The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust announced April 21 it will give gifts to Cornell totaling $42 million.

The grants include $40 million to the Center for Digestive Diseases at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (the teaching hospital of Weill Cornell Medical College), and $2 million to the School of Hotel Administration.

The $40 million grant is the largest gift of the $136 million that the trust announced to charitable organizations. It is the first round of gifts the trust has distributed since the death of real estate tycoon Leona Helmsley in 2007.

The NewYork/Presbyterian Hospital gift will support construction of additional patient facilities, recruitment of additional physicians and surgeons and investments in breakthrough medical device technologies.

The $2 million to the School of Hotel Administration will endow the Helmsley Scholarship. It is the single largest scholarship gift that the school has ever received.

The scholarship will provide tuition support to approximately 10 undergraduate students each year. More than 60 percent of students at the school receive some form of financial aid, and school officials expect that the demand for aid will grow.

"We extend our deepest gratitude to the Helmsley Charitable Trust for this extraordinarily generous gift," said Michael Johnson, dean of the school. Johnson also thanked Takis Anoussis '67, general manager of the Helmsley Park Lane in New York City, who championed the gift.

The grants are the result of a legal battle concluded in February. Helmsley had sparked the fight by leaving instructions in her will to administer money from the trust to "purposes related to the provision of care for dogs," according to the Wall Street Journal. Trustees went to court to override her wishes, arguing that the will didn't exclude other charitable pursuits. A judge ruled that trustees could give the money as they saw fit.