The 1892 American Fine Arts Society Building -- The Art Students League

In 1889 the Art Students League joined forces with the Society of American Artists, the Society of Painters in Pastel, the New York Art Guild and the Architectural League to form the American Fine Arts Society. The concept of common interests among architects and artists was somewhat novel. “The societies that have now combined,” applauded The New York Times, “contain most of the younger and more energetic artists in architecture, painting and sculpture.”


Almost immediately the group began its search for a building for art education and annual exhibitions. Not wanting to step on any well-established toes, the group stressed that “it is not a rival of the Academy of Design;” yet The New York Times reported that “certain active spirits among the artists of New York have been hard at work on the promotion of a scheme which may bear important results to the fine arts in America. This is the establishment of a body to be called The Fine Arts Society, in a new building devoted to art purposes only.”

Wealthy benefactors like John Jacob Astor, Cornelius and George Vanderbilt, Edwin Booth, Levi Morton and Pierre Lorillard quickly purchased life memberships, creating a financial foundation. On October 3 the trustees met – including esteemed names such as Henry Hardenbergh, Louis Tiffany and Daniel French --to discuss interest in a site on 43rd Street for their new building, which they anticipated would cost about $210,000 including the land.

The plans for the 43rd Street site fell through, but by December of 1890 the Society had purchased for $154,000 the plot of land on 57th Street, running through to 58th Street, next to the new Osborne Apartments and diagonally across from Carnegie Hall, still being constructed. A competition among 38 architects resulted in the commission going to the Society’s Secretary, Henry Hardenberg and his partners, William C. Hunting and John C. Jacobsen.

The building was completed in 1892. Hardenbergh adapted its design from the 16th Century hunting lodge of King Francis I in the forest of Fontainebleau. The architect gave the impression of the 3-story structure by lighting the fourth floor with skylights and no windows. White marble, ornate terra cotta and buff brick combined to produce a rich and stately façade.

The Art Students League Buildling 1929

The interior was divided among exhibition spaces, administrative rooms and teaching space. The Art Students League alone was allocated about 10,000 square feet of floor space including the entire fourth floor which was devoted to “the chase-painting class, the still-life class, the woman’s life class, the men’s life class, and the antique contours class.”

The main hall was said to be the largest of its kind in the country, modeled after the salon of George Petit in Paris. A “supper room” was installed in the basement along with studios for the Department of Sculpture. To the rear, on 58th Street, was the large Vanderbilt Gallery, an exhibition gallery with a glass roof

The New York Times called it “an elaborate structure.”

On December 30th at the Architectural League’s dinner, George W. Vanderbilt presented the Society with a gift of $100,000 to pay off the outstanding debt on the building.

The concept of exhibition space solely for sculpture and not as “a tag-on” for paintings so impressed the art critic for The New York Times that he belittled European venues in comparison. “The great sculpture halls of the Louvre, the Vatican and the Munich Glyptothek, even the delightful little sculpture entrance to the Luxembourg, are not they cold, hard, severe, suggesting with their rows of chiseled marble the show rooms of the stone cutter at the cemetery’s entrance?”

On May 3, 1901, fire erupted on the fourth floor just as men and women in evening wear alighted from their carriages to attend the fancy dress ball of the Society of American Fakirs. Paints, oils, turpentine and students’ tools had all been heaped together in a corner, according to fire fighters. The conflagration bent iron beams and small explosions caused one wall to collapse.

In the meantime, those who arrived for the society ball were disappointed. They walked to the clubhouse of the American Society of Civil Engineers, hoping to be allowed to have their dance. “The superintendant politely told them they would have to go elsewhere for their dance,” reported The Times. “The young women importuned him to no purpose, and at last they all started for their various homes.”

When word of the fire reached the Salmagundi Club, panic set in. Many of the artists had valuable works of art on exhibition. Rumors raged that everything inside the building had been destroyed and club members rushed to the scene. In the Vanderbilt Gallery alone, paintings on exhibition were valued at $400,000.

Amazingly, the fire was extinguished and no artworks were damaged either by fire or water.

Over time the building became the sole property of The Art Students League. What had started out as a small group intent on teaching art was now one of the foremost fine art schools in the world. Early instructors included William Merritt Chase, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French, Thomas Eakins, and Childe Hassam. Norman Rockwell fondly recalled his days as a student here in his autobiography.

Later in the century ground-breaking artists such as Louis Nevelson, Roy Lichtenstein and Mark Rothko either taught or lectured here.

The AIA Guide to New York City calls The Art Students League “A stately French Renaissance pile, grand without being grandiloquent…Now a venerable art school, it has the air of the old Parisian Ecole des Beaux Arts, but the spirit of New York now.”

Within the historic building, which was designated a New York City landmark in 1968 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, the League is run by artists for artists. The League offers no degrees nor diplomas. According to its official website, “One comes purely for the pursuit of art.”

The Iconic Plaza Hotel

Just nine years after the original, first-class Plaza Hotel was opened, Fred Sterry announced on June 12, 1905 that it would be razed and a new Plaza erected on the site.

Sterry, who was from Hot Springs, Virginia, had big plans. “The new hotel will be about seventeen stories high and in width and depth pretty much the same size of the old one. The architect is J. H. Hardenberg, who planned the Manhattan…In general plan the new hotel will resemble the Carlton Hotel in London.

“It will be an exclusive and absolutely first-class hotel in every way. The two features which come to my mind now will be a driveway into the hotel from the plaza and an Italian garden in the rear. There will be about 700 rooms in the house.”

Sterry got the architect's name slightly wrong.  It was Henry J. Hardenbergh, who was responsible for the Dakota Apartments, the Waldorf and Astoria Hotels, and other distinctive structures.

The old Plaza Hotel was demolished the following month and construction began immediately. Things took an ugly turn when a year later, the George A. Fuller Construction Company hired non-union iron stairway workers to work on the building.

On the afternoon of July 12, 1906 thirty “muscular iron workers, members of the Housesmiths’ and Bridgemen’s Union murdered one special policeman and left for dead two others…” according to The New York Times. The gang used “iron bars, heavy wrenches and sledge hammers” to “beat them into insensibility.”

