The New York Historical Society Podcast for the Ages explores the rich and complex history of the United States with host David M. Rubenstein, engaging the nation's foremost historians and creative thinkers and topics, including presidential biography, the nation's founding, and the people who have shaped America.

Alan Shaw Taylor, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of American Republics, a continental history of the United States, joins David in a two-part conversation on the early decades of the American Republic.

And in the episode, Virginia Dynasty, four presidents and the creation of the American nation, author Lynn Cheney examines the friendships and rivalries within the so-called Virginia Dynasty, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.

That's for the ages available on Apple and Spotify.

Now, I don't know if you've heard, but New York City is an expensive place to live these days.

So we thought it might be time to revisit the story of the city's most famous district of wealth and luxury.

Fifth Avenue, but for about a hundred years, this avenue was mostly residential, but residences of the most extravagant kind.

The following episode is a re-edited, remastered version of two past Barry Boy's shows, The Rise and the Fall of the Fifth Avenue Mansions.

But combined, they happened to tell the whole story of Fifth Avenue from the initial development of streets in the 1820s to the transformation of Midtown Fifth Avenue into a mecca of high-end shopping in the 1930s.

This show could also serve as a primer to the HBO series The Gilded Age, the official podcast of which is co-hosted by my regular co-host, Tom Myers.

And if you'd like to see some of these surviving houses for yourself, check out one of the very popular Gilded Age mansion tours presented by Barry Boy's Walks.

Go to BarryBoysWalks.com for more information.

Now, enjoy the show.

Hi there, welcome to the Barry Boy's. This is Greg Young.

And this is Tom Myers.

And today, we're taking you on a journey down the Ritzius Street in New York City, Fifth Avenue, known better today for department stores and boutiques, and a perfect place to visit because the holidays are rolling around.

Right, it's very seasonally appropriate because when one thinks Fifth Avenue, one does think of the extravagant show windows of the department stores, strolling by sacks, Lord and Taylor.

However, Fifth Avenue is also famous and cherished as an address these days for apartment buildings, but for most of the 19th century and very early 20th century as the addresses of spectacular homes, mansions and townhouses of some of the country's wealthiest families.

It was once called Millionaires Row because so many people of great wealth of new wealth lived along the street.

And houses that are almost impossible to imagine today.

So today and in this episode, we'll be tackling the story of how Fifth Avenue developed physically, how was it built, but also how and where were these mansions constructed.

It's interesting because this is a story that moves geographically and chronologically at the same time.

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