The Peter Cooper Monument - Cooper Square

 

By the middle of the 19th century, Peter Cooper was one of the most successful and wealthiest men in the country.  Yet he suffered a nagging self-consciousness over his lack of education.  To provide the means by which other lower-class children could receive an education, he conceived of a free teaching institution based on the concept of a polytechnic school in Paris.  Education should be, he said "as free as water and air." He set about planning a school for the "boys and girls of this city, who had no better opportunity than I."

The cornerstone for Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art was laid in 1854.  The total cost of purchasing the site and erecting the structure would cost Cooper, according to The New York Times, “$700,000 in gold.”  Cooper included a free library in his building so that the general public, not only the students, could have access to information and learning.  In a letter to his Trustees, he wrote “I desire to make this institution contribute in every way to aid the efforts of youth to acquire useful knowledge, and to find and fill that place in the community, where their capacity and talents can be usefully employed, with the greatest possible advantage to themselves and the community in which they live.”

Almost immediately following Cooper's death in April 1883, talk circulated about a fitting memorial.  But achieving it would be a long and sometimes rocky road.  In 1887 $30,000 had been donated by the public for the work--just under $850,000 in today's money.  The Sun explained, "Little tin boxes were distributed all over the city," for the purpose.  A committee of 12 artists and art critics, headed by millionaire Orlando B. Potter, approved the designs of sculptor Wilson Macdonald and awarded him the contract.

Deciding on an appropriate site was proving difficult.  On May 29, 1887 The New York Times reported that neither the area directly in front or in back of Cooper Union was deemed right.  "The triangle south of Cooper Institute was objectionable because pedestrians seldom passed on that side of either street and the elevated roads obscured the view; the area to the north of the Institute was objectionable for the latter reason."

But a larger problem soon loomed.  The New York Times reported, "dissensions occurred in the committee, and Mr. Macdonald abandoned the project." Cooper's son, Edward, and his widow Sarah, negotiated a price of $10,000 with Macdonald "for the surrender of his contract."  They personally paid him in order to keep the monument fund intact.

Edward Cooper told reporters on May 28, 1887, "One of the sculptors of whom the committee is thinking was a pupil of Cooper Institute and a devoted friend of its founder.  If he shall prove to be the man for the work there seem[s] to be an especial fitness in his selection."  That artist was Augustus Saint-Gaudens.  But he would not receive the commission until 1892.

Two years later, on January 29, 1894, The New York Times commented, "the subject of a statue to the philanthropist has been almost completely forgotten by the public" adding, "Mr. St. Gaudens has spent much study and care upon the statue, however."  In the meantime, discussions continued regarding the site, and by February 1895 "the little green triangle" behind Cooper Union, once deemed "objectionable," was approved.

Finally, 13 years after Cooper's death, the foundry was at work on the statue, and construction of the stone monument had begun.  On November 21, 1896 The Sun reported that the statue "is of heroic size, representing Mr. Cooper seated in an armchair.  Mr. St. Gaudens is of the opinion that it is one of the best things he has done.  The face particularly is very true to life, and members of the family say that it is very good."

The statue would sit in a canopy designed by Stanford White.  The Sun said, "It will be made of Italian marble, and will be in the form of steps rising to a heavy base, upon which the statue will stand."

On May 29, 1897 the monument was unveiled "with simple but impressive ceremonies," according to The New York Times.  They began in the great hall of Cooper Union with memorial addresses by several prominent citizens.  Grandstands had been erected on the triangular plot now deemed Cooper Square.  "The balconies of the great building were filled with ladies, along the elevated railroad tracks was a line of employe[e]s, while on all sides, kept back by a strong police force, was a jammed-up mass of curious humanity," said The New York Times.  The Seventh Regiment marching band paraded from its Armory down Third Avenue to the site.

New-York Tribune, May 30, 1897 (copyright expired)

Four-year-old Candace Hewitt, the great-granddaughter of Peter Cooper, "gave a tug at the rope which was to pull away the covering flags from the monument.  Her little hands were not strong enough to make much of an impression, but there were stronger hands ready to aid her, and the flags were drawn away quickly," wrote the New-York Tribune.  "When the bronze statue of Peter Cooper was revealed to gaze, the spectators cheered loudly and long."

Among those in the crowd that day was playwright and journalist Joseph I. C. Clarke.  In his 1925 autobiography My Life and Memories, he recalled that after the crowd left, "I stood admiring the truth to life of the seated figure under its stone canopy, stalwart democracy in the grasp of the staff, and benevolence, clear-sighted, luminous on face and brow."