Despite the scandal and sensational trials that followed, construction continued and the opulent hotel was completed in September 1907. The astonishing $12.5 million cost of construction and outfitting the hotel necessitated the largest mortgage ever placed on a hotel property.

Permanent residents, among them Alfred G. Vanderbilt, George J. Gould, and Henry Fink, moved in on Monday morning, September 23 – a week before the public would be admitted, thus insuring privacy and discretion during move-in.

On September 29, 1907, a day after the grand public opening, The New York Times filled an entire page describing the new hotel. “One more institution will have been added to New York’s variegated social life,” the newspaper said. “The city will have gained another show place, the tourists on the rubber-neck automobiles will have an additional kink to put in their necks, and a few more descriptive paragraphs will have to be crowded into the all-around-the-city travelogue.”

Hardenberg had created a French Renaissance palace with corner towers, deep mansard roofs and steeply angled eaves reminiscent of his earlier Dakota Apartments. The interiors were lavish and breathtaking. French marble lined the walls of the Louis XVI-style main entrance. The furniture and carpeting of the main floor were all custom-made in France.

The Palm Court - 1907

The “tea room,” later to be known as the Palm Court, was modeled after the Winter Garden of the Hotel Carlton in London. Covered by a leaded glass dome, the walls were of Caen stone and Breche Violette marble.

“The rear wall of this room is made up of mirrors, above which are sprung arches, which are supported by four marble caryatides, representing the four seasons of the year,” reported The Times. “These caryatides were removed from a famous old Italian palace.”

Of the two main floor dining rooms, one was reserved for the permanent residents; each resident or family having his personal table, “to be free from the intrusion of transients or simple diners-out.”

The grand ballroom, a white-and-cream Louis XIV reincarnation, was designed to accommodate 500 people. The rear portion of the U-shaped balcony surrounding the room could be lowered by “simply pushing an electric button,” to be used as a stage or concert platform. The section could be then returned to its original position when the floor space was needed.

The Grand Ballroom - 1907

On the main floor a “cafe and restaurant for men” which would later become known as the Oak Room was paneled in dark, quartered oak wainscoting. Over the wainscoting was an Aubusson tapestry frieze made in France for the room. Beyond the Oak Room was “the barroom – unique among the countless elaborate barrooms of this city,” said The Times. In addition to the frescoes of German landscapes, the German Renaissance-style Men’s Bar (later renamed the Oak Bar) featured “Paneled woodwork in dull antique finish…High overhead is a vaulted ceiling, the arches of which are sprung from massive pilasters.”

The well-heeled guests would expect to pay as much as $2.50 per night for the luxurious accommodations.

The Plaza immediately attracted New York’s elite. Wealthy socialites who had previously thrown balls and dinners at Delmonico’s and Sherry’s were now patronizing the new hotel’s gilded ballroom. The Palm Court was the afternoon venue in which well-dressed Edwardian women gathered to be seen.

The Plaza, with its extremely wealthy clientele, barely felt the Great Depression. Random House’s, “New York City Guide, 1939,” written for the Works Progress Administration said “The Plaza Hotel is patronized by the well-established older groups of society, though to a war generation it was a rendezvous of youth, as recorded in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby.”

Soon thereafter came the first of several new owners of the Plaza. In 1943 Conrad Hilton purchased the hotel for $7.4 million, spending another $6 on renovations. It changed hands again in 1955 when The Childs Company bought it for around $6.3 million.

That year Kay Thompson wrote the first of the children’s books about Eloise, a young girl who lived at the Plaza. Through her books the grand hotel became known to children and parents alike world-wide.

During this time Frank Lloyd Wright lived here for six years while designing the Guggenheim Museum. Further attention came when in February of 1964 the Beatles stayed here during their first United States tour; then again in 1966 when Truman Capote hosted his widely publicized “Black and White Ball” in the Grand Ballroom in honor of Katharine Graham.

It was here, in September 1985 that the Plaza Accord was signed by the finance ministers of the US, West Germany, France, Japan and Britain; an agreement that would bring the dollar more in line with those foreign currencies.

By the time Donald Trump purchased the Plaza three years later for $407.5 million, the hotel was showing its age. Nonetheless, Trump announced that “I haven’t purchased a building; I have purchased a masterpiece – The Mona Lisa.” The Plaza, after a $50 million refurbishing, gleamed again.

In 1995 Trump sold the hotel at a substantial loss to Troy Richard Campbell, for $325 million. Campbell resold the property nine years later for an astonishing $675 million -- $838,509 a room -- to developers El Ad Properties.

El Ad Properties had big plans for the Plaza; however because the building had been designated a New York City landmark in 1969 and a National Historic Landmark in 1978, interior and exterior alterations were closely scrutinized.

Architects Costas Kondylis & Partners were commissioned to renovate the structure. In a news release that made much of New York nervous, NYP Holdings, Inc. said “Once home to Vanderbilts and Hitchcocks, the 98-year-old hotel will shut its doors on April 30, after which the building will be remodeled into condominiums and retail space. Only about 80 of the Plaza’s 805 rooms will remain as a hotel.”

The renovated Plaza reopened on March 1, 2008 with 282 hotel rooms and 181 condominiums; as well as a shopping area. The historic public areas were carefully restored, including the glass ceiling of the Palm Court which was removed during World War II for security purposes.

The AIA Guide to New York reported happily on the three year, $400 million renovation, including interiors by Annabelle Selldorf. Calling it a “vestige of Edwardian elegance,” The Guide commented on the new Oak Room and Oak Bar:

“Selldorf designed new furniture but kept the oak paneling and murals intact. It’s a quiet retreat from the City, and despite what happened to Cary Grant there in the opening scene of North by Northwest, it’s highly unlikely you will be abducted by foreign agents.”

In 2010 condomiums at the new Plaza were offered at $1,150 million for a studio to $42,4 million for a 6-bedroom apartment; a far cry from $2.50 per night.

