The 1919 Ector Orr Munn House -- No. 17 East 90th Street

photo by Alice Lum

After Andrew Carnegie erected his massive Georgian-style mansion on Fifth Avenue and 91^st Street, the neighborhood—considered rather far uptown a few years earlier—quickly drew other millionaires.  In order to choose his neighbors and protect his real estate values, Carnegie bought up surrounding land; selling is to whom he chose with the caveat that no building other than a high-class dwelling could be built within a term of 15 years.

In 1916 the lot at No. 17 East 90^th Street was purchased by Surrogate Robert Fowler, Jr. and his wife Charlotte.  As was customary, the deed was placed in Charlotte Winthrop Fowler’s name.  A year later American Architect and Architecture reported that “At a cost of $60,000 a five-story dwelling will be erected at 17 East Ninetieth Street for Mrs. R. L. Fowler.”  The architect, noted the publication, was F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr.

Even  before the foundation was laid, trouble arose.  Because the rear of the lot faced the Carnegie grounds the Department of Buildings deemed it a “corner lot.”  Architect Hoffman appealed the designation, pointing out that the Fowler plot was over 100 feet from Fifth Avenue.

“The lot, on which it is proposed to erect the building backs up against a portion of the premises on which Andrew Carnegie’s residence stands,” explained The Sun on June 17, 1917.  “The Carnegie plot, which contains two buildings but is mostly uncovered area, is at a corner and runs the full length of Fifth avenue from Ninetieth to Ninety-first street.”

The Department of Buildings reasoned that because most of the Carnegie land was garden, the Fowler plot could rationally be deemed a corner.  Luckily for the Fowlers, the Board of Appeals agreed with them, saying “that a lot extending, as this one does, for so great a distance along the street cannot properly be deemed to be a corner lot.”

As the house was nearing completion early in 1919, millionaire banker George Crawford Clark and his wife traveled to Aiken, South Carolina for the winter.  The Clarks lived at No. 1027 Fifth Avenue and were highly visible in Manhattan society.  George Clark was a member of Clark, Dodge & Co. at No. 51 Wall Street and was a member of the American Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New England Society.  Along with his partnership in the banking firm, he held directorships in a number of companies and was President of the American Society for the Control of Cancer.

Ten days after the Clarks arrived at Aiken, the wealthy banker died suddenly on February 25.

Harriet S. Clark returned to New York and before long sold the Fifth Avenue mansion to Herbert L. Pratt.  Perhaps to everyone’s surprise, the Fowlers did not move into their completed mansion on 90th Street; but on August 7, 1919 sold it to Harriet Clark for $250,000 (about $3 million today).

The widowed socialite moved into a 29-foot wide, six story mansion of limestone and grey-tan brick.  Taking a page from Carnegie’s book, F. Burrall Hoffman, Jr. treated the upper floors with prim neo-Georgian details—most notably the splayed stone lintels. 

photo by Alice Lum

Below the iron balcony railing that stretched the length of the second floor, the rusticated stone first floor turned to Europe for inspiration.  Stone masks—one male and one female—decorated the voussoirs of the two arched openings of a deep entrance loggia.  Handsome double entrance doors were nestled six feet back from the façade.  Hoffman’s unexpected blending of two starkly dissimilar styles created an imposing and dignified design.

photo by Alice Lum

Entering through the double doors, guests found themselves in a double-height foyer with a grand curving staircase.  The gracious interiors included ten antique mantels and elaborately molded plaster and carved woodwork.  On the top floor were five servants’ rooms.

Within the decade the mansion would be home to Ector Orr Munn and his wife, the former Fernanda Wanamaker.  The granddaughter of John Wanamaker and the daughter of Rodman Wanamaker, Fernanda shared with her two siblings in the $32 million trust created by their father’s will.

The double entrance doors were nestled deeply within the loggia -- photo by Alice Lum

Her marriage to Ector Munn was her second; having married Arthuro Heeren in 1909.  The son of Count Heeren of Paris and Biarritz, Heeren was also a banker and a member of the Spanish diplomatic service.  It was this latter position that got Fernanda Wanamaker Heeren Munn in hot water the summer of 1929.

Fernanda had divorced Heeren in 1923 and married the wealthy Ector Orr Munn the following year.  Now, living at No. 17 East 90^th Street, things were going well.  But early in June 1929, as she arrived back in New York on the French liner Paris with her maid, trouble ensued.  Having been married to a diplomat, she was accustomed to barging past Customs officials without the annoying delay of declarations.

In her six trunks was “a quantity of new silk wearing apparel,” as well as a strongbox containing $450,000 of jewelry.  Fernanda Munn had not gotten very far before “there was some difficulty with Customs officials on the pier,” according to The New York Times a few days later.

Inspection of the trunks found newly-purchased apparel valued at $5,200 (a considerable $66,000 today) which the heiress had not bothered to declare.  The nearly half a million dollars in jewelry was proven to be family heirlooms.  Newspapers publicized the untidy affair, which ended in a hearing at the Custom House.  Mrs. Munn sent off a check for the $10,400 in duty and her trunks and jewelry were sent to the 90^th Street house.

