Like all great cities, NYC's Island of Manhattan has been home to immense displays of wealth, juxtaposed with immense volume of poverty. The immensely affluent built testaments to their success. Scarcity of land makes that nearly impossible today, but a few of their homes remain.
When I say "urban mansion", I don't mean this (even though it's quite handsome)...
The greedy appetite for money--that assembled grand mansions, like below--is what also overpowered them,
bulldozed and demolished them with wrecking balls...
After all, not everyone had the resources of J. P. Morgan, whose only-one-story building still stands on Wall Street... a testament to power (considering how much those corner-property "air rights" are worth to build upward... yet it remains unscathed).
But while they lasted (1880-1910), their owners had extravagance that eclipsed anything that the Great Gatsby might create, ten years later.
It was the era of Titanic, Downton Abbey-like dinners, Edith Wharton's restricted society, pipe organs in the home,
and Gentleman's Clubs (usually near prostitute houses).
Unlike other grand cities around the globe, most of Manhattan's mansions were replaced with bigger buildings (even though they were in great condition).
Unlike chateaux and manor houses that were inhabited by generations (in other parts of the world), NYC's homes were a waste of craftsmanship, design, materials, and hand-carving.
If you explore the nooks of the city, you'll find some stately mansion/townhouses that are still occupied by families and households:
#3 Gramercy Park
40 East 74th Street
40 East 68th Street (above)
Entire stretches of uptown avenues were lined with similar mansions, during the Gilded Age.
Some were rescued from destruction and turned into Embassies, Museums, Art Institutes, and Schools. A handful were restored by luxury retailers.
After long abandonment, Ralph Lauren moved into the Madison Avenue mansion (below) to sell menswear.
The Gertrude Rhineland Waldo mansion, built in 1898 (it took 4 years) was never occupied by its eccentric heiress and sat vacant until 1921. In 1984, RL leased the space and spent $14 million to renovate it. Then, he went across the street and erected the vintage-looking mansion, below, to house his Women's' and Home collections.
It resembles the nearby Henry Clay Frick mansion, now a museum (below) on Fifth Avenue and 70th Street.
Making his fortune from coal and railroads, he supplied Andrew Carnegie's steel mills in 1881. Carnegie (who's mansion is on Fifth & 91st Street) made Frick the chairman of his steel works, using him as the "bad guy" during the practically-enslaved worker's riots (they were shot), so he could hide in Scotland and claim non-involvement.
Disregarding human souls, Frick effectively squeezed profits from his industries, as easily as he had ignored the 2,200 deaths from his Johnstown Flood.
Frick had leased a Vanderbilt mansion on Fifth Ave and 51st Street from 1905 to 1914, until his new home was finished. Frick died in 1919.
Uptown on Fifth Avenue and 91st Street, Andrew Carnegie built a mansion in 1903. After making his fortune from railroads and steel, he died in 1919, and his wife resided there until 1946. The Carnegie Corporation gave the house to the Smithsonian in 1972 as the incarnation of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum (which was just reopened after a 3 year renovation). Instead of continuing with involvement in global politics, Carnegie used his "buyout money" from J. P. Morgan as donations to charity, libraries, churches and schools.
Up the road, on Fifth Avenue and 93rd Street is the Jewish Museum, formerly the Felix M. Warburg House (below).
Built in 1908, Warburg (a banking family since 1798) lived there until his death in 1937. During WWII, he famously sent financial aid to the persecuted Jewish population of Europe. Due to that era's anti-semitism, NYC Society shunned Jews.
Which brings us to the other end of the spectrum... with an ironic ending.
At the pinnacle of Manhattan Society, Caroline Astor was the matriarch of the American Astors. [Her husband's brother avoided her, took the other branch of the family to England, ignored American "business politics" and flourished]. Wife of William Backhouse Astor, Jr. (1829-1892) and mother to John Jacob Astor IV (who died on the Titanic), she had originally lived in a brownstone townhouse (where the Empire State Building is now).
Post Civil War NYC burgeoned with robber-barons of the Industrial Revolution and people who were nouveau riche.
After long abandonment, Ralph Lauren moved into the Madison Avenue mansion (below) to sell menswear.
The Gertrude Rhineland Waldo mansion, built in 1898 (it took 4 years) was never occupied by its eccentric heiress and sat vacant until 1921. In 1984, RL leased the space and spent $14 million to renovate it. Then, he went across the street and erected the vintage-looking mansion, below, to house his Women's' and Home collections.
It resembles the nearby Henry Clay Frick mansion, now a museum (below) on Fifth Avenue and 70th Street.
Making his fortune from coal and railroads, he supplied Andrew Carnegie's steel mills in 1881. Carnegie (who's mansion is on Fifth & 91st Street) made Frick the chairman of his steel works, using him as the "bad guy" during the practically-enslaved worker's riots (they were shot), so he could hide in Scotland and claim non-involvement.