Hardenbergh's 1889 Nos. 1340-1350 Lexington Avenue and No. 121-123 E. 89th Street

Until the middle of the 19th Century, wealthy New Yorkers not only lived in the city, but built elegant country estates in the rural north – areas like Bloomingdale (what is now the Upper West Side above 103rd Street), and Yorkville on the Upper East Side.

The Rhinelander family was no exception. Their summer home was near Archibald Gracie’s estate on rolling land cooled by its proximity to the East River. The area began developing as the New York and Harlem Railroad made the area easily accessible after 1834.  Rather than flee, the Rhinelanders purchased more and more land, acutely aware of the lucrative investment.

Beginning in 1880 the family, rather than sell of their land, began developing it – erecting houses and apartments for middle class families. The New York Times, in 1878, predicted that the family would hold onto its land, despite the death of patriarch William C. Rhinelander. “…the father inherited a strong bias toward the English method of keeping family estates together and regarding them as almost sacredly indivisible; and it is hence more than probably that he has expressed his wishes most decidedly upon that point.”

Among the new construction was a string of row houses and a matching apartment house at the northwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 89th Street.

The houses were part of a flurry of building in the immediate area that the family was doing – across the street Henry Hardenbergh had already designed a row of eleven French Renaissance-inspired houses and along East 89th Street were delightful and diminutive Queen Anne houses designed by Hubert & Pirsson.

For this project, the family commissioned Hardenbergh again. The architect designed harmonious but varied “Northern Renaissance Revival” houses rising three stories over an English basement. Constructed of brick, brownstone and terra cotta they were more restrained than their 89th Street Queen Anne neighbors; yet still managed to display a playfulness of style.

The perhaps unexpected choice of the trendy architectural styles was not due merely to the family’s desire to be au courant. They were well aware that the chic designs would attract tenants. In 1879 The Real Estate Record & Guide noted that “the Rhinelanders detest an unproductive estate. None know better than they how to adapt improvements to the capacities and requirements of a given neighborhood.”

Hardenbergh included an architecturally harmonious apartment building around the corner.

The houses were home to a variety of tenants. Annie L. McDermott, a primary school teacher, lived in No. 1342 in 1888 while next door at No. 1342 was Dr. Edmund J. Palmer. Palmer lived here about five years, followed by the Reverend Benjamin Stone. Later, in 1931, Mary Trumbull who was active with the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities lived here, as did Dr. Edward J. Hornick in the 1950s, a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein Clinic.

The terra cotta detailing survives on the upper floors, seen here at No. 1342 and 1344

Most tenants on the block were well-educated. Frederick Bleil graduated from Columbia University. He lived at No. 1350 in 1906. Another Columbia graduate, Adolph Baron, lived at No. 1346 in 1916 and Dr. William Henry Morse resided in No. 1344 in 1907.

None of the residents, however, would outshine the owner of No. 1342 from 1960 through 1972: artist Andy Warhol.

Andy Warhol purchased No. 1342 in 1960

Changed had come to the six houses by then. In 1931 Lexington Avenue was widened and by necessity all sidewalk obstructions were removed. In the case of Nos. 1340-1350 this meant the loss of the stoops leading to the parlor floors. In 1940 all but one, No. 1340, were being operated as rooming houses by the Rhinelander Real Estate Company.

Originally brownstone stoops rose to the entrance doorways that now serve as windows.

 Warhol was doing well in 1960 when he purchased No. 1340. In his “Birth of the Cool: Beat, Bebop, and the American Avant-Garde,” Lewis MacAdams said the artist began filling the 13-room townhouse “with his growing holdings—cabinets full of Fiestaware, hundreds of cookie jars, grocery bags full of unmounted semi-precious stones, and piles of Navajo rugs and Kwakiutl masks, to name just a few of the objects he collected.”

Sunlight did not make an appearance into Warhol’s interiors. Curtains and blinds blanketed the windows, creating permanent nighttime.

Moving in with Warhol was his mother, Julia, who had lived with him at his previous apartment at 242 Lexington Avenue. The tensions between the two were such that, according to Warhol biographer Victor Bockris, “When they moved to 1342 Lexington Avenue she was relegated to the basement.”

While Warhol was by no means having financial problems, he neglected to pay his mortgage payments in November and December of 1967, prompting a stern warning.

Julia Warhol died on November 22, 1972 and her son sold the house not long after.

On May 5, 1998, the six houses and the little apartment building were grouped together as the “Hardenbergh/Rhinelander Historic District” by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.  Despite their unfortunate alterations—most notably the loss of the stoops and commercial space in No. 1340—the buildings are a charming surviving ensemble.

photographs taken by the author

The Lost Waldorf-Astoria Hotel -- 5th Avenue at 33rd Street

When this postcard was printed horse drawn vehicles still traveled along Fifth Avenue and the hyphen was not yet expected between "Waldorf" and "Astoria" (although it was between "New" and "York")

The heated family feud between William Astor and his aunt, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, came to a head in 1890.  Living next door to her was no longer possible for William.   The near-twin brownstone mansions his father, John Jacob Astor II, and his uncle, William Backhouse Astor, had built were separated by a wide common garden.  But that garden did not provide enough separation; indeed only an ocean seemed wide enough to distance Astor from his domineering aunt.

Caroline Astor reigned supreme over New York society in the 1890s.  Her mansion at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34^th Street was the scene of annual balls for three hundred or more of society’s most elite.  The quiet of her refined home was interrupted only by the gentle clop of carriage horses on the paving stones of Fifth Avenue.  Before moving permanently to England her nephew would devise his final revenge.

William briefly toyed with the idea of erecting a stable on the site of his father’s house; then came up with a more lucrative idea.  He commissioned Henry J. Hardenberg to design a massive high-end hotel next door to his Aunt Caroline’s staid mansion.  Ground was broken in November 1890 and Carolina Astor’s life immediately changed.