The Munn mansion, scene of glittering receptions and dinners, turned to war relief efforts in the years prior to the United States entry into World War II.  In October 1939 The Trianon Committee was formed to send thousands of parcels to French soldiers on the front.  The packages included warm clothing and other items of comfort. 

Fernanda Munn was in Paris as the Duchess of Windsor accepted the title of presidency of the committee.  The New York Times reported on October 17 that “The Trianon Committee will be represented in New York by Mrs. Ector Munn of 17 East Ninetieth Street, who is to sail for the United States this weekend-end.”

Upon reaching home, Fernanda announced that her home “would be used as headquarters for the American project, and gatherings will be held there later, at which friends will be asked to knit sweaters, gloves, socks and passé-montaigne helmets.”

After nearly two decades together in the 90^th Street mansion and their Palm Beach estate, Fernanda and Ector Munn divorced in 1948.  Fernanda stayed on in the 90^th Street house, spending considerable time as well in Paris.  It was there, in the Continental Hotel, that she died at the age of 71 in September 1958.

The house was bequeathed to son Rodman de Heeren and his wife Aimee, whom he had married in 1941.  The couple maintained residences in Palm Beach, Paris and Biarritz, France, as well.  Deemed an “exotic beauty,” Aimee was from Brazil and quickly became “a fixture on the international social scene and a regular on the best-dressed lists,” according to The New York Times.

When she died in 2006 at the age of 103, Josh Barbanel of The New York Times said she “became one more lost link to an earlier age of social grace and high society.

“She was also the last link in a chain of ownership of a 29-foot-wide limestone and brick town house on East 90^th Street that had been in the same high society family since the 1920s,” he said.

The mansion was put on the market at $33 million and was purchased by the exclusive Spence School in September 2008 for $27.5 million.  The elite girls’ school already owned the five-story building directly behind at No. 22 East 91^st Street.  Its plan was to build a 20-foot wide, 30-foot tall glass atrium that would join the two structures—a proposal that ignited a Carnegie Hill feud.

Neighbors complained that the passage would “fundamentally change the character of the rear yard corridor,” and that “our privacy, our life is getting boxed in.”

photo by Alice Lum

Although F. Burrall Hoffman’s glorious interiors were converted to classrooms; his exterior mix of Continental and American styles survives as an imposing and handsome presence on the block.

The Henry C. Frick Mansion -- No. 1 East 70th Street

photo by Alice Lum

Henry C. Frick had an excellent eye for art and a ghastly lack of diplomacy and charisma.  When just 21 years old-- in 1871--he formed a small business with two cousins that converted coal into coke.  The material was then sold to steel manufacturing plants.

By the time of his wedding a decade later, he had bought out the partnership which now had 1,000 employees and controlled 80 percent of Pennsylvania’s coal.  While Frick and his new bride, Adelaide, honeymooned in New York City in 1881, he became acquainted with Andrew Carnegie.  The meeting resulted in a partnership between H. C. Frick & Company and the Carnegie Steel Company—later to become United States Steel.

But Frick’s name would soon become synonymous in the minds of American workers with greed and cold-hearted disregard for the lower class.  He helped organize the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in the 1880s, an elite group of millionaires with a private lodge on Lake Conemaugh high above Johnstown, Pennsylvania.  The equally-private lake was the result of the earthen South Fork Dam which was shoddily repaired with little or no concern for safety or stability.

On May 31, 1889, following heavy snowmelt and rain, the dam gave out releasing 20 million tons of water onto the town of Johnstown.  2,209 people were killed.

A year later, workers struck Carnegie Steel’s Homestead Works.  Ardently anti-union, Frick ordered the construction of a solid fence protected by barbed wire.  When striking workers encircled what they termed “Fort Frick,” the tycoon ordered 300 Pinkerton detectives to descent on them with Winchester rifles.  Nine workers were killed in the melee that followed.

As a direct result, Frick was the victim of an assassination attempt on July 23, 1892.  He survived, but his reputation did not.  He is often remembered as the most hated man in America at the time.

By 1905, despite the personal and professional friction between him and Carnegie, Henry Frick was spending more and more time in New York City.  He signed a ten-year lease on the George W. Vanderbilt house on Fifth Avenue and 51^st Street, then “spent thousands of dollars in alterations, eliminating the garden in front and adding a massive entrance,” according to The New York Times later.   The newspaper estimated his rent at $100,000, “making this Vanderbilt house the most costly private residence under lease in the city.”

At the time, Carrere & Hastings’ masterful white marble New York Public Library was rising ten blocks to the south.  The magnificent building would make obsolete the Lenox Library further uptown at 71^st Street.  As Frick’s lease neared its expiration, the fate of the beautiful Lenox Library was evident—the building would be demolished and the land sold.