Disregarding human souls, Frick effectively squeezed profits from his industries, as easily as he had ignored the 2,200 deaths from his Johnstown Flood.
Frick had leased a Vanderbilt mansion on Fifth Ave and 51st Street from 1905 to 1914, until his new home was finished. Frick died in 1919.
Uptown on Fifth Avenue and 91st Street, Andrew Carnegie built a mansion in 1903. After making his fortune from railroads and steel, he died in 1919, and his wife resided there until 1946. The Carnegie Corporation gave the house to the Smithsonian in 1972 as the incarnation of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum (which was just reopened after a 3 year renovation). Instead of continuing with involvement in global politics, Carnegie used his "buyout money" from J. P. Morgan as donations to charity, libraries, churches and schools.
Up the road, on Fifth Avenue and 93rd Street is the Jewish Museum, formerly the Felix M. Warburg House (below).
Built in 1908, Warburg (a banking family since 1798) lived there until his death in 1937. During WWII, he famously sent financial aid to the persecuted Jewish population of Europe. Due to that era's anti-semitism, NYC Society shunned Jews.
Which brings us to the other end of the spectrum... with an ironic ending.
At the pinnacle of Manhattan Society, Caroline Astor was the matriarch of the American Astors. [Her husband's brother avoided her, took the other branch of the family to England, ignored American "business politics" and flourished]. Wife of William Backhouse Astor, Jr. (1829-1892) and mother to John Jacob Astor IV (who died on the Titanic), she had originally lived in a brownstone townhouse (where the Empire State Building is now).
Post Civil War NYC burgeoned with robber-barons of the Industrial Revolution and people who were nouveau riche.
Astor tightened power around herself as "gatekeeper" to NYC echelon, to keep "inferior" people (like gaudy/sensational Vanderbilts) from ruining their heritage. Interestingly, she famously shirked the traditional brownstone home to erect a splashy white marble French Renaissance mansion in 1893! It was the largest of its kind.
At that time, Riverside Drive showcased rows of mansions that ALSO had manicured gardens/grounds--unlike the urban mansions of the Upper East Side. Despite that, the Upper West Side was nicknamed "the wrong side of Central Park", by society's echelon.
Another demolition involved the Cornelius Vanderbilt house. Probably due to public hatred of that robber-baron--whose railroad killed thousands of passengers, pedestrians, and employees, and who made his fortune price-gouging clients--the mansion was destroyed. It's regrettable that they didn't preserve its architecture for public use as other cities do. Below, notice the progression of taller and taller buildings inching closer to the mansion, soon to engulf it.
As you can see, the commerce district of Manhattan chased the mansions uptown, encircling the Vanderbilt House. (Above, retail stores and the Plaza Hotel bookend the house). Occupying an entire block, the home was built in 1883, on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. It was the largest private residence ever built in NYC. Their home is North Carolina--a state named for England's King Charles I--is still the largest in America; it's appropriately named "Biltmore"... as in "Built More".
Vanderbilt lived there for only 13 years, before the entire home--and all its one-of-a-kind craftsmanship and long-lost artistry--was destroyed. In 1926, it was destroyed to make room for the current Bergdorft Goodman department store (with the Goodman family living on its top floor, overlooking Central Park).
Looking below, you can see how the entire aura of Fifth Avenue changed... seen from the perspective of two other side-by-side Vanderbilt mansions a few blocks south of Cornelius' home.
In 1897, Senator William A. Clark commissioned a mansion (below) on Fifth Avenue and 77th Street. Completed in 1907, the mammoth home survived until its owner's death in 1925. Hatred of Clark (from competitors who were envious of his upright entrepreneur success) sparked its demise, instead of its salvation.
With 100 rooms, across 6 levels, it took 13 years to finish (longer than its owner resided there).
By then, its style was considered ostentatious, gaudy and outdated.
After his spectacular funeral in the mansion, Clark's fortune of $100 million (in 1925 value) was divided amongst his family.
Falling to the oncoming Commercial Invasion, the mansion was replaced with an apartment building.
On a parallel corner in the Upper West Side, the Issac Rice Mansion was built. Facing Riverside Drive and the Hudson River, it was built in 1903. Rice, a lawyer for railroads and the founder of the Electric Vehicle Company, hired theater designers Herts & Tallant to design his home. (Tallant, "talent", and theaters! So funny.) Unique to this home is its porte cochere on 89th Street (below). Along with a special room for "chess playing" in the basement, a tunnel supposedly connected to a neighbor.
After the financial panic of 1907, Rice sold the home to cigarette manufacturer, Solomon Schinasi, who died there in 1919. Since 1954, it has been owned by a religious school for Jewish children.