Caroline Astor's venerable brownstone was dwarfed by her nephew's new hotel -- photo Mina Rees Library, The Graduate Center, CUNY

For three years Caroline Astor’s house was shaken as the nerve-racking construction continued.  After the grand opening on March 24, 1893 she was forced to share the block with carriages and hansoms and her sidewalk was crowded with the comings and goings of rushing travelers.

William Waldorf Astor’s project embodied more than mere reprisal.   The real estate-savvy millionaire came from a family of hotel owners and he recognized the profit-making potential of the site.   Business was already inching nearer and nearer to the 34^th Street neighborhood and a luxury hotel north of the Fifth Avenue Hotel at 23^rd Street would be welcomed—at least by businessmen and travelers if not by the neighbors.

The 13-story hotel dwarfed Caroline Astor’s venerable home and was recognized as the last word in opulence.  Hardenbergh’s creation had 530 rooms and 350 private bathrooms.  The sumptuous public spaces were immense and of the more than $3 million total cost, $800,000 was spent on interior fixtures and furnishings—about $18.5 million in today’s dollars.

The New York Times commented on the architecture, the upper stories of which were slightly reminiscent of the architect’s Dakota Apartments on Central Park.  “The building has thirteen stories, but its walls are so broken up with gables, balconies, and recessed construction, that its great height is imposing, and no monotony of tall, coffin-like outline wearies the eye."

Astor hired George C. Boldt, manager of the Bellevue and Stratford Hotels in Philadelphia, to run the Waldorf.   Boldt personally approved the furniture—most custom made by W. & D. Sloane; some of the designs of which were drawn up in Boldt’s own office.

“Duveen of London made much of the elaborate furniture for the most splendid apartments,” reported The Times on February 13, 1893, as the hotel was nearing completion.  “All the china was made in France.  All the glass to be used in the hotel, except for that for the servants, was made by Baccarat of Paris.”

Astor pulled out all the stops in decorating the interiors to guarantee that his was New York’s most elegant hotel.  The main entrance hall rose 21 feet and boasted Sienna marble pilasters with solid bronze capitals.  Off the entrance hall was the garden court filled with full-grown palms and flowering plants.  The German-inspired black oak-paneled café on this level, for men only, featured unusual lighting fixtures.  “The lights in this room will spring from stag-horn torches held by carved figures of the Tyrolerweibschen, or Tyrolean women,” said The Times.  The cost of the carvings in the café alone was $38,000.

The beamed ceiling of the main reception room was hand stenciled -- photo Library of Congress

Several of the public rooms drew on European models.  The main dining room was a reproduction of a great hall in the palace of King Ludwig of Bavaria.  Black marble pillars with green veining lined both sides of the room.   The ceiling was decorated with three painted panels by Crowninshield of Boston.

The Ladies' Reception Room was a reproduction of a Marie Antoinette apartment -- photo Library of Congress

The Ladies’ Drawing Room, off the dining room, was a “perfect reproduction of an apartment of Marie Antoniette,” said The Times.  “It is oval in shape, with recesses.  The woodwork is of white enamel and upon the walls are plate-glass mirrors.  The ceiling in this room is a canvas painted last year in Paris by Will H. Low.  Its subject is the birth of Venus.”  Low told The New York Times writer that he considered this painting his “magnum opus.”

A corridor fireplace features an inlaid clock.  Marble pilasters, mosaic floors and Empire furniture complete the luxurious setting -- The American Architect and Building News, September 17, 1895 (copyright expired)

The Turkish salon, decorated by Herter Brothers was also on this level.  The floors and walls were of marble mosaics and the woodwork was teak and satinwood.   “The woodwork is trimmed with copper, with passages from the Koran inlaid with silver,” reported the newspaper.

The ballroom was intended to dazzle.  Fowler of New York was commissioned to paint the ceiling which, in three panels, depicted figures of classical dancing girls.  The furniture was gilded by French artists.  At the end of the room was a conservatory.  The entire ballroom wing could be closed off from the common areas when leased for a private function.

On the second floor were the “state apartments” and thirteen private dining rooms, reception rooms and dressing rooms.   The sumptuous accommodations were designed “for the proper reception of very great personages” and Boldt insisted that they “are not to be rented for the permanent occupation of anybody upon any consideration.”

The state apartments included a drawing room, a “great dining room,” a breakfast room, secretary’s room, two music rooms and ten or more bedrooms and offices.  The drawing room was decorated in the style of Henry II with antique Flemish tapestries.  The music rooms were Louis XVI in style and the bedrooms “French.”  The breakfast and dining rooms were “in pure Adams.”  Boldt furnished the built-in china cabinets in the dining room with his personal collection of china, which he had insured for $35,000.

Interestingly, Astor had the original ceilings and mahogany woodwork and furnishings of his former mansion installed on this floor in what were called the “Astor dining rooms.”

The upper floors contained both transitory and permanent living apartments.  “Of all these rooms, no two have the same furnishings or decorations,” stressed The Times.  “Little gilded upright pianos, made expressly for this place, are found in many rooms.  Every room has a large closet.”

To enjoy the luxury of the new Waldorf Hotel guests would pay a minimum of $2.50 per day (about $60 today).  “From this minimum the rents for single rooms and suites will run up to substantial prices,” said the newspaper.

William Waldorf Astor was no fool.  The upper-floor corridors running south-to-north led into dead end brick walls.  The entrance on 33^rd Street was several steps above the sidewalk level, seemingly higher than necessary.   The designs which seemed odd upon the hotel’s opening would make sense later.

If Astor was no fool, neither was his manager.  Before the doors were thrown open to business, Boldt arranged for a glittering charity event to be held in the ballroom on the evening of March 14.  A concert to benefit St. Mary’s Free Hospital and the Saturday and Sunday Hospital Fund was arranged.  The event was patronized by leading New York ladies.  Boldt realized it was a way of luring the cream of society into the new hotel built as an insult to Mrs. Astor.  One thousand tickets were printed and were available at the homes of some of Manhattan’s best-known socialites (Caroline Astor’s name was not on the list).  The Times noted “Besides these, nearly 400 other ladies prominent in local society have expressed their wish to be known as interested in the occasion.”