The magnificent Lenox Library would be razed in 1912 and on its site Henry Frick would raise his equally-magnificent home.  photograph by H. N. Tiemann & Co. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEFQFQF&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

In 1907 Frick bought the entire block front on Fifth Avenue from 70^th Street to 71^st Street for his permanent New York residence; spending $2 million on the land alone.  But he would have to wait until the library building was gone.  Finally, on May 26, 1912, The New York Times reported, “Henry C. Frick is to build his new Fifth Avenue residence where the old Lenox Library now stands, between Seventieth and Seventy-first Streets, and work on it will be begun in a few weeks.”  Frick had chosen the architects of the new Public Library for his palace.

Although Frick generously offered to pay for the dismantling and reconstruction of the Lenox Library in Central Park, the city ultimately decided against it.  “Housewreckers will begin within the next two or three weeks to tear down the heavy, dignified building given by James Lenox to the city in 1870,” said The New York Times.

Employees at Carrere & Hastings were closed-mouthed about the cost of the proposed Frick house.  “None of the members would even hazard a guess as to what the new house will cost, but it is probably quite safe to say that it will total $3,000,000,” opined the newspaper.  The New York Times also held out no great initial expectations.  “There will be nothing spectacular in its exterior appearance,” it said.

Another Times journalist apparently had more information.  On the same day, a separate article noted, “Plans are being prepared by the architects, Carrere & Hastings, for the new residence, which in all probability will be one of the finest private residences on the avenue.”

Indeed, there were only two larger parcels of private home real estate in the city—those of Andrew Carnegie and Charles M. Schwab.  But Frick's art gallery would be, perhaps, unsurpassed.  The New York Times told its readers, “The picture gallery will be the chief feature.  It will be one of the largest in the city.  Mr. Frick is taking more pride in the arrangement of the gallery than in any other part of his new mansion.  It will contain some of the most valuable and famous paintings in the world, including not only works of enormous intrinsic value, but famous paintings in the art literature of the world.”

Already Frick had assembled a staggering collection including a famous 1644 three-quarter length portrait of Philip IV of Spain by Velazquez.   Frick paid about $400,000 for that painting alone—nearly $9 million today.  At the time of the article, he had just returned from Europe, bringing with him Rembrandt’s The Merchant, and a year earlier had added Romney’s portrait of Lady Milnes, and Gainsborough’s full-length portrait of the Hon. Anne E. Duncombe.

A month later, the estimates of Frick’s city palace had risen to $4 million, and on January 5, 1913, The Times Dispatch of Richmond, Virginia reported on the impending construction and placed the cost a “more than $5 million.”  That figure would be about $83 million in today’s dollars.

Newspapers repeatedly compared the coming mansion with the ex-Senator Clark mansion, at the time the most expensive private home in the city.  Reporters could not resist injecting not-always-subtle insults to that house.  Comparing the plans for the Frick house to the Clark mansion, The Times Dispatch said, “The new Frick residence will not be a gaudy, showy affair.  It will be a long and low structure, simple in details.”

Seen shortly after completion in 1915 from across the avenue, the mansion engulfs the block.  The wing at left is the original art gallery.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEFQ9LZ&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

Indeed, Carrere & Hastings’ plan was not gaudy—although “showy” could be debated.  “With princely disregard for the value of Fifth avenue real estate, Mr. Frick sets the front of his mansion seventy-five feet back from the avenue,” remarked the El Paso Herald on November 16, 1913.  “Men who are wise in New York real estate matters express the opinion that never again will it be possible to secure a whole block of frontage on Fifth avenue for private residence purposes.  Indeed, the new Frick mansion is likely to be the last on Manhattan Island to cover anything like so spacious an area.”

The newspaper called the house “an architectural masterpiece in the Italian Renaissance style, with interior arrangement and decoration in keeping.”

Readers across the nation followed the construction.   The Times Dispatch reported, “The dining room will be at the southwest corner of the building, behind the drawing rooms, and will look out upon a large fountain and sunken gardens.  A wide corridor will connect the library and the drawing rooms.”

An army of workers swarmed over the construction site as the house rose.  photo by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWEFQ9LZ&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The journalist added, “One of the features of the sunken garden, which will be close to Fifth Avenue, shut off from the curious by the stone garden wall, will be a pool, sixty-feet long and fifteen feet wide.  This will be in the centre of the garden and at its south end will be a large fountain.”

As the mansion neared completion, Frick set off on a European furniture buying trip.  The Evening World reported on April 10, 1914, “In selecting the furniture he will have the advice of Miss Elsie de Wolfe.”  The newspaper added, almost parenthetically, a most extraordinary item.   “News has come to Mr. Frick’s friends that he has under consideration a plan to leave this residence at his death to the city as a museum for the public.”

Manhattan millionaires had a tradition of donating their extensive art collections to museums—most notably the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  But Henry C. Frick envisioned his yet-to-be-completed mansion as a permanent monument to his stellar art collection.  It was an unheard of concept.