Clarke suddenly realized that standing next to him was Augustus Saint-Gaudens, "gazing as wistfully at his statue as I had been."  The sculptor had been essentially ignored throughout the ceremonies, according to Clarke.  Saint-Gaudens commented, "The canopy, you know, is by Stanford White.  You can always rely on him to do something good."

After a pause he continued, "It's a trying moment, that first instant when you feel that now every man who passes is your critic, and you wonder if you have really done your best."

Clarke replied, "Rest, perturbed spirit.  You have docketed Peter Cooper for immortality."

Clarke remembered Saint-Gaudens's reaction. "'Flatterer!' he said, and swung down the street still smiling.  But it was not flattery."

from the collection of the Library of Congress

It was not long before vandals struck the monument of the revered philanthropist.  On June 16, 1899 The Sun reported that the statue "had been defaced, presumably by relic hunters."  The bronze letters that formed the inscription on the face of the monument were tempting and valuable targets.  "Sixteen of the letters have been pried off and parts of other decorations on the statue have also disappeared," said the article.  "It is said that a letter disappears from the statue every few weeks."

On June 24, 1901 a letter to the editor of The New York Times said sarcastically:

It would be a delight to some student of hieroglyphics to take a trip down to the Cooper Institute some day and try to decipher the inscription on the front of the Peter Cooper Statue.  Supposed to represent a dedication of the monument, it looks like anything but that with half of the letters missing.  A stranger coming to New York might wonder why the city spends its money on powder and shell for departing live 'greatnesses' instead of to repair at a slight cost a monument to one of its foremost sons.  But that is another story.

A letter to the editor of The Evening World a month later said in part, "Yet half of the letters of the grimy tablet are broken off or defaced, and to out-of-town visitors it looks as if Cooper were a forgotten has-been, instead of one of America's greatest benefactors.  For sheer shame let us brace up and do his memory the honor of at least cleaning and re-lettering his tablet."

photograph by Jim Henderson

It would not be until 1935, when Cooper Square was reconstructed, that the monument was cleaned and restored.  It was conserved again in 1987 under the Adopt-a-Monument Program.

A commemoration ceremony was held on May 29, 1997 presided over by Parks Commissioner Henry Stern and Cooper Union President John Jay Iselin.  Reminiscent of the 1897 unveiling, the United States Merchant Marine Academy Band played.  Among the speakers was Peter Cooper's great-great-grandson, Edward R. Hewitt.

 photographs by the author

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Saint-Gaudens' 1903 Gen'l Wm. Tecumseh Sherman Statue

Like the statue, the bronze laurel wreaths applied to the red granite base are gold-leafed.  photograph New York City Parks Department

In 1887 the 40-year old sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens completed his powerful bust of General William Tecumseh Sherman.  Although the artist would later complain that Sherman insisted on looking directly at him, making a good profile impossible; the several sittings resulted in a friendship.

Saint-Gaudens’s sitter was a complex character.  Still generally reviled in the South, Sherman was considered a hero in the North for bringing about the surrender of the Confederate armies.   His March to the Sea was considered needlessly heartless by many, and his refusal to embrace “Negro equality” bothered others.  But overall, at least in the North, he was a monumental figure.

Sherman died in New York City on February 14, 1891 and within two weeks plans were underway to honor him with a suitable monument.  On March 3, 1891 The New York Times reported on a meeting in the Chamber of Commerce building.  “President Smith of the Chamber presided, and Cornelius N. Bliss presented a resolution providing for the appointment of a committee of ten, to have full power to secure the erection of an equestrian statue of heroic size.”

Before the adjournment of the meeting the committee had grown to 12; including well-known names like Depew, Schiff, Sloane and Dodge.  The group proposed that the statue should be unveiled on the anniversary of the General’s death—11 months away.  John H. Starin estimated the cost would be about $35,000; however Abram S. Hewitt was more realistic.

“Mr. Hewitt believed that any leading artist would need three years for the work, and that $50,000 would be none too much.”  Before the men left the room they had pledged $5,750 among them, deemed by The Times “a substantial start.”

The Sherman Statue Committee adopted a resolution that any surplus funds would be donated to the Sherman family.  It was a kind hearted thought; but seems to have embarrassed and, perhaps, offended the family.  On March 11, 1891 newspapers published an open letter from P. T. Sherman that said in part, “This letter being in the nature of an appeal to the public in our behalf, we wish to have it understood that my father left us well provided for, and therefore we must beg of you to rescind your resolution of Friday, March 6, that ‘the committee shall announce to the public that any surplus subscription to the statue shall be given to the family of Gen. Sherman.’”

