Suzanne Hinman - The Grandest Madison Square Garden: Art, Scandal, and Architecture in Gilded Age New York

Table of Contents

The generous assistance of the following is gratefully acknowledged:

Copyright 2019 by Suzanne Hinman

Syracuse, New York 13244-5290

All Rights Reserved

First Edition 2019

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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press, visit www.press.syr.edu.

ISBN: 978-0-8156-1110-3 (hardcover) 978-0-8156-5485-8 (e-book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Control Number: 2019004384

Manufactured in the United States of America

In memory of those we lost that spring

Jean, Joe, and Kitty

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

WHEN RESEARCHING and writing over the course of twelve years, it is inevitable that names scribbled on scraps of paper or lost emails will vanish with time; staff at libraries, museums, and research institutions will change; and countless acts of kindness will go unremembered. It is my hope that those I have failed to acknowledge will forgive the oversight and will attribute it more to poor memory and the toll of time rather than a willful ignoring or ingratitude.

Among those who must be thanked are the many colleagues who generously shared their knowledge, including Curator Henry Duffy and retired Chief of Interpretation & Visitor Service Gregory Schwarz at the Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park, who first introduced me in 2007 to the wealth of nineteenth-century newspaper resources online; Thayer Tolles, Marica F. Vilcek Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; John A. Ochsendorf, Professor of Architecture and Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT and Director of the American Academy in Rome; Frederick MacMonnies biographer Mary Smart; Curator Michael OConnor at the Enfield Shaker Museum for his steadfast early support; Elizabeth Wyckoff, Assistant Director for Curatorial and Education at the Davis Museum, Wellesley College; Kenneth Rower and the late sculptor Lawrence Doobie Nowlan Jr. for their technical expertise; Stanford White researcher Ron Rice; and Doug Richards for his supply of wonderful vintage postcards.

Also of primary importance and deserving of much gratitude are the dedicated staffs at a variety of additional research institutions, including Peter Carini, Dartmouth College Archivist; Morgan Swan and the staffs of Rauner Special Collections Library and Baker Library, Dartmouth College; Janet Parks, Curator of Drawings and Archives at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University; Susan K. Anderson, the Martha Hamilton Morris Archivist at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; New York Public Library; Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society; Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives; Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division; the New York Life Insurance Archives; and the Penrose Library, University of Denver.

My dauntless literary agent, Charlotte Raymond, deserves everlasting thanks for her continuing faith and support, while eagle-eyed editor Elizabeth B. Myers made the book so much better. At Syracuse University Press, the angelic acquisitions editor