Within just the past year or two he had added to the collection with a Velazquez, a Franz Hals, and Whistler masterpieces including the portraits of Rosa Corder and Count Robert de Montesquiou from the Richard A. Canfield collection.  Frick paid $200,000 for the two Whistler portraits alone. 

Later The Sun would say, “For years he planned to build a home in New York, and in his trips abroad ransacked Europe for rare old panellings [sic], bits of carved woodwork and ceilings of great beauty until he had spent a fortune on the interior decorations.”

Over a century before Frick began construction on his mansion, famed French artist Frangonard painted a series of architectural panels for Louis XV’s mistress, Madam du Barry.  The panels, begun in 1772, were purchased by J. P. Morgan in 1902 for $400,000 and installed in his London mansion.  

Upon his death, the Fragonards were purchased by the Duveen Brothers for $1.2 million and shipped to New York City where they were put on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.   Henry Frick admired them so much that he had the architects change course, designing a Louis Seize room to accommodate them.  Frick paid about $1.5 million for the 14 panels.

On March 15, 1915, the New-York Tribune somewhat sadly reported, “The public has had its last look at the Fragonard panels which formed part of the vast art collection of the late J. Pierpont Morgan.

“To-day they will be taken from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the galleries in the residence of Henry C. Frick, at Fifth Avenue and Seventieth Street…The centre of interest for the huge throng of visitors that flocked to the museum yesterday was the separate room in the walls of which were set the panels that will hereafter delight the eyes of only Mr. Frick and his guests.”

A room in the house was especially designed to accommodate the Fragonard panels.  photograph http://www.frick.org/visit/virtual_tour/fragonard_room

That year the house was finally completed and The North Dakota newspaper, the Bismark Daily Tribune, joined the host of publications nationwide in describing it.  “A palace such as any oriental potentate would envy is the $4,000,000 home which has just been completed by Henry Clay Frick, the coke man of Pittsburg, who is to make his permanent home here.”

That newspaper, too, poked at Senator Clark.  “Unlike the Clark residence, which was built at an expense of between $6,500,000 and $7,000,000, the new Frick home is not a gaudy, showy affair.”

The house would see the comings and goings of celebrated politicians and business titans.  But perhaps none was more publicized than the visit of Marshal Joffre and other French dignitaries in May 1917 during World War I.  Newspapers reported on the thousands of cheering New Yorkers who waved French and American flags as the motorcade inched from City Hall to the Frick mansion.

Once the guests were in the house, The New York Times reported, “During the evening Fifth Avenue and Seventieth and Seventy-first Streets, about the Frick residence, were crowded with the curious, who hung about in the seeming hope of seeing some of Mr. Frick’s distinguished guests.  Through some of the open windows the sounds of the organ could be heard for a block or more.”

The vast lawn--highly valuable Manhattan real estate used for grass--spoke of Frick's endless wealth --photo by Alice Lum

The newspaper said “Inside the house vista after vista of costliness and splendor met the eyes of the hero of the Marne and helped to make him forget his rude days of campaigning against the Germans.  In the centre is a large living hall, opening upon an inner garden in the rear of the mansion.  On either side of this hall are a fine library and drawing room.  To the southward is the dining room from which the French guests looked out upon the great fountain and the sunken garden.  Adjacent is the grand staircase.”

El Greco's "St. Jerome" hangs above the mantel in the warmly-paneled "living hall" in 1927.  Photograph http://www.frick.org/visit/virtual_tour/living_hall

The Times felt that the dignitaries would have much to admire among “Mr. Frick’s treasures which were spread before the eyes of Marshal Joffre and the other French guests of honor.  In his art gallery, through which his distinguished visitors could stroll from the house proper whenever the spirit moved them, are examples of Rembrandt, Reynolds, Romney, El Greco, Valesquez [sic], Turner, Veronese, Holbein, Gainsborough, Lawrence, van Dyck, Goya, Whistler and other artists.”

The newspaper dropped an editorial comment on the value of the paintings.  “For many of these Mr. Frick paid prices that were a nine days’ wonder when they were announced.”

The New York Times opined that the French visitors would find the sunken garden and decorative pool relaxing -- photo by Alice Lum

With the war’s end, 21,000 soldiers arrived in New York City in March 1919 to receptions and massive celebrations.  A Victory Arch, designed by Thomas Hastings, was erected on Fifth Avenue outside the Public Library.  Among the returning soldiers were the wounded and disabled who were unable to participate in the victory parade.  Special accommodations were arranged for their viewing of the parade.  Five hundred seats were provided in front of the Public Library and the New-York Tribune reported on March 24, “Shell shock patients from the Gun Hill Hospital will be seated between Fifty-ninth and Sixtieth streets, on the camouflaged stand on the west side of the avenue.”

Frick opened his vast Fifth Avenue lawn for the injured soldiers.  “Twenty-one hundred severely wounded men from the Grand Central Palace Hospital will occupy automobile trucks parked at each intersection between Forty-fifth and Fifty-first streets.  Those better able to get about will be accommodated in the covered stand erected by Henry C. Frick in front of his residence on Lenox Hill.”

