By Beth Brosnan
The story of how Barbara and Peter Sidel came to give so generously to Suffolk—a university that neither attended—begins in Czarist Russia, wends its way through Depression-era Boston, and ends in the heart of the Suffolk campus.
Better yet, it’s a story with a happy ending, not only for the students who have benefited from their support and encouragement, but for the Sidels themselves.
In 1903, a 12-year-old boy, Hersh Baraznik, fled his native Russia in 1903 to escape a wave of pogroms, eventually landing on the streets of Boston. To support himself, he sold newspapers outside the Boston Elks Lodge at 10 Somerset Street. After winning a scholarship (and changing his name to Harry Burroughs), he went on to become one of the very first graduates of Suffolk Law School and later a successful attorney.
In 1927, 15 years after he sold his last newspaper on Somerset Street, Burroughs bought the Elks Lodge and converted it into the Burroughs Newsboy Foundation. Over the next 25 years, thousands of boys—who, as Burroughs put it, “knew too much industry, too little play and laughter”—flocked to the gracious, four-story clubhouse to relax, take part in educational and mentorship programs, and earn college scholarships.
Barbara Sidel’s father, Nathan R. Miller, was one of those newsboys.
All but orphaned by age 15 during the height of the Great Depression, Miller lived in a cramped basement apartment a few blocks away from Somerset Street. In between his newspaper rounds and classes at English High School, he spent his free time at the Burroughs Foundation, playing ping pong, listening to classical music, and imagining a better life for himself.
After earning his accounting degree from Bentley College and serving in World War II, Miller set about building that life. With funds he earned from his accounting practice, he began investing in Boston real estate, starting with a rooming house on Berkeley Street. Between 1963, when he bought his first commercial property—6 Beacon Street, an 11-story office building located steps from the State House—and his death in 2013, he became one of Boston’s most prominent real estate investors, with a dozen office buildings clustered near the Suffolk campus and in the financial district. He also began giving away part of the fortune he had amassed, making major gifts to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Bentley.
In 2005, Miller—who also never attended Suffolk, but whose career had flourished as the University itself came of age—endowed a full-tuition Suffolk scholarship program for Boston Public School students. In appreciation for Miller’s tremendous generosity, Suffolk decided to name a new building in his honor.
But not just any building.
The Nathan R. Miller Residence Hall stands at 10 Somerset Street—the exact former location of the Burroughs Newsboy Foundation. Where the teenage Miller once dreamed of bigger things, the building that now bears his name rises 19 stories above Beacon Hill, offering the 300-plus students who live there their own chance to dream big, with views that begin at Boston Harbor, take in much of the city skyline, and extend all the way to the Charles River.
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Barbara and Peter Sidel stand outside 6 Beacon Street, the very first commercial property that Barbara’s father, Nathan R. Miller, bought. A former Beacon Hill newsboy (below), Miller grew up to become one of Boston’s most successful real estate investors. Both he and the Sidels have created impactful scholarships for Suffolk students. Photograph: Adam DeTour
Mission Driven
Photograph courtesy of Barbara Sidel
When a scholarship is like ‘winning the lottery’
For Barbara Sidel, the naming of Miller Hall was “a full circle moment”—a symbol of just how far her father had come over the course of his long life, and how hard he worked to get there.
Not that he minded hard work. “My father would get up at 5 o’clock every morning, and he’d be at his office by 5:30,” she says, seated just down the hall from that office in a photo-lined conference room at 6 Beacon Street, which overlooks the Granary Burying Ground and much of the Common. “He loved work, and this was his palace.”
What made Miller so good at his job, says Peter, a retired real estate attorney, was “his drive and focus. He paid such close attention to detail.” Every day Miller would walk through the neighborhood, dropping in on the different properties he owned, meeting with contractors, poring over plans. And like many a child of the Depression, Peter adds, he was “always looking to save nickels wherever he could.”
The harsh circumstances of his childhood left their mark on him in other ways. “My father’s quote in his high school yearbook was ‘I owe my success to myself.’ He felt he couldn’t rely on anyone,” Barbara says, with not a little sorrow. Following his death, she resolved to carry on his good works, because on some level, she says, “I wanted him to know how much I appreciate everything he has done.”
Together, she and Peter have more than made good on that pledge. Not only have they adopted the Nathan R. Miller Scholars Program as their own, they created a brand-new scholarship for Suffolk students from Florida, where the Sidels now live for much of the year.