The Waldorf was open only a month before labor problems ensued.   On April 17 a group of waiters told reporters that they “had to work sixteen hours a day for $60 a month, and had to provide their own dress suits, costing $45 each.”  They also complained about the distribution of tips, complaining that forty men worked principally at answering bells “and had little chance to gather tips.”

Almost simultaneously, waiter William Prince got into a disagreement with George Boldt.  When the Duke of Veragua took a suite of apartments in the hotel, Prince saw the opportunity to garner large tips.  Instead, Boldt provided the Duke four waiters from the café as his personal staff.

Prince told The New York Times, “So I went to Mr. Boldt and said: ‘If I am not good enough to wait upon a Duke I will go.  I have waited on the Prince of Wales and the King of Naples.’  Then I told him that I and my men objected to sorting out ladies’ soiled clothes and to sending them to the wash.”

George Boldt took care of the problem immediately.  He fired William Prince.  Not immune to employee complaints, however, he also immediately discontinued the practice of male hotel staff sorting female guests’ soiled laundry.

Another labor-related problem came up during that first month of operation.   In 1893 men of all social strata prided themselves on their muttonchops, their moustaches and, in some cases, their beards.  George Boldt insisted that the hotel hackmen—the drivers of the horse-drawn taxis—be clean shaven.  The new rule did not go down well with the men.

On April 10, 1893 The New York Times ran a headline above the story of the hackmen’s meeting the night before.  “To Save Their Whiskers—Waldorf Hotel Hackmen Are All In Arms.”   The newspaper pointed out that all the men present wore facial hair.  “The genus whisker, like most of nature’s more beautiful works, has many species.  They were all on view last night.”

The drivers agreed, in the end, that they would not shave.  “What we want,” said the Chairman, “are shorter hours, larger pay, and whiskers as short or long as we like.”

Sunshine flowed into the Palm Garden through golden-tinted stained glass -- The American Architect and Building News, September 17, 1895 (copyright expired)

In the meantime, Caroline Astor attempted to ignore the massive hotel next door.  But by the fall of 1894 her pride gave way.  On November 4 The New York Times reported “the announcement that a huge hotel is projected for the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street has been received without surprise.

“The mansion which now ornaments the corner is the one occupied for so many years by Mr. and Mrs. William Astor and their children.  It has been the scene of numerous brilliant social functions.  A quarter of a century ago, the man who would have predicted its demolition within fifty years to make way for trade would have found no believers.”

Caroline’s son, John Jacob Astor, began construction of a gargantuan double mansion across from Central Park to house his mother on one side and him on the other.   And feud or not, the Astors valued income more than familial pride.   Negotiations between John and William resulted in a new hotel, the Astoria, with connecting corridors to the Waldorf.  William Waldorf Astor’s blind hallways now made sense, as did the elevated 33^rd Street lobby.  Because 34^th Street was slightly upgrade, the lobby of the Astoria would be level with that of the Waldorf.

Henry J. Hardenberg was back to design the harmonious new structure.   As it rose from the site of Caroline Astor’s former mansion and gardens, business continued as usual at the Waldorf Hotel.

In January 1896 the routine of society balls and dinners was interrupted when The Ladies Home Journal rented the ballroom as a picture gallery.  Nearly 200 drawings done for the publication by well-known artists such as Charles Dana Gibson, Arthur B. Frost and Eric Pape were to be exhibited for free for three days from the 14^ththrough the 17^th.   It was a novel idea; yet it posed specific problems for the exhibitors.

“The problem of utilizing the dainty gold and white dancing room of the Waldorf for a picture exhibition was one requiring no little invention and skill for its solution,” said a newspaper.  “The contract prohibited the driving of a nail, or the disfigurement in any way of the apartment.  As a result, a false wall of much strength, mortised and put together with screws, has been constructed, electric lights have been arranged, and by much forethought and careful preparation, every timber being fitted to its proper place, the whole structure was put up in short order, and subsequently decorated with attractive hangings.”

On April 28, 1897, as the Astoria Hotel was in its last months of construction, John Jacob Astor perhaps offered an olive branch to his cousin.   That night a magnificent ball was held at the Waldorf in honor of Ulysses S. Grant.    The Times reported that “The floor was a brilliant sight.  Again mere citizens were disregarded.”  The first couple the newspaper noted was “Mr. and Mrs. John Jacob Astor.”   Jack Astor had finally stepped foot into his cousin’s hotel.

Despite that gesture, the new Astoria Hotel was a conspicuous attempt to outshine the Waldorf.  Two weeks before the opening, the newer building was still crowded with some of the nation’s most important mural artists.  “The artists have been at work upon these paintings, which are unusually important and interesting examples of mural decorative work, for some months past,” said The Times on October 3, 1897.  The two ceiling paintings for the ballroom, executed by Edwin Howland Blashfield, measured 65 by 44 feet.  The subjects were “Music” and “The Dance” and incorporated 28 and 12 life-sized figures respectively.

Charles Yardley Turner was given the commission to execute the frieze of the Astoria restaurant which would continue into combined restaurant of the Waldorf.  Turner lined the walls with “seated or kneeling female figures holding or playing musical instruments.  Those on the north end are boys carrying birds, peacocks, guinea hens, and roosters.  The female figures on the Fifth Avenue side, as well as those on the west wall, hold bunches of grapes and wild flowers.”

The two hotels were seamlessly designed to appear as one -- photograph Library of Congress

On November 1 the doors to the new 16-story Astoria Hotel were thrown open.   George C. Boldt would co-managed both hotels; however it would be some time before the hyphen was inserted, cementing  relations between the two hotels, if not the families.

Like the Waldorf, which The Times said was “now dwarfed by its big connecting sister hotel,” the Astoria drew on historical models.  The Ladies’ Reception Room was “Pompeian,” and the main dining room “Italian Renaissance.”  The ceiling of the dining room was 21 feet high upheld by Russian marble columns.   The garden court opened off the dining room, an extension of the Waldorf palm garden.   Two stories high it was ringed by marble balustrades.

photograph from the NYPL Collection

The Astor Gallery stretched 102 feet along 34^thStreet “and follows in decoration and furnishing the famous ballrooms of the Hotel Soubise of Paris,” reported The Times.  Twelve panels painted by Edward Simmons depicted the four seasons and twelve months.  Leading off the Gallery was the Louis Seize-style myrtle room for private functions like weddings.   There was also a “Colonial Room” on this level.