Nine months later the house would be the scene of a much graver event.  At 5:30 on the afternoon of December 3, 1919, Henry Frick’s funeral was held in the music room.  The millionaire capitalist, deemed ruthless and heartless by some, had lived among the art treasures in his splendid Fifth Avenue palace only four years.

The very day of the funeral The Sun reported, “The announcement yesterday that Mr. Frick’s almost unrivalled art treasures were to pass to the city came as a surprise to all save a few of his intimate friends.”  Of course the donation of the mansion and the artwork would not come to pass while Adelaide Frick still lived.

“The gift to the city is subject to the life interest of Mrs. Frick in both the residence and the works of art,” reported The Sun on December 3.  The house and the art collection were appraised in 1923 at $93 million.

The City of New York would wait for its museum for some time.  Adelaide Frick lived on until October 4, 1931 at the age of 71.  During the last two years of her life she was mostly ill during the seven months a year she lived here.  (She spent the summer months at the country estate in Pride’s Crossing, Massachusetts).  When in residence here, she saw only her immediate family and intimate friends.

Adelaide’s nephew, Karl F. Overholt, spoke to a reporter about the house shortly after her death.  “He said that the Frick residence in this city was more of a museum than a home and that even the few rooms she occupied on the second floor contained articles in the Frick art collection.”

Architect John Russell Pope was commissioned to renovate the house into a functional museum.  Among the $1 million alterations would be a new art reference library erected at 10 and 12 East 71^st Street, and a one-story addition to the mansion proper.  The Times noted, “In keeping with the expressed desire of the trustees to maintain the residential character of the house and to avoid giving it the atmosphere of a museum, the alterations to the Frick mansion will be of a minor nature.”

The Reference Library, to the rear, was sympathetically designed to meld with the mansion -- photo by Alice Lum

Necessary were the addition of a reception room and cloak room, an enclosed court, entrance gallery and a lecture hall.   The museum was opened by invitation on December 11, 1935.  Critics remarked favorably at the residential nature that was preserved in Henry Frick’s home; a highly unusual concept for anything other than a house museum.

Henry Frick’s magnificent Fifth Avenue mansion would be in itself a remarkable and important example of residential architecture.  The tycoon’s vision of retaining his collection within its walls created one of New York City’s and the nation’s most unique and important art collections, doubling the importance of the structure.

photo by Alice Lum

The Thorn in Andrew Carnegie's Side--Carnegie Hall

photo by Alice Lum

Andrew Carnegie willingly parted with millions to build libraries to help underprivileged boys—as he himself had been—become educated.   His enthusiasm for endowing the musical arts, however, fell far short  of his interest in supporting practical education.

Walter Damrosch hoped to change the industrialist’s attitude.  The German-born composer/conductor was assistant conductor of the Metropolitan Opera and conductor of the Oratorio and Symphony Societies.   New York City’s problem, as he saw it, was that there was no suitable venue for opera or orchestral music.

Neither the Academy of Music nor the Metropolitan Opera House could stage opera properly, as could the great houses of Europe.  And the remaining recital halls—Steinway Hall and Chickering Hall—were built as showplaces for piano manufacturers.  For several years Damrosch chipped away at Carnegie in an attempt to convince him to provide the city with a free-standing, state of the art concert hall.

The millionaire needed no convincing that a new hall was needed.  He was quite familiar with all the musical venues.  He simply did not want to pay for a new one.  Damrosch wrote in his diaries that Carnegie felt that the importance of science and literature in life far outweighed that of music.  “He always insisted that the greatest patronage of music should come from a paying public rather than from private endowment,” Damrosch wrote.

Finally Carnegie gave in—but only to a point.  Damrosch remembered “He built Carnegie Hall, but he did not look upon this as philanthropy, and expected to have the hall support itself and give a fair return upon the capital invested.”  In other words, it was a business deal.

Plans were begun in 1889.  On March 15 The New York Times happily reported “New-York City will probably soon rejoice in the possession of a music hall.  For several years musical enthusiasts have been trying hard to bring about the result which they now hope to accomplish.”

The article noted that the New-York Oratorio and Symphony Societies “and some other gentlemen interested in the advancement of music” had purchased “a plot of ground composing about nine city lots on the corner of Seventh-avenue and Fifty-seventh Street, upon which it is proposed to erect a magnificent building, suitable in every way for the purposes to which it is to be devoted.”

Interestingly, the newspaper barely mentioned Carnegie.  “All the necessary funds for the erection of such a structure have been pledged, and the actual designing and building will be begun without delay,” it said.  Only the last sentence named him.  “Mr. Andrew Carnegie…is the moving spirit in this scheme.”

The New York Times article noted that the location was “perhaps rather far up town.”  It was not only uptown, it was in a relatively undeveloped area filled with stables, weed-filled lots and coal yards just south of Dickel’s Riding Academy. 

Carnegie assembled a stock company to operate the hall, loaned it the cash necessary (in return he received 90 percent of the stock), and agreed to give the architectural commission to the Oratorio Society’s board secretary, William Tuthill.  At the time the 34-year old Tuthill was well known for his singing but not for his architectural skills.