Schinasi's brother, Morris (another tobacco merchant) built his own 35-room mansion further north on Riverside Drive and 107th Street (below). Designed by William Tuthill (who did Carnegie Hall), it was Morris' home until his death in 1928. It remains one of the last free-standing private mansions in the city.
A majority of its neighbors along Riverside Drive (seen below) have vanished.
Even the Upper West Side's Dakota (a luxury apartment building, below) began in an isolated area (1884) abutting Central Park, but was soon enshrouded by concrete/steel structures.
Located at Fifth Avenue and 78th Street, the James Duke House (below) was part of "Millionaire's Row".
Its owner was a founding partner of American Tobacco Company and the owner of Duke Power--still the largest electric power holding company in the United States. [Unfortunately, its award-winning reputation was blemished when it received $216 million in tax rebates, while not paying any taxes from 2008-2010, and while making a profit of $5.4 billion in 2010 (thus increasing top executive pay 145%)].
Based on 1770s French design, the home was completed in 1912. Duke died in 1925, and his wife & daughter donated the building to NYU's Institute of Fine Arts in 1952.
Below is the Episcopal Residence, a.k.a. Cathedral House, on the Upper West Side.
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine has a campus of several buildings, but this mansion was built in 1914 entirely for the Bishop.
Aside from elite clergy, other folks enjoy living in regal splendor. Mimicking the Astors (seen below, circa 1897)
was celebrity show-host Joan Rivers (seen in her custom-designed penthouse).
Also along the "religious" lines, the Joseph Raphael De Lamar mansion (below) was built in 1905 on Madison Avenue and 37th Street.
Built in 1905 by Morton Freeman Plant (son of a railroad tycoon), it was sold to Cartier in 1917 because Plant disliked the expanding business district that surrounded the home. He built another mansion on 86th Street, but died 2 years later. His wife died in 1956, and that mansion was torn down shortly after. Cartier maintains its home impeccably--currently refurbishing it, using the same team that recently worked on the Carnegie Mansion.
Further north on Fifth Avenue at 79th Street is our last mansion of this walking tour. Built for banker Isaac Fletcher in 1898, it was bequeathed--upon his death in 1917--to the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Art.
But, they sold the house (to buy paintings) to Harry Sinclair, founder of Sinclair Oil (famous for implication in the 1920s Teapot Dome scandal & jury tampering). In 1930, Sinclair sold the house to decedents of NYC's ancient Dutch Colony Governor, Peter Stuyvesant. Since 1955, it has been owned by the Ukrainian Institute. It snugly maintains the corner-piece of a row of stately homes that have survived.
The architectural characteristics of French châteaux
originated in Italy, during the Renaissance. *To see the Italian palazzos that Lewis and I saw in Italy, please click this link...
Popularized by the French, they were copied by Americans during the USA's Gilded Age.
Situated on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 65th Street, its ballroom spanned the entire rear of the mansion, rising four stories high, and held 1,200 people. (Her prior address only fit 400: "The 400 of High Society").
Caroline died in 1908, suffering from dementia (supposedly still imagining her parties). In 1927, the mansion was torn down, and the area became a commercial district. For almost 30 years, it had been the gatehouse to NY Society. It signaled that the wealthy gathered in hotels (some also owned by the Astor family), instead of grand homes.
Nowadays, Temple Emanu-El occupies the spot, offering worship for a Jewish congregation. Ironic ending, huh?
The demise of other famous mansions occurred. Across town, the 75-room Charles M. Schwab House was built in 1906 (it took 4 years) on 73rd Street and Riverside Drive.
At that time, Riverside Drive showcased rows of mansions that ALSO had manicured gardens/grounds--unlike the urban mansions of the Upper East Side. Despite that, the Upper West Side was nicknamed "the wrong side of Central Park", by society's echelon.
In 1901, Schwab brokered the deal for Carnegie to sell his steelworks to J. P. Morgan, and he became US Steel's president. Hobnobbing with Morgan's other crony, Thomas Edison, Schwab also sold steel to Russia's Trans-Siberian Railroad. He died penniless in 1939, bequeathing the estate to NYC. Modest anti-corruption mayor, Fiorello La Guardia refused to make it the Mayor's Mansion, so it sat vacant until 1947 when it was demolished for a post-WWII apartment complex (below).
Doors (below) were reclaimed from the estate for a nearby church.
Another demolition involved the Cornelius Vanderbilt house. Probably due to public hatred of that robber-baron--whose railroad killed thousands of passengers, pedestrians, and employees, and who made his fortune price-gouging clients--the mansion was destroyed. It's regrettable that they didn't preserve its architecture for public use as other cities do. Below, notice the progression of taller and taller buildings inching closer to the mansion, soon to engulf it.