The ballroom was meant to impress.  Anticipation built as guests traveled through increasingly dramatic spaces.   Visitors climbed the ballroom staircase to the two-story ballroom foyer.  From the foyer ran the ballroom promenade, 95 feet long, at the end of which were the doors to the ballroom.

Once inside, the guests were engulfed by a staggering space.  The ceiling was three stories above the floor.  “There is not a pillar or column in the entire room,” reported The New York Times.  “The room is finished in old ivory, picked out with gold, while the curtains and furnishings of the two tiers of boxes are of crimson plush.  There is a movable stage on the south side of the room, with a proscenium which can seat an orchestra of 100 musicians.”

More than 1000 persons could be seated on the ballroom floor, while two tiers of boxes could handle 250 more.   

A vintage postcard depicts the Ballroom set up with chairs.

The collaboration of two feuding cousins was a phenomenal success.  The Waldorf-Astoria became synonymous with wealth and luxury in hotels.   The long marble corridor that connected the two buildings earned the nickname “Peacock Alley.”  Here men in silk hats and women in pearls and plumed millinery strutted among potted palms for the mere purpose of being seen.

The Waldorf-Astoria overtook Delmonico’s and Sherry’s as the place to entertain.  And Boldt kept up with the times.  He initiated Monday-morning musicales, a trend that caught on with society and he installed ping-pong tables for women when indoor tennis became the rage.   He brought in telephones, dumb waiters for room service, pneumatic tubes for rapid mail delivery, and instituted the “floor clerk.”

Society women took on two new routines: lunching out and high tea.  Both were best done if one was seen in the Palm Garden.  Tables here were booked sometimes weeks in advance.   Unescorted women meeting for lunch or tea was made possible only by the forward-thinking actions of George Boldt.

photograph NYPL Collection

In 1912 he told a reporter “I was the first man in New York to make it possible for a woman to come into a New York hotel alone.  The day the Waldorf opened, this fear of hotels ceased.  Look at any big hotel corridor now and you will find it jammed with women, more than half of whom have come alone to the hotels to keep appointments with friends, make visits, have tea or attend some social function.”

As World War I drew to a close, the Waldorf-Astoria hosted over 2,000 affairs a year from dinners for royalty to card parties.  Guests scored a social coup when the maitre d’hotel addressed them by name. The hotel, which was now taking in profits of $1 million per year, had 1,385 bedrooms and 500 bathrooms.

In 1928 the Waldorf-Astoria celebrated its 35^th anniversary by decorating the lobby with baskets of flowers and flying flags from every flagpole.  But flowers and flags could not stave off the inevitable.  By now the Victorian trappings were severely out of date as modern hotels rose throughout the city.

By the end of the year the Bethlehem Engineering Corporation had purchased the “site” in a deal estimated at between $14 and $16 million.  On May 3, 1929 the last guest walked out of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, ending an era in belle époque history.  Within a few weeks demolition crews were ripping down the grand hotel.  The Palm Garden, Peacock Alley, and the mural-walled Dining Room fell under the wrecker’s ball.

The final indignation came when architectural residue--marble statuary and columns, bronze fittings and other elements—were illegally dumped into the Atlantic fifteen miles off the coast of New York.

In the place of the once magnificent Waldorf-Astoria Hotel rose the equally magnificent Art Deco Empire State Building.

Empire State Building photograph taken by the author


The Lost New Netherlands Hotel -- 5th Avenue and 59th Street

The 17-story hotel sat diagonally across Fifth Avenue from the Plaza Hotel -- photo by Byron Company, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWQC1166&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The battle for Fifth Avenue between millionaire homeowners and commercial enterprise was well underway by 1890.  Although jewelers, dressmakers and art dealers were making inroads among the brownstone mansions, it was the grand hotels that were the largest threat to the residential neighborhood.

As early as 1871 construction began on the block-wide Windsor Hotel between 46^th and 47^th Streets.  Now, in 1890, the doors opened to the new Plaza Hotel at the northern fringes of Millionaire’s Row and William Waldorf Astor demolished his father’s mansion at the northwest corner of 33^rdStreet and broke ground for the hulking Waldorf Hotel that same year.

As Astor’s massive hotel designed by Henry J. Hardenberg rose, the millionaire commissioned William Hume to work on another grand hotel, diagonally across from the Plaza at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 59^thStreet.   Hume presented Astor with designs for an imposing brick and stone structure with remarkable similarities to Hardenberg’s Waldorf.

A sketch of the coming structure was published in 1893 -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

The 17-story structure, like the Waldorf, featured Romanesque arches, turrets and a high mansard crowned with a balustrade.  To enable the structure to attain such heights, Hume used steel framing—one of the first examples of the structural process in the city.  The architect incorporated all the latest technology of the day to ensure the hotel would be state of the art.  Elevators, plumbing and electricity would provide guests with the latest in convenience.  There would even be a telephone in every room—a feature that would prompt a newspaper to later comment “so that the millionaire who is ill may transact his business in bed.”  As opening day approached an advertisement boasted that the hotel had “Every scientific appliance in ventilating, heating, plumbing & Electric Lighting.”

An advertisement promised "The Furnishings of a palace.  The table of an Epicure."  Club Men of New York, January 1893 (copyright expired)

On August 3, 1892 Electricity: A Popular Electrical and Financial Journal  remarked that work on the hotel “is rapidly nearing completion.  The work of a structural nature is about completed, and the decorative, plumbing and electrical work is being pushed with all speed.  Wiring has commenced, and the work of placing the power plant is at present receiving attention.”