By June of that same year the company had acquired additional real estate and The Times reported that a “much larger building that was originally contemplated” would be built.

Tuthill's blocky chunk of music hall as it appeared in 1895 -- photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

By choosing a musician as architect, Carnegie and Damrosch had, wittingly or not, ensured that much of the focus would be on acoustics—a factor often lacking in earlier concert halls.  Tuthill carefully studied famous European halls and his finished auditorium would be praised for its excellent acoustics.

Tuthill gets the credit for the design of the “Music Hall, founded by Andrew Carnegie,”, as it was first known; but he did not work entirely alone.  On July 19, 1889 The Times reported that “William B. Tuthill, Richard M. Hunt, and Adler & Sullivan of Chicago, the architects of the Chicago Auditorium, have prepared the drawings for the building…In architectural style the building is to be Venetian Renaissance.”

The corner stone was laid in May 1890 and the hall was completed a year later.  As it rose The Times reported that the main hall would seat 3,300 and be “of the best acoustic properties.  The parquet alone will seat 1,200, and there will be two tiers of boxes and two balconies.  There will be thirteen exits, and the vestibules, corridors, and staircases will be of the most commodious character.”

Andrew Carnegie wished to ensure that his $2 million outlay would pay a profit.  “The great concert hall can be transferred into a magnificent ballroom, adjacent to which will be a grand banquet hall for the accommodation of 1,200 guests, fitted with a complete kitchen service…In the lateral building, as it will be called, fronting on Fifty-seventh-street, there will be a hall for chamber concerts, lectures, private theatricals, etc., having a seating capacity of 550.”

Carnegie Hall opened with a flourish on May 5, 1891—the first of a five-day festival of orchestral and choral concerts the highlight of which was the American debut of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky who conducted several of his own works.  The same season Ignacy Jan Paderewski was introduced to American audiences here.  It was the beginning of a tradition—Joseph Levinne, Mischa Elman and Ephram Zimbalist would all make their New York debuts here.

The ability of the concert hall to transform into an assembly space was exhibited later that year when the Kunstlerfest, or Artists’ Festival, was held here.  The German-American event culminated in a great ball “as brilliant as wealth and beauty could make it,” said The New York Times.

“It was a veritable indoor Eden that the guests entered when they began to arrive about 9 o’clock,” the newspaper reported on December 4, 1891.  “A false floor had been built over the entire auditorium, making it a great, smooth dancing surface.  To the height of the first tier of boxes sweet-scented pines had been banked and filled the air with a most delightful odor.  Around and under the pines settees were placed.  On either side of the proscenium arch the musicians were placed, screened from the view of the guests by masses of green stuffs.”

The Philharmonic Orchestra took the stage the following year with Anton Seidl as conductor.  But despite large crowds and rented space, the Music Call was not making money.  The solution: enlarge the building.

On September 19, 1892 Morris Reno who “bore with him full authority from Andrew Carnegie to act as his judgment prompted in any matters concerning the enlargement or alteration of the Carnegie Music Hall," announced that changes were coming.

“Our plans include the raising of the building several stories to allow us to fit up a number of artists’ studios, for which there is a demand.  Refitting the stage may also require some alterations of the boxes near the proscenium arch,” he told reporters.

By 1897 the tower and additional studio wings had been completed -- NYPL Collection

By 1897 two additions would provide for offices and income-producing studios, all continuing Tuthill’s original design—what the AIA Guide to New York City would a century later call “dour Renaissance Revival.”

In 1906 the New-York Tribune advertised studios in the Hall -- copyright expired

Carnegie Hall was not simply the venue of classical music.  In March 1905 Bronco Charlie took the stage.  The New-York Tribune noted “he has had an interesting career.  He was formerly a star rider of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.  He won the horse and bicycle race at the Royal Agricultural Hall, London, against the world’s champion cyclist.  King Edward was a spectator of his performance.  Wherever he has gone, ‘Bronco Charlie’s’ feats of horsemanship have called forth wonder and applause.”

E. Presson Miller coaches an aspiring songstress in his studio in 1916 -- photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

The hall was a favorite of lecturers.  In November 1907 Dwight Elmendorf delivered his series of “entertaining and instructive lectures, the subject being ‘Old Mexico,’” reported the New-York Tribune.  And in 1913 the “Kodak Exhibition” was held here, featuring “hundreds of pictorial enlargements” and illustrated lectures by Dr. William Torrence Stuchell with “fascinating motion pictures.”

But the profits Andrew Carnegie hoped for were never realized.   Years later, in 1939, the Works Progress Administration’s New York City Guide noted that Carnegie built the hall “in the belief that a patron of the arts could profit financially.  Continuing operating deficits dispelled his hope of profit.  Despite crowded houses, the hall never paid its way and had to depend upon private subsidization in order to survive.”