As you can see, the commerce district of Manhattan chased the mansions uptown, encircling the Vanderbilt House. (Above, retail stores and the Plaza Hotel bookend the house). Occupying an entire block, the home was built in 1883, on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. It was the largest private residence ever built in NYC. Their home is North Carolina--a state named for England's King Charles I--is still the largest in America; it's appropriately named "Biltmore"... as in "Built More".
Vanderbilt lived there for only 13 years, before the entire home--and all its one-of-a-kind craftsmanship and long-lost artistry--was destroyed. In 1926, it was destroyed to make room for the current Bergdorft Goodman department store (with the Goodman family living on its top floor, overlooking Central Park).
Looking below, you can see how the entire aura of Fifth Avenue changed... seen from the perspective of two other side-by-side Vanderbilt mansions a few blocks south of Cornelius' home.
(Above left is same white marble home in Bottom right)
Finally, only one of several Vanderbilt homes stood... until scaffolding rose around it, as it was torn down, brick by brick.
With 100 rooms, across 6 levels, it took 13 years to finish (longer than its owner resided there).
By then, its style was considered ostentatious, gaudy and outdated.
After his spectacular funeral in the mansion, Clark's fortune of $100 million (in 1925 value) was divided amongst his family.
Falling to the oncoming Commercial Invasion, the mansion was replaced with an apartment building.
On a parallel corner in the Upper West Side, the Issac Rice Mansion was built. Facing Riverside Drive and the Hudson River, it was built in 1903. Rice, a lawyer for railroads and the founder of the Electric Vehicle Company, hired theater designers Herts & Tallant to design his home. (Tallant, "talent", and theaters! So funny.) Unique to this home is its porte cochere on 89th Street (below). Along with a special room for "chess playing" in the basement, a tunnel supposedly connected to a neighbor.
After the financial panic of 1907, Rice sold the home to cigarette manufacturer, Solomon Schinasi, who died there in 1919. Since 1954, it has been owned by a religious school for Jewish children.
Schinasi's brother, Morris (another tobacco merchant) built his own 35-room mansion further north on Riverside Drive and 107th Street (below). Designed by William Tuthill (who did Carnegie Hall), it was Morris' home until his death in 1928. It remains one of the last free-standing private mansions in the city.
A majority of its neighbors along Riverside Drive (seen below) have vanished.
Even the Upper West Side's Dakota (a luxury apartment building, below) began in an isolated area (1884) abutting Central Park, but was soon enshrouded by concrete/steel structures.
Located at Fifth Avenue and 78th Street, the James Duke House (below) was part of "Millionaire's Row".
Its owner was a founding partner of American Tobacco Company and the owner of Duke Power--still the largest electric power holding company in the United States. [Unfortunately, its award-winning reputation was blemished when it received $216 million in tax rebates, while not paying any taxes from 2008-2010, and while making a profit of $5.4 billion in 2010 (thus increasing top executive pay 145%)].
Based on 1770s French design, the home was completed in 1912. Duke died in 1925, and his wife & daughter donated the building to NYU's Institute of Fine Arts in 1952.
Below is the Episcopal Residence, a.k.a. Cathedral House, on the Upper West Side.
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine has a campus of several buildings, but this mansion was built in 1914 entirely for the Bishop.
or Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt (below)
or Mrs. Grace Wilson Vanderbilt (below)
was celebrity show-host Joan Rivers (seen in her custom-designed penthouse).
Also along the "religious" lines, the Joseph Raphael De Lamar mansion (below) was built in 1905 on Madison Avenue and 37th Street.
Its owner, a mine owner, died in 1918, and his daughter sold the mansion to the American Bible Company. Poland bought it in 1973 and still uses it as its embassy.
Madison Avenue had other mansion, too. In 1882, Henry Villard (a railroad financier) hired famous architects McKim, Mead & White to build 6 townhouses surrounding a courtyard.
Villard died in 1900. In 1974, hotelier Harry Helmsley built the Palace Hotel tower behind it, using the mansion as its entrance. [His infamous wife, Leona (known for firing staff over trivial mistakes) was arrested for tax evasion and was quoted, "Only the little people pay taxes". She was sentenced to 16 years in prison, but only served 19 months.]
Speaking of consumerism, we must've forget the splendid "Cartier Mansion" on Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street.
Built in 1905 by Morton Freeman Plant (son of a railroad tycoon), it was sold to Cartier in 1917 because Plant disliked the expanding business district that surrounded the home. He built another mansion on 86th Street, but died 2 years later. His wife died in 1956, and that mansion was torn down shortly after. Cartier maintains its home impeccably--currently refurbishing it, using the same team that recently worked on the Carnegie Mansion.
Further north on Fifth Avenue at 79th Street is our last mansion of this walking tour. Built for banker Isaac Fletcher in 1898, it was bequeathed--upon his death in 1917--to the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Art.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Don't be shy: leave your comments :)