Barbara’s desire to see students succeed runs deep. An only child, she loved tagging along with her mother, Lillian, who ran a small nursery school program, for the chance to be around other children. School didn’t always come easily for her, and because she knew what it felt like to struggle in class she went on to get her degree in education at Boston University and to work with students with learning disabilities. “Anything that can help young people,” she says, “that’s our top priority.”
And that commitment shows. “Barbara and Peter are genuinely invested in our students,” says Laureen Simonetti, associate director of the Center for Learning & Academic Success, which administers the one-on-one academic coaching and support services the program provides for Miller Scholars during their first year. “They want to get to know them, to learn more about their lives, what they’re studying, and what they hope to do. They truly care.”
Since its inception, the Miller Scholars Program has awarded scholarships to more than 270 Boston Public School students. For many of those students—who are often working part-time, caring for family members, and juggling other obligations—earning the scholarship is “life changing,” Simonetti says.
“It’s like winning the lottery. It eases a lot of their burdens and anxieties,” she says. “It’s also a real recognition of their accomplishments and their potential. It’s a pivotal moment in their lives.”
That was certainly the case for Ian De Musis Cardoso, BS ’23, who says that without the Miller Scholarship he would have been unable to attend college, “one of the best experiences of my young life.” A computer science and film major, Cardoso co-produced the documentary film Roxbury, which has already screened at two area film festivals.
When he and Barbara were Cardoso’s age, Peter says, “we never had any worry about being able to afford college, and we didn’t have the kind of extra burdens that some of these students do.” The Sidel Family Scholarship, he adds, is their chance to create opportunity for the kind of students who will make the most of it, because “all you have to do is give them some foundation, and they are able to make their own way.”
Like Nathan Miller and Harry Burroughs before them, the Sidels have come to relish the impact that the right gift, at the right time, can have on a young person’s life. Says Barbara: “Being able to give is simply one of the most enjoyable things we do.”
In 2003, Nathan R. Miller (with Barbara, left, and his wife, Lillian), received an honorary degree from Suffolk. In 2005, in recognition of his generous scholarship support, the University named Miller Residence Hall in his honor.
The story of how Barbara and Peter Sidel came to give so generously to Suffolk—a university that neither attended—begins in Czarist Russia, wends its way through Depression-era Boston, and ends in the heart of the Suffolk campus.
Better yet, it’s a story with a happy ending, not only for the students who have benefited from their support and encouragement, but for the Sidels themselves.
In 1903, a 12-year-old boy, Hersh Baraznik, fled his native Russia in 1903 to escape a wave of pogroms, eventually landing on the streets of Boston. To support himself, he sold newspapers outside the Boston Elks Lodge at 10 Somerset Street. After winning a scholarship (and changing his name to Harry Burroughs), he went on to become one of the very first graduates of Suffolk Law School and later a successful attorney.
In 1927, 15 years after he sold his last newspaper on Somerset Street, Burroughs bought the Elks Lodge and converted it into the Burroughs Newsboy Foundation. Over the next 25 years, thousands of boys—who, as Burroughs put it, “knew too much industry, too little play and laughter”—flocked to the gracious, four-story clubhouse to relax, take part in educational and mentorship programs, and earn college scholarships.
Barbara Sidel’s father, Nathan R. Miller, was one of those newsboys.
All but orphaned by age 15 during the height of the Great Depression, Miller lived in a cramped basement apartment a few blocks away from Somerset Street. In between his newspaper rounds and classes at English High School, he spent his free time at the Burroughs Foundation, playing ping pong, listening to classical music, and imagining a better life for himself.
After earning his accounting degree from Bentley College and serving in World War II, Miller set about building that life. With funds he earned from his accounting practice, he began investing in Boston real estate, starting with a rooming house on Berkeley Street. Between 1963, when he bought his first commercial property—6 Beacon Street, an 11-story office building located steps from the State House—and his death in 2013, he became one of Boston’s most prominent real estate investors, with a dozen office buildings clustered near the Suffolk campus and in the financial district. He also began giving away part of the fortune he had amassed, making major gifts to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Bentley.
In 2005, Miller—who also never attended Suffolk, but whose career had flourished as the University itself came of age—endowed a full-tuition Suffolk scholarship program for Boston Public School students. In appreciation for Miller’s tremendous generosity, Suffolk decided to name a new building in his honor.
But not just any building.
The Nathan R. Miller Residence Hall stands at 10 Somerset Street—the exact former location of the Burroughs Newsboy Foundation. Where the teenage Miller once dreamed of bigger things, the building that now bears his name rises 19 stories above Beacon Hill, offering the 300-plus students who live there their own chance to dream big, with views that begin at Boston Harbor, take in much of the city skyline, and extend all the way to the Charles River.