Carnegie was further infuriated when, in 1907, Carnegie Hall was assessed by the city at over $1.54 million.  Through his attorney, Robert L. Cutting, he said the assessment was over-estimated by $1.5 million.  In plain terms Carnegie was saying that the structure which paid no return was, in fact, worthless.   Cutting said “the steel man felt keenly the excessive valuation of the Carnegie Music Hall, as that was not a business proposition, and was of far more benefit to the city than to the corporation.”

When Andrew Carnegie died in 1919 the concert hall he never wanted to build had not provided him a dollar profit.  In 1925 it was purchased by a syndicate that made extensive renovations.  Among other alterations, the banquet hall became an art gallery for the tenants of the studios.

The following year Arturo Toscanini came to Carnegie Hall as guest conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra for the 1926 and 1927 seasons.   He stayed on as permanent conductor until his farewell performance on April 29, 1936. 

Throughout the decades the hall continued to host a variety of musical notables.  In 1938 the auditorium was filled with “jitterbugs” who came to hear Benny Goodman’s swing orchestra.   The list of performers is the Who’s Who of music:  Rachmaninoff, Rudolf Serkin, Horowitz, Rubinstein, Heifetz, Pablo Casals, Andrews Segovia, Enrico Caruso, Lily Pons, Marian Anderson, Maria Callas, Paul Robeson, John Sutherland, Josef Jofmann, Leontyne Price…a seemingly endless list.

Children join a group of grown-ups studying the Saturday matinee program in 1944 -- photograph from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Then, in the mid-1950s a group of developers purchased the hall with the intention of demolishing it for an office building.  Although the deal fell through, Lincoln Center was being built further uptown and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra would soon vacate Carnegie Hall.  The building was listed at $3 million; but there were no buyers.  Demolition seemed certain.

Violinist Isaac Stern was determined that the historic building would not be bulldozed.   He rallied public and artistic support to form the Artists’ Committee, the spearhead group of the Committee for Carnegie Hall.  After much negotiation and endless meetings, on April 21, 1960 The New York Times reported that “The Board of Estimate has approved in principle the preservation of Carnegie Hall by having the city acquire it, Mayor Wagner announced yesterday.”

Under the deal approved by Governor Rockefeller, the city would own the concert hall and the Carnegie Hall Corporation would rent it.  Rockefeller said the building was “a fitting monument” to “the great musical artists” who performed there over the years.

photo by Alice Lum

In 1985 a 17-month, $50 million remodeling and restoration was undertaken.  On December 15, 1986 the hall reopened with a gala performance including Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, Isaac Stern, Marilyn Horne, and Vladimir Horowitz among others.

In reporting on the reopening, Donal Henahan of The New York Times said “Rest easy, Andrew Carnegie.  Your great music hall has survived another crisis.”  But despite his name being inextricably connected to the venerable hall, Andrew Carnegie could possibly have cared less.

photo by Alice Lum

The 1902 Yorkville Library -- 222-224 East 79th Street

photo by Alice Lum

In 1902 the Director of the New York Public Library related to the crowd assembled for the dedication of the Yorkville Library a story Andrew Carnegie had told to him years before. Carnegie had reminisced about the problems he experience as a boy trying to obtain books to read.

Billings said that the little boy and future millionaire made a vow “no, perhaps not a vow; it seems unnatural to accuse a Scotchman of a vow—but a promise—that if he ever obtained the means he would establish a public library.”

By the turn of the century Andrew Carnegie not only had the means to establish a library, but scores of them. The philanthropic multimillionaire, who had been born in the attic of a tiny house in Dunfermline, Scotland, gave tens of millions of dollars away; distributing his wealth so other impoverished boys would have an easier time.

On March 12, 1901, Carnegie offered the City of New York a gift of $5.2 million to build free circulating libraries. The condition was that the City would provide the land and maintain the libraries. An agreement was reached and the plans for fifty libraries—thirty of them in Manhattan—began.

Three architectural firms were chosen for the project, among them James Brown Lord who had earlier designed the Free Circulating Library’s Bloomingdale Branch.

Lord was given the commission to design the Yorkville Library at 222-224 East 79th Street. He produced a three-story structure of Indiana limestone over a basement. A fourth story on the roof, invisible from the street, was for the janitor’s use. The 40 by 90 foot building, with equipment, cost Carnegie $70,000.

photo by Alice Lum

The Yorkville Library was the first of the Carnegie buildings to be completed, opening on December 13, 1902. The New York Times commented that “The interior especially is remarkably well ventilated and illumined.”

Lord was somewhat restricted by the Advisory Board of Architects which was appointed by the Board of Trustees, as required by the provisions of Carnegie’s gift. The Board required “conformity with the general type” of architecture it adapted. As a result subsequent libraries would be noticeably similar such as Carrere & Hastings’ building at 190 Amsterdam Avenue, and McKim, Mead & White’s East Broadway library.