Perhaps questionable by 21^st century minds was the engineer’s idea for the in-house generators.  “A noticeable feature of the electric installation lies in the fact that no belts are to be used in power transmission; imported cotton rope will connect the engines, jack-shafts, and dynamos.  When completed, this will be the largest rope-driven electric plant in this or any other country,” said Electricity.

As the hotel neared completion, Astor leased it to Ferdinand P. Earle who also ran the high-end Hotel Normandie on Broadway.  One of Earle’s first challenges concerned the waiter’s union.  To avoid the labor problems several other hotels were experiencing, he agreed to hire union waiters.  But he put his foot down when it came to facial hair.

On May 13, 1893 The New York Times reported “The members of the International Hotel Employes’ Association were happy yesterday.  A report was brought down to their headquarters at the Chimney Corner that the manager of the New Netherlands Hotel, which is to be opened on Decoration Day, had decided to employ association waiters, but on the condition that the men should not insist on wearing mustaches.

“The waiters will waive their claim to the right of wearing mustaches.”

If Astor had paid a fortune for the construction of the hotel, Earle was not far behind in its furnishings.  All told, the project cost $3 million—more in the neighborhood of $75 million today.  The interiors were decorated by James T. Hall & Co. of New York and no expense was spared.

In a well-conceived publicity ploy, Earle invited three United States Senators to spend the night in the hotel one day before the opening.   Senators David B. Hill of New York, Charles J. Faulkner of West Virginia and Fred T. Dubois of Idaho had the cavernous hotel to themselves “in apartments equally as gorgeous and far more extensive than those which the Nation’s Spanish guests have been given,” said The Times on June 1, 1893.

“The parlors of the house, with their costly drapings and upholstery, the immense dining room finished in Mexican onyx, the spacious halls and corridors, approached by a staircase in carved Numidian marble, and even the bridal chambers were at their disposal, with none to molest or make them afraid,” reported the newspaper.

Among the works of art was an immense oil painting by Franklin Tuttle in the lobby depicting the purchase of Manhattan Island from the native Americans.  The painting measured 25 by 12 feet and the figures were nearly life sized.  A clerk explained to Senator Dubois that the price paid for the land was $24.  “’There has been a noticeable increase in the value of that real estate,’ mused the Senator as he moved away to look at another painting, which represents the refusal of Peter Stuyvesant to cede Manhattan Island to the English,” said The Times reporter.

The following morning the senators joined the Senate Committee on Immigration in the New Netherlands Room.  The Times said “The room is a reproduction of the best finished and furnished of old Dutch rooms;” and The Decorator and Furnisher said “This quaintly beautiful room is deeply imbued with the spirit of the German Renaissance.  The woodwork throughout is dark antique oak, and the tile decorations a brilliant Dutch blue, a combination rather strong and starling in its contrasts, but in a room of this character, perfectly allowable.”

Delft-style tiles covered the upper walls of the New Netherlands Room -- The Decorator and Furnisher, March 1897 (copyright expired)

But first there was the matter of formally opening the hotel.  And it would be an astounding exhibition of electrical technology.  At 10:00, with the senators and newspaper men crowded around, Earle’s young son, Guyon Locke Crocheron Earle, pressed a button.  “This act will start the machinery plant of the house, unfurl a United States flag on the flagpole, seventeen stories higher, and discharge a cannon which has been fastened to the roof.  The house will then be declared open for guests,” said The New York Times.

The remarkable hotel made news far outside New York City.  Maine’s The Lewiston Evening Journal announced on June 1, 1893 “The New Netherland is a magnificent structure, 17 stories high, of dull, yellowish brick, with brownstone trimmings.  The entrance is imposing and broad, with massive carved stone pillars supporting the portico.  It is a palace for a king, magnificent in its appointments, solid and durable as the ages.”

Calling the hotel “elegant, “ the newspaper said “But the parlors surpass in beauty and magnificence of furnishing everything in the hotel.  They open directly into the hall and connect with each other.  There is one that is especially unique and beautiful, and that is the empire room.  Their [sic] furniture is upholstered in the prevailing tints and the magnificent rugs harmonize with the whole.”

The Empire Parlor -- The Decorator and Furnisher, September 1896 (ciopyright expired)

The Evening Journal described the bridal suite in detail.  “The parlor is a symphony in cream, pale pink and Nile green.  The ceiling is a stucco work of garlands and roses, rosebuds and delicate leaves.  The walls are upholstered in Nile green tapestry, with pink and white rosebuds, and the gilt furniture is covered with satin brocade of the same color.”

The newspaper summed it up saying “There is no evidence in the hotel that money has been spared.”

In fact, no expense had been spared.  Earl purchased the carpeting, draperies, wall hangings and upholstery from W. & J. Sloane for $74,000.  The Phoenix Furniture Company had custom built the furniture for $180,000.  The silverware was provided by Gorham Manufacturing Company at a cost of $65,000.  The combined outlay to these three suppliers alone would amount to about $8 million today.

The Evening World chimed in, saying that the 370-room New Netherlands was even finer than the Waldorf.  “Of the series of Astor hotels which have so far been erected in New York the New Netherlands is, architecturally, the most magnificent.  It is, indeed, considered by many persons the most wonderful hotel structure in the world.”

The day following the opening, The New York Times commented on the technical advances, including the fire alarm.  “As a precaution against fire telemeters are connected with each room by which, whenever the temperature rises higher than 130 [degrees], the annunciator tells that fact to the office.”

The Times reported on the painted ceilings, the many oil paintings and tapestries, and the marble, onyx and hardwood trimmings.  “The general effect is of substantial elegance, and a degree of taste has been displayed which leaves no room for criticism as to over finish.”

The New Netherlands was intended more for permanent residents than transient guests.  Among the first to move in were Thomas W. Strong and his wife Lena B. Graves Strong, according to the 1893 Social Register.  The New-York Daily Tribune noted on Sunday, November 26 that year that “Mrs. N. S. de L. Wyse will give an afternoon tea to-morrow in her apartments in the Hotel New Netherlands.”

