#244 The Rise of the Fifth Avenue Mansions

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2017

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At the heart of New York’s Gilded Age – the late 19th century era of unprecedented American wealth and excess – were families with the names Vanderbilt, Belmont and Astor, alongside power players like A.T. Stewart, Jay Gould and William ‘Boss’ Tweed. They would all make their homes – and in the case of the Vanderbilts, their great many homes – on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The image of Fifth Avenue as a luxury retail destination today grew from the street’s aristocratic reputation in the 1800s. The rich were inextricably drawn to the avenue as early as the 1830s when rich merchants, anxious to be near the exquisite row houses of Washington Square Park, began turning it into an artery of expensive abodes. In this podcast -- the first of two parts -- Tom and Greg present a world that’s somewhat hard to imagine – free-standing mansions in an exclusive corridor running right through the center of Manhattan. Why was Fifth Avenue fated to become the domain of the so-called ‘Upper Ten’? What were the rituals of daily life along such an unusual avenue? And what did these Beaux Arts palaces say about their ritzy occupants? CO-STARRING: Mark Twain, Madame Restell, George Opdyke and “the Marrying Wilsons” boweryboyshistory.com Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

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0:00.0	Episode 244 of The Bowry Boys, The Rise of the Fifth Avenue Manchains.
0:06.1	Hey, it's The Bowry Boys.
0:07.8	Hey.
0:08.8	Support for The Bowry Boys is provided by our listeners.
0:12.4	Join us for as little as a dollar a month by visiting patreon.com slash Bowry Boys.
0:20.9	Hi there, welcome to The Bowry Boys. This is Greg Young.
0:23.8	And this is Tom Myers.
0:25.1	And today we're taking you on a journey down the Ritzius Street in New York City.
0:31.4	Fifth Avenue, known better today for department stores and boutiques.
0:35.8	And a perfect place to visit because the holidays are rolling around.
0:39.4	Right, it's very seasonally appropriate because when one thinks Fifth Avenue,
0:43.9	one does think of the extravagant show windows of the department stores,
0:50.0	strolling by sacks, Lord and Taylor.
0:52.3	Very tasteful holiday displays.
0:54.4	However, Fifth Avenue is also famous and cherished as an address.
0:59.9	These days for apartment buildings, but for most of the 19th century and very early 20th century,
1:05.7	as the addresses of spectacular homes, mansions and townhouses,
1:10.8	of some of the country's wealthiest families.
1:13.8	It was once called Millionaires Row because so many people of great wealth of new wealth lived along the street.
1:22.2	And houses that are almost impossible to imagine today.
1:26.2	In fact, when Greg and I first saw each other today, he said,
1:28.6	I really need to start thinking of other words for extravagance.
	...

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