ROBERT Tisch, co-owner of the New York Giants American football team and a civic leader in New York City for several decades, has died of brain cancer. He was 79.

The Giants' other co-owner, Wellington Mara, died three weeks ago, also of cancer.

Mara was the son of team founder Timothy J Mara. Tisch bought half of the Giants in 1991 from Tim Mara, Wellington Mara's nephew, not long after the Giants beat Buffalo in the Super Bowl.

Tisch was also US postmaster general from 1986 to 1988 and chairman and director of Loews Corporation, a company he and his late brother, Laurence Tisch, had purchased in 1959 when it was a cinema chain. The company changed its name from Loews Theaters in 1971 and currently owns and operates Loews Hotels, the Lorillard Tobacco Company and Bulova Corporation, among other interests.

Tisch was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour in 2004 and had curtailed his regular visits to Giants' practices and games.

During his illness, his son, Steve Tisch, was named Giants' executive vice-president and took on a larger role in the operations of the team, particularly in the negotiations between the Giants and the state of New Jersey over a new stadium at the Meadowlands sports complex.

The Giants will continue to be co-owned by the Tisch and Mara families.

A native of New York, Robert Tisch was involved in numerous civic organisations in the city. He served as chairman of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau for 19 years and was chairman of the citizens' committee for the Democratic national conventions held in New York in 1976 and 1980.

Tisch was appointed the city's ambassador to Washington in 1980 by Mayor David Dinkins, a post he held until 1993. He was chairman of the New York Chamber of Commerce and Industry from 1990 to 1993.

Football was his love, his family said. Among the charitable organisations Robert Tisch helped found was Take the Field, a non-profit corporation that has raised more than dollars-130m (GBP76m) to renovate and rebuild public-school athletic facilities in New York.