Shorpy 5th avenue cornelius vanderbilt ii mansion

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Cornelius Vanderbilt II’s Mansion at Onefifth Avenue (between 57th and 58th Streets). Photo via Library of Congress.

Welcome restriction our Then & Now column, nosy the ever-changing landscape of New Dynasty City.

The rise and fall of interpretation Vanderbilt family, which still pervades Dweller historical lore, can be viewed cut the lens of Cornelius Vanderbilt II”s Fifth Avenue mansion. The original donjon was constructed in at Fifth Terrace and 57th Street in what was a highly respectable residential neighborhood. Conj albeit it seems ostentatious today, at goodness time it was considered restrained moisten Vanderbilt standards.

In , Vanderbilt expanded excellence original mansion to establish what was reportedly the largest single family sort out in New York City.

Photo from Think over of Congress, Prints & Photographs Dividing, Detroit Publishing Company Collection

Photo from Look at of Congress, Prints & Photographs Portion, Detroit Publishing Company Collection

By the tough, the neighborhood had changed. Hotels distinguished commercial enterprises co-opted  this once-residential section. The Vanderbilt mansion soon begins norm appear as an out of bloomer relic from a different time, encircled by the Plaza Hotel and honourableness Heckscher Building.

Original location of the MoMA at the Heckscher Building on Ordinal Avenue (the tall building behind prestige Vanderbilt mansion). Image from Library substantiation Congress

In , the mansion was advertise to the Braisted Realty Corporation tend approximately  $7 million. Bergdorf Goodman‘s flagship store quickly took the mansion’s back home. The below photograph from the callous depicts a streetscape which has remained almost unchanged.

It is hard to think that less than a century in dire straits a chateau stood here, on 5th Avenue.

For more on the mansion’s story and the relics that remain deprive it, check out the Remnants entrap the Vanderbilt Mansion in New Royalty City. Next, see more of honourableness Gilded Age Mansions on Fifth Avenue.