By the time P. T. Sherman wrote his polite letter of refusal the amount pledged to the monument fund had reached $25,235—more than half of the required amount in only a week.  The family did have one request, however.  General Sherman had been highly pleased with the bust executed by Saint-Gaudens.  According to American National Biography Online, “As a result the family specifically requested that Saint-Gaudens be chosen to execute the memorial, as that was the general’s wish.”

Augustus Saint-Gaudens received the commission in 1892.  It would result in a superb piece of artwork and an aggravatingly-long process.   The unveiling that John Starin thought would take place in a year, and Abram Hewitt gave three years would drag on past the turn of the century.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens poses with his work-in-process.  photographer unknown, from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW62VYO4&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

Saint-Gaudens had grander visions than an ordinary equestrian statue to a war hero.   Starting his work in Paris, he seemed never to be satisfied.  He worked, then reworked, then refined, then changed, then reworked his model.  Finally a plaster casting was completed.  It included an allegorical figure of the Angel of Victory.  By creating a grouping rather than a solitary statue Saint-Gaudens related a story rather than simply depicting another horse-riding hero.

In 1900, nine years after the project began, the plaster casting was exhibited at the Paris Exhibition, winning the Medal of Honor, its highest honor.  But still the artist was not content.  As art critic Helen Henderson related in her 1917 A Loiterer in New York, “Though he had exhibited it, Saint Gaudens did not consider it finished and revised it critically and changed it before it was shown again, for the first time in this country, at the Pan-American Exposition, of Buffalo.”

 

Saint-Gaudens (third from left) poses with his assistants before the completed plaster casting -- photograph reproduced by Life magazine March 15, 1948.

Now cast in bronze, the grouping received critical acclaim--not enough acclaim, however, to satisfy the artist.  He continued to obsess over details, changing and refining even as the Statue Committee and the city prepared for its placement.  The Outlook remarked “he designed, studied, modeled, altered, remodeled, and altered yet again, until it seemed to those who were waiting for the work to be finished that the sculptor would never be content.”

On March 18, 1902 the New-York Tribune reported that the site had been chosen.  “The statue will be put at the southeast entrance to Central Park, in the circle north of Fifty-ninth-st.  The exact spot is that occupied by the tulip bed.”

Park Commissioner Wilcox told reporters “It’s the very best site in all the city and right at the beginning of the park system, just as the Grant monument is at the other end.  There was a good deal of opposition to placing the statue away up on [Riverside Drive].”

The commissioner answered a question “as to whether there was likely to be any further delay.”  He suggested that the statue would be in place in May.”  The commissioner was being optimistic.

In announcing the chosen site, the newspaper mentioned that “The pedestal will be furnished by McKim, Mead & White.”  Like the public and the committee, Charles McKim, who was a friend of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, would suffer frustration.

Glenn Brown, writing in the Architectural Record, would later recall having lunch with McKim at the Cosmos Club.  “He opened the conversation by saying, ‘I am thankful Saint Gaudens and I have settled on the design of the base for the Sherman Statue.  My first idea was a high base something on the order of Colleoni, while Saint Gaudens wanted the figure only a few feet from the ground.  We have compromised, making it higher than he first wanted it and lower than my first idea.  I have made about fifteen hundred studies for this base and I am thankful that it has been settled.”

Brown said that the two had been at the table only about 30 minutes when McKim received a telegram.  “A curious expression crept over his face as he read the telegram to me: ‘Charles, that base is all wrong, Gus.’”

Nearly to the last minute Saint-Gaudens fretted over the details of his monument.  According to Glenn Brown, he joined the sculptor and Charles McKim “just before the Sherman Statue was unveiled,” spending three hours while the architect and artist “were discussing pro and con the minor details of the tone for bronze in the ornaments on the base to make it harmonize with the gilded statue and red granite base, and the question of leaving the sculptured earth on which the figures stood, as it was cut of red granite, or gilding it to go with the statue.”

Finally, as Memorial Day 1903 approached, plans for the unveiling were begun.   But even this caused controversy.  An expansive wooden grandstand was to be erected for dignitaries and others attending the unveiling.  In order to make room for the stands, two trees had to be removed.  Reaction from some was swift and harsh. 

