball program… He did little things, like dropping off cookies and candies,” said Harvard Women’s Basketball Coach Kathy Delaney-Smith.

Lavietes grew up in New Haven, Conn. His family owned a basket-making company in nearby Shelton.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a diplomat and scholar whose career included stints teaching government at Harvard and serving as a New York senator, died in Washington, D.C., March 26 of complications of an appendectomy. He was 76.

Moynihan’s prolific writings on race and politics in America made him a controversial yet widely-respected figure in politics and academia.

Former University Marshal Richard M. Hunt described Moynihan as an “incredible intellectual figure who had so many ideas about so many things.”

Moynihan served as assistant labor secretary during the administration of President John F. Kennedy ’40, and was an urban affairs adviser to President Richard M. Nixon. He was Nixon’s ambassador to India in 1973-1975 and served as chief U.S. delegate to the United Nations in 1975-1976.

Moynihan taught at Harvard from 1966 to 1977, starting as director of the Joint Center for Urban Studies at Harvard and MIT, and later teaching in the government department.

After winning a senate seat in New York in 1976, he returned to Cambridge to teach his government seminar “Ethnicity in Politics” the day after his victory celebration.

Students knew Moynihan as much for his absence from Cambridge as for his presence here. He spent about half of his time as a professor on sabbatical or shuttling between Washington and Cambridge.