Snarling lion keystones surmounted each of the arched street level openings -- photo by Alice Lum

Lord’s design, however, would stand out. He drew on the elegant Palladian style creating a classic, ordered façade. Three large arched openings at the rusticated street level were surmounted by carved stone lion’s heads in the keystones. Above, tall pedimented windows behind stone balustrades are separated by Ionic columns. Rich carved garlands drape from either side of classic stone faces over three smaller windows. Above the prominent cornice a limestone balustrade, reflecting the smaller versions at the second floor, finished the design.

Victorian brownstones still surrounded the library several years after completion -- photo NYPL Collection

Although around 300 people attended the dedication ceremonies, two were noticeably absent. James Brown Lord did not live to see the building’s completion, and Andrew Carnegie “was forbidden by his physician to assist at this partial realization of his big scheme,” according to The Times.

The design, especially at street level, was similar to the elegant mansions of the area -- photo by Alice Lum

The Yorkville Library became an integral part of the neighborhood. The Yorkville Neighborhood Associate, formed “for the betterment of social conditions in the neighborhood,” met here during the World War I years, as did the German Association for Culture.

The German Association installed a permanent exhibition of art in the library’s meeting hall and held temporary exhibitions for years. Other art exhibitions, such as the handicraft work of the Trade School of the Hospital of Hope for the Crippled and Injured in 1914, were routinely promoted.

Elaborate carved garlands spill over the windows beneath the cornice (the artificial owls are not original to Lord's plan!) -- photo by Alice Lum

In May of 1916 the street in front of the library was converted to “a street scene in the outskirts of Stratford Town, in the year 1610” when elementary school children launched a Shakespearean festival. The pupils from Public School No. 53, ranging from kindergarten to eighth grade, put on a play and performed the “traditional dances and Spring merry-making back in the days of the early seventeenth century,” according to newspapers.

It was in the Yorkville Library that Thomas Masaryk conducted his research that eventually led to the formation of the Czech Republic in October 1918.

The library was closed for a few weeks in 1960 for the first time for “major repairs.” Two decades later extensive interior renovations were conducted in 1986 through 1987.

In designating the Yorkville Library a New York City landmark, the Landmarks Preservation Commission called it “one of New York’s most elegant adaptations of the Palladian style to a modern public building and one of the few examples of this phase of Italian Renaissance architecture in New York.” The dignified library is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The 1903 Chatham Square Library Building - 31 East Broadway

photo NYPL Collection

When Andrew Carnegie gave his gift of $5.2 million to the City of New York in 1901 to build public libraries, the Chatham Square library was situated in rented rooms at 22 East Broadway. A year later the city purchased a brick building across the street at 31 East Broadway for $63,000 as the site for the new library.

The new building, designed by McKim, Mead and White, opened in November 1903. The second library completed under Carnegie’s endowment, it was a stately limestone structure three stories high, but designed in two sections giving the impression of a two-story building. Above the cornice was a carved shield with an open book, hung with a garland of leaves,

Upon its completion The Times called it “a beautiful white stone building, which rises in marked contrast to the buildings which surround it. While there are three full stories, it has the air of but two, the front showing three large arched windows, and above is a colonnade of six columns reaching to the cornice.”

At the opening ceremonies, Arthur E. Bostick, Chairman of the Circulating Department of the New York Public Library made specific mention that there was little fiction to be found in this library and that there were twice as many books on science than in any other library in the city.

He elaborated on the reading tastes of the local residents, mostly Italians and Jews, saying that “unlike the people in the wealthier parts of the city, the population here rejects fiction to a large extent and chooses solid information on science and other serious subjects.”



A teacher helps her class on a visit to the Chatham Square Library - photo NYPL Collection

 The children’s reading room was on the first floor where children of the nearby tenements could work on lessons and read away from the cramped conditions of home. Plaster casts of classic sculpture decorated the room, donated by Susan Travers. The second floor housed the adult reading room and the newspaper and magazine room was on the third.

As more and more Chinese immigrants settled in the Chatham Square neighborhood the need for a Chinese-language library became evident. In March 1908, an new organization calling itself the Chinese Literary Club met in a room in the library to discuss the matter. Three years later the Chatham Square Library put 300 Chinese language books into circulation, creating New York’s first Chinese library.

The second floor information desk - NYPL Collection

The rich ethnic mix of library users prompted The Times in 1913 to draw a comparison of the Chatham branch to a more sedate branch. “As soon as you enter the room the salient difference between the Chatham Square district and its neighbor, Seward Park, will strike your ear…There is a strong, vital undercurrent to the voices. The place is filled with excited and spasmodic little movements only half subdued by the librarians.

“All the chatter is in a high treble. There is a vitality and exuberance and, correspondingly, impatience. The children here are from the Italian quarters and from Chinatown. There is no brooding in the faces – only zest and excited curiosity.”

A century later when paper books are quickly being replaced by electronic technology, the Chatham Square Library remains an important and well-used facility. According to the New York Public Library, it “acts as a cultural and civic center for a community of avid readers and is one of the busiest libraries in New York City.” The beautiful and refined structure was designated a New York City landmark in 2001.