Elegant New York: The Builders and the Buildings 1885-1915 (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

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Amazon.com Review

Who built New York? Not the neon glitz of Times Square or the glass and steel of Midtown, but the brownstone and marble that characterize the city's most precious buildings? Between the American Industrial Revolution and World War I, millionaires funded the construction of the New York most revered by lovers of architecture and urban planning. Elegant New York, which is as much a social history as an architectural survey, follows the family fortunes of those who contributed to the creation of the world's most famous city. Each chapter is arranged by neighborhood and includes the architectural highlights produced during America's "Age of Elegance."

From Publishers Weekly

Much of New York City's turn-of-the-century architecture consciously imitated European prototypes. The Woolworth Building, a vaulting Gothic tower, was dubbed the "cathedral of commerce." Henry Frick built his mansion, now a museum, in Louis XV style. Yet the "age of elegance" surveyed in this illuminating guidebook also produced original, daring, idiosyncratic buildings. There is the Plaza Hotel, completed in 1907, built on the site of the eight-story brick-and-brownstone hotel of the same name; the patrons of the earlier Plaza were shocked that anyone would raze it. Tauranac, who wrote Essential New York, has teamed with Little, a photographer for Architectural Record, to tell the stories behind 80 buildings, many of them still standing. On this armchair tour you watch Manhattan rise against a backdrop of Tammany Hall corruption, Astor's cornering of Fifth Avenue, Upper West Side speculation and the machinations of Vanderbilts, Carnegies and lesser mortals. Tauranac's social history is captivating and he always has just the right phrase, as when he ponders the Ansonia Hotel, "a great wedding cake of a building." January 20
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Abbeville Press; 1st edition (November 26, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0896594580
• ISBN-13: 978-0896594586
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,289,223 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars time travel..., May 15, 2001

By	...so many books... (mid-Atlantic region of the USA) - See all my reviews

Ever wonder what it might have been like to live amongst New York City's upper-class of society, oh say, about a century ago? Well then, you're in luck, because this book, with its very nice pictures and well-written copy, is capable of providing just such a trip back in time!