Ten days earlier, the hotel had been the scene of a politically and socially-important function.  On Thursday November 16 St. Patrick’s Cathedral was “filled with distinguished people,” according to The Evening World, as Elizabeth Elkins married Edwin E. Bruner.  Not only did Archbishop Corrigan participate, but Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore had traveled to New York to officiate in the ceremony.

The bridal party, including the maid of honor, Grace Davis, who was the daughter of Senator Davis of West Virginia, and the Elkins family took rooms in the New Netherlands Hotel.  The bride’s father was Stephen Benton Elkins, the Secretary of State under President Harrison.

Following the ceremony, “The wedding party were driven directly to the New Netherlands Hotel, where there was a wedding breakfast in the banquet hall, on the parlor floor.  The breakfast was eaten standing.  The guests were 125 in number, and the breakfast was followed by a reception, the whole of the magnificently appointed parlor floor being given up to the reception,” said The Evening World. 

 

The socially-important bride would set up housekeeping in the hotel -- The Evening World, November 16, 1893 (copyright expired) 

The newspaper noted “Mr. and Mrs. Bruner will go on a two-weeks’ wedding journey, and when they return will take up their residence at the New Netherlands.”

Unfortunately for Ferdinand Earle, his extravagant outlays for silver, antiques, artwork and furnishings were more than the hotel could provide in income.   In March, less than a year after the opening, Earle was no longer able to pay the rent and, as The Evening World worded it on April 6, “he was evicted from the palatial New Netherlands Hotel.”

By the end of June William Astor had found a new proprietor in Stafford & Whitaker.  The Evening World announced on June 29, 1894 “A lease for a period of ten years has been signed, and the work of refurnishing and refitting the big hotel will be begun very soon.”  In reporting on the change in managers, the newspaper added, “It is one of the most magnificently appointed houses in the world.”

Stafford told The New York Times “There are a number of changes to be made inside.  The house is fully furnished, and if we can make a satisfactory arrangement with Gen. Earle’s creditors, we will purchase the furnishings, but if we cannot, we will refurnish it from cellar to roof.”  He added “We shall continue to run it as a family hotel, and cater for regular boarders, although we will in no wise refuse transients.”

The magnificent appointments referred to by The Evening World would invite trouble later that year.  The hotel was decorated with costly objects and works of art—a fact that was a bit too tempting for some employees.  In September 1894 the manager noticed “that choice bric-a-brac, rare vases, silver and chinaware were mysteriously disappearing,” reported The New York Times.

The house detective was put on the case, who discovered within 30 days “several thousands of dollars’ worth of goods had been stolen,” and eight employees were under suspicion   Two police detectives were called in to help on the case.  “They found that the method was to throw the valuable booty into the ash carts, and afterward pawn it,” explained The Times on November 27.

Detectives arrested three employees, William Shannon, Allen J. Curry, and John Rooney, as well as Shannon’s wife, Mary.  They were charged with robbing the hotel of $5,000 worth of goods.  “The stolen property included almost every article of household furniture that could be used in furnishing a flat in complete style,” said The Times on November 28.  “Several truckloads of goods were removed [from the homes of the employees] and stored in a vacant room in the New Netherland, where they are practically under control of the Property Clerk of the Police Department.”

Twenty-nine year old Allen Curry was a watchman with a salary of $40 a month.  His participation in the ring enabled him to spend $45 a month on rent.  “When the premises were searched large quantities of the finest provisions that money could buy were found,” said The Times.

The New Netherlands was joined by the Hotel Savoy (right) -- photo by John S. Johnston, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWQC1166&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

As with any hotel, The New Netherlands had its share of customer peculiarities.  Near the top of the list of most unusual was Anna Held, a French-Polish singer.  The chanteuse arrived in New York in 1894 under contract with Florenz Ziegfeld.  It would be Held who suggested to the impresario that he stage an imitation of the lavish Parisian Follies. 

The beautiful singer checked into the New Netherlands in 1894 -- photograph from the collection of the New York Public Library

But for now the woman whom The Times called “the much-advertised French singer” checked into The New Netherlands Hotel.  Among the diva’s demands was 40 gallons of milk every day “for bathing purposes.”  Ziegfeld contracted with the Long Island milk merchant H. R. Wallace to supply to milk at 20 cents a gallon.

“Miss Held had used 320 gallons, when she says she discovered that it was not fresh, and lacked the ‘creamy’ quality essential,” reported The New York Times on October 10, 1896.  Anna Held refused to pay for the milk, so Wallace sued her for the $64.

Victorian courtrooms were no place to air the subject of naked women in tubs of milk.  “Mr. Marks, Miss Held’s personal representative, said yesterday that the matter would be settled out of court, as milk baths were too peculiar to be discussed in public,” reported The Times.

Despite the publicity about milk baths and Anna’s questionable talents (The New York Times said “her abilities are of the most ordinary kind…her voice is not sweet or very strong and she uses it with no remarkable skill”), Ziegfeld was enamored with her.  In the spring of 1897 the couple signed a document in Anna’s suite in the New Netherlands proclaiming themselves married.

Although the “ceremony” had neither clergy nor public official, it was witnessed by “Diamond” Jim Brady and Lillian Russell, and Flo and Anna lived together as husband and wife for nearly sixteen years.

 

By the 1920s The New Netherlands was an anachronism among its modern neighbors.  from the collection of the New York Public Library

As the 20^th century dawned, the hulking Victorian hotels of a generation earlier lost favor.  In 1905 the Plaza Hotel was demolished and in its place Hardenberg’s lavish new Plaza was erected.  The handsome French Renaissance palace stood in stark contrast to the dour brick-and-brownstone New Netherlands across the plaza.

A sketch was released in 1926 depicting the coming replacement for the old hotel -- The Architect, October 1926 (copyright expired)

In 1926 demolition of The New Netherlands began.  It was replaced by the 38-story Sherry-Netherland Hotel designed by Schultze & Weaver with Buchman & Kahn.  Now an apartment hotel, the Sherry-Netherland survives as a familiar landmark for New Yorkers, few of whom are aware of its magnificent namesake that stood here before it.

photo by Beyond My Ken