An editorial in The New York Times on May 30, 1903 complained “Yesterday morning those who chanced to be in the neighborhood of the Plaza at the southeast corner of Central Park might have witnessed a very sad sight.   Because they were in the way of the hideous pine grand stand in front of the Sherman Statue, and lest they might detract from the assertiveness of that piece of sculpture, the Municipal Art Commission ordered two beautiful and vigorous young elms cut down, and cut down there were.”

A reader wrote a letter to The Times editor that opened “I hope to heaven that there will never be another memento or statue erected in New York if it involves the destruction of trees…It is a crying disgrace that such things can be.”

The grandstands for the unveiling wrapped around three sides of the monument.  In the background is the old Plaza Hotel.  photograph The Mail and Express Illustrated Saturday Magazine, June 6, 1903 (copyright expired)

The unveiling ceremony was appropriately lavish.  A parade of troops filed up Fifth Avenue from Washington Square to the plaza where a band greeted them with “The Star Spangled Banner.”  Among the dignitaries present were Governor Odell, Secretary of War Elihu Root, Archbishop Farley, and Mayor Seth Low.

The New-York Tribune reported “Just before the head of the column arrived at the statue the monument was unveiled, the flags which formed the drapery being removed by Master William T. Sherman Thackara, a grandson of the general.”

Kenyon Cox summed up the completed work succinctly:  “Saint Gaudens is one of those artists for whom it is worth while to wait.”

Indeed, the never-contented Saint-Gaudens had produced a distinctive and powerful sculptural group.  He gave Sherman an aura of nobility astride his steed, his cape lightly blowing behind him.  Just ahead of him strode Victory with an outstretched arm.  In her other hand she carried a palm frond.  The entire statue was brilliantly gilded. 

Henry James praised the statue despite the "vulgarity of its environment."  photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW62VYO4&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=894

Perhaps only one among the crowd of applauding onlookers was unmoved.  A Southerner took in the statue and then sniffed, “Just like a Yankee, letting the lady walk.”

As with all public artwork, the draping had barely touched the ground before the critics made themselves known.   Outlook said it was “to be ranked among the half-dozen great equestrian statues of the world.”   The New York Times opined “Approached from any direction the monument catches the eye and stamps itself as a work of art out of the common” and agreed with Cox, saying “The delay in the erection of the statue caused by these later years of study has been vindicated.”

Helen Henderson judged it in 1917 saying that “In the Sherman equestrian group…St. Gaudens reached the high-water mark of his genius” and Henry James called it “splendid in its golden elegance.”

What Henderson appreciated in the art, she deprecated in its original setting, saying it stood “on the outskirts of the rather paradoxical, conglomerate apology for a square.”   But by the time she wrote the words, the “apology for a square” was a non-issue.

The will of millionaire publisher Joseph Pulitzer, who died in 1911, provided $50,000 for the erection of a fountain, a gift to the city “in a suitable place in Central Park, preferably near the Plaza entrance, the fountain to be as far as practicable like those in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.”  In 1913 plans were underway for the fountain and a remodeled square.

The firm of Carrere & Hastings was given the task of creating a European-style plaza that would encompass the Pulitzer Fountain to the south and the General Sherman Statue to the north.  To accomplish the formal alignment, the Sherman Statue was moved 16 feet to the west.  The completed plaza included stone balustrades, garden plots and “Oriental plane trees.”

 

Two vintage postcards show the statue in the Carrere & Hastings plaza.  The Cornelius Vanderbilt Mansion is beyond the Pulitzer Fountain in the lower image.

A year after General Sherman was moved, it was time to move him again.   The proposed extension of the Broadway-Seventh Avenue subway line, which curved eastward toward the Queensboro Bridge, ran directly under the monument and Carrere & Hastings’s magnificent new plaza.  On June 28, 1914 The Sun reported “Saint Gaudens’s statue of Gen. Sherman at the Fifth avenue plaza entrance to Central Park probably will be missing from that spot for more than two years while the crosstown section of the Broadway-Seventh avenue subway is being constructed.”

“Probably” became “actually” and a year later large construction sheds sat on the site of the Sherman statue.   Although the contractor was given 29 months to finish the work, it would be years before the statue was reinstalled—the delays possibly caused by World War I.  When it did return, the beautiful plaza was wrecked and the statue was in less-than-pristine shape.

A letter to the editor of The New York Times from E. Andrews Lloyd on July 1, 1920 complained “All during the war this statue was hidden, and now that the temporary buildings around it have been removed it is still left with a broken down iron rail fence and the plot strewn with old cinders.

