Charles M. Schwab's Riverside mansion, demolished in 1948 after its owner's fortune collapsed. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons Not every lost Gilded Age palace stood on Fifth Avenue, and arguably the grandest of them all did not. Charles M. Schwab, the self-made steel magnate who ran U.S. Steel and founded Bethlehem Steel, built his on […]
Schwab's Riverside, the great mansion built on the 'wrong' side of Central Park. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons Everyone remembers Fifth Avenue's Millionaire's Row. But the single most extravagant private mansion in the whole city may have stood on the other side of Central Park, on Riverside Drive, and the reason it is so often […]
Before demolition, the contents and fittings of great mansions like the Vanderbilt house were dispersed. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons When a great mansion was condemned, there was usually a window, sometimes only a matter of days, when everything inside it went up for grabs. Mantelpieces, paneling, doors, marble, chandeliers, and even staircases were stripped […]
The Cornelius Vanderbilt II House: a palace that bankrupted the logic of keeping it. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons Imagine you have inherited the largest, most beautiful private house in New York. Now imagine that it is slowly bankrupting you. That was the real trap of the great Gilded Age mansions, and it explains why […]
The William K. Vanderbilt 'Petit Chateau' at 660 Fifth Avenue, before the office tower that stands there today. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons Stand at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street today and you will see 660 Fifth Avenue, a sleek mid-century office tower of glass and steel. Rewind less than a […]
Fifth Avenue at Grand Army Plaza around 1908, where the Cornelius Vanderbilt II House once stood and Bergdorf Goodman now stands. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons There is no plaque, no marker, nothing to tell you. But if you stand at Fifth Avenue and 58th Street, facing Grand Army Plaza, you are standing where the […]
The Cornelius Vanderbilt II House, whose ballroom once stood where Bergdorf Goodman's sales floors are today. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons The next time you are inside Bergdorf Goodman, browsing the floors of designer clothing and accessories, try this thought experiment: picture the two-story ballroom that once stood in roughly the same space, its chandeliers […]
Fifth Avenue around 1908, when 'Millionaire's Row' was an almost unbroken line of private mansions. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons There is a reason they called upper Fifth Avenue 'Millionaire's Row.' For roughly fifty years, walking it meant passing an almost unbroken row of private chateaux, Vanderbilt after Astor after Clark, each grander than the […]
Caroline Astor, whose Fifth Avenue ballroom stood where Temple Emanu-El rises today. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons Few before-and-afters capture the end of an era as cleanly as this one. On the corner of Fifth Avenue and 65th Street, the same ground tells two completely different stories, separated by just a few years and by […]
The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, the Vanderbilt summer 'cottage' that survives as a museum today. — Image source: Wikimedia Commons After a long series of demolished Fifth Avenue palaces, it is a relief to end with a then-and-now that has a happy ending. On the cliffs of Newport, Rhode Island, The Breakers still stands, […]
