She was the first woman to hold a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, she loved fast cars and vodka, and she was a fierce advocate for workplace equality.
She also just left $100,000 to Monster Girl, her Chihuahua.
Cheers to you, Muriel Siebert.
The Wall Street whiz, Manhattan’s “first woman of finance,” died in August at age 84 after a battle with cancer. One hundred grand is admittedly a big paycheck for a dog, but lest you think that Siebert’s money could have gone to a better place, understand that nearly all of it did: She left $48 million to her own nonprofit, Muriel F. Siebert Foundation, which teaches people about financial literacy.
The foundation also encourages “the humane support of animals,” especially animals “owned by the elderly who are financially challenged,” according to the New York Daily News.
She also left $10,000 a year to The Animal Medical Center on 62nd Street for the duration of Monster Girl’s life.
Considering all that, $100,000 to Monster Girl is downright reasonable. Also reasonable are her instructions for the care of her dog — there’s no talk of crazy pampering. “I request that my dog not be left alone for long periods of time during the day,” she wrote in her will.
Her longtime friend Lynda Fox-Frazer inherited Monster Girl, and she’s getting the $100,000 to care for her.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of Monster Girl. In 2001, Siebert told the Palm Beach Daily News how the dog grew agitated when they used to pass by Bernie Madoff’s offices, which were on the same floor as her brokerage offices on the 17th floor of the Lipstick Building in New York.
“Before the truth about Madoff came out — and I never suspected him, but I never used him either — Monster Girl sometimes growled as we passed his offices,” Siebert recalled. “I’d say ‘bad girl.’ But now I say ‘good girl’ if she does that.”
The Daily News also reported that Monster Girl always came with her when she traveled from New York to Palm Beach, and that the dog was a fixture in the workplace.
“Dogs are not allowed in most New York office buildings, but I told them: ‘No leash, no lease.’”