“This really magnificent statue is so grimed with smoke and dirt as to be almost recognizable, and its prominent location at the gateway of Central Park on Fifth Avenue makes it all the more conspicuous as a disgraceful exhibition of New York’s administration neglect.”

Within a year of Lloyd’s letter the area around the statue was re-landscaped, and then in 1923 the National Bulb Grower’s Association donated 40,000 flower bulbs for the Plaza Park.   It would be another 43 years, however, before the statue itself was given attention. 

In 1966 the figures and base were restored; and in 1989 the statue was regilded.   The latter process enraged art lovers and Central Park Conservancy members when the gilding was so flashy it prompted the publisher of Lear’s magazine to call it a “horror.”  When the glitzy brightness had not dimmed by 1996, a lightly-colored layer of wax was applied to soften it.  But by the 21st century pigeon droppings and weathering had seriously eroded the gold leaf. 

The statues were in deplorable shape before the 2011 restoration.  photo twccenter.net

In 2011 a restoration of the monument and the plaza was initiated.    The multi-year project included new pavement, benches, lighting and replacement of trees.   Art lovers held their breaths as the scaffolding came down from around the regilded Sherman Statue.

But the Central Park Conservancy had learned its lesson.   The Gilders’ Studio of Olney, Maryland used 23.75-karat gold leaf tinted with burnt umber and lampblack.  Repeated testing brought the tone as close as possible to that which Augustus Saint-Gaudens originally applied.  The entire project, completed in 2013, cost $2 million.

 

photo www.centralparknyc.org

Today General Sherman has regained his 1903 nobility and, just like a Yankee, still makes the lady walk

Not to be Outdone -- The Cornelius Vanderbilt Chateau - Fifth Avenue and 57th Street

The original 57th Street mansion.  The side windows shown here looked onto Fifth Avenue.-- photo from the collection of the New York Public Library

When the founder of the Vanderbilt dynasty, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt, died in 1877 he left his grandson and namesake, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, a $5 million inheritance. The following year Vanderbilt purchased and demolished three brownstone houses on the south west corner of 57th Street and Fifth Avenue in preparation for his new mansion.

Vanderbilt commissioned George Browne Post to design his grand home. In a vast departure from the brownstone tradition of Fifth Avenue, Post created a red brick and limestone chateau brimming over with turrets and dormers, deeply arched windows and highly ornate chimneys.

The interiors were decorated by a team of artisans, among them the most esteemed names of the time: John LaFarge, Augustus Saint-Gaudens and his brother Julius, Frederick Kaldenberg, Philip Martiny, Rene de Quelin and Frederick W. MacMonnies.  Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt was acutely aware that the old New York society families with names like Schuyler and Van Rensselaer considered her family nouveau riche, and therefore wanted a Vanderbilt coat of arms to be emblazoned in the entry hall for all to see.  After months of research and finding no hereditary coat of arms, she simply made one up -- and a crest to go with it.

The entrance hall mantelpiece survives in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

Both were included in Saint-Gaudens magnificent 11-by-15 foot entry hall mantelpiece which incorporated two ruddy-colored marble caryatids representing Pax and Amor supporting the mantel. The mosaic over mantle depicted a classical maiden with the inscription in Latin composed by Vanderbilt himself: 

The house at its threshold gives evidence of the master’s good will. Welcome to the guest who arrives. Farewell and helpfulness to him who departs.

For the 45-foot dining room Saint-Gaudens also sculpted wooden relief portraits including, according to the artist “…the young Cornelius and George Vanderbilt, Gertrude Vanderbilt, now Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, William H. Vanderbilt, and Cornelius Vanderbilt, the first of the family.” Here the lower walls were paneled in oak, the upper portions covered in embossed, brown leather. A coffered ceiling hung overhead which Saint-Gaudens termed “superb.” It consisted of twenty panels, six of which were opalescent and “jewel” glass skylights by John LaFarge. The beams were inlaid with mother of pearl in a Greek key pattern. Green marble reliefs of Hospitalitas and Amicitia flanked the doorway, their faces, clothing and other details executed in ivory, iridescent metals and mother of pearl.

Eight years later, upon the death of his father. William Henry, Vanderbilt inherited another $67 million, adding to the fortune he continued to amass as chairman of the family railroad empire. By the beginning of the 1890's, other millionaires were building palaces along Fifth Avenue which rivaled the Vanderbilt chateau.  Vanderbilt decided to enlarge.

Looking west on 57th Street, the Vanderbilt mansion sits to the right -- NYPL Collection

He purchased and destroyed five “costly” brownstone houses abutting his property to the north, facing 58th Street. Once again he called on George Post, along with mansion designer Richard Morris Hunt as consultant. Ground was broken on March 1, 1892 and all of New York watched in anticipation as the work proceeded. Because Vanderbilt wanted his home finished as quickly as possible–giving the builder, David H. King, Jr., 18 months to complete it–600 workmen were employed, sometimes working around the clock “under powerful electric lights.” Thousands of people watched the construction for a year and a half with what The New York Times called “pardonable curiosity and instinctive local pride.”

On November 26, 1893, The New York Times excitedly reported on the near-completion of the mansion. Calling it “the finest private residence in America,” the newspaper reported “It is a structure that would command admiration in any land of palaces and castles grand, for in its design, its noble proportions, and its artistic finish it is, in reality, a palace.”

And a palace it was.

The carriage entrance at the corner of 58th Street led to the formal entranceway -- photo NYPL Collection

With 130 rooms, four stories and an imposing corner tower, it was modeled loosely after the Chateau de Blois in France. The joining of the new addition to the original mansion was flawless and imperceptible. While the main family entrance remained at 1 West 57th Street, the grand port cochere entrance on 58th Street was used for social functions. Through the great iron carriage gates and around the circular drive would pass the carriages of New York’s most elite. According to Valentine’s Manual of Old New York "Visitors lucky enough to be on this spot during a social function will never forget the procession of smart equipages, drawn by blooded horses, and manned by liveried footmen and grooms, discharging passengers, each of them a society member of high standing."

The interiors were meant to impress.  The paneling and decorations of LaFarge’s original dining room were incorporated into the billiards room upstairs in the new section. The main 40-by-50 foot entrance hall on the 57th Street side was faced in Caen stone “after the French style followed in the interior of the Chateau de Blois” (Saint-Gaudens’ magnificent mantelpiece had been moved upstairs to the new family sitting room). The library faced Fifth Avenue along with two salons, one decorated in the Louis XV style, the other in Louis XVI.  On the 58th Street side was a Moorish smoking room designed by Lockwood de Forest–the walls encrusted with tiles and mosaics, the floors piled with Persian rugs.  Vanderbilt’s office and a breakfast room were also on the ground floor.

The sumptuous 65-by-50 foot ballroom also faced 58th Street. It took artist Edouard Toudouze nearly a year to complete the ceiling painting in his Paris studio.  According to a French critic, “Cupids frisk about, darting their love shots about rather carelessly” and “it is just the right thing for a ballroom.”

Rather than build a “picture gallery,” as was the trend in millionaire’s homes, Vanderbilt lined the walls of his new dining room with his paintings.  Here hung two Turners, Constable’s A Castle on the River Wye, two portraits by Sir Peter Lely, as well as works by Corot, Millais, Rousseau, Greuze and Ruysdael.

The price tag in 1893 to enlarge his house was around $3 million dollars.

The family would most often enter here, on 57th Street.  The large conservatory is seen to the left.  -- photo Cornell University

The Times article noted that Mr. Vanderbilt “has no fads or hobbies. He is a man of strong domestic tastes and finds his chief enjoyment in the family circle.” Alice Vanderbilt, according to the journalist, “is an ideal wife and mother, refined and dignified, inclined to domesticity…”

Here the couple lived happily until the morning of September 12, 1899, when Vanderbilt unexpectedly died. That morning, according to The New York Times, “A few minutes before 6 o’clock…he awoke and, arousing his wife, said to her: ‘I think that I am dying.’” Within five minutes, Cornelius Vanderbilt II was dead of a brain hemorrhage.

Alice Vanderbilt, according to The New York Times, “was prostrated” with grief and required a doctor’s care.  She never entertained again in her grand ballroom.  The windows were shuttered and the grand iron carriage gates were seldom opened, then only for funerals or close family events.

Over time commercial buildings began crushing in on Alice’s mansion and in 1926 she sold it to Braisted Realty Corporation for around $7 million.  A week before the wrecking ball was scheduled to demolish the 40-year old home, Mrs. Vanderbilt arranged to have it opened to the public for fifty cents admission which would be donated to charity.  Guests signed the Vanderbilt guest book and ogled the stained glass dome over the grand staircase and the French salons.  A week later it was no more.

Little survives of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s full-block chateau.  The Saint-Gaudens mantle is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the grand carriage gates are installed at one entrance to Central Park, and some of LaFarge’s stained glass and other pieces were salvaged.  But the great bulk of the Vanderbilt mansion was demolished along with an irreplaceable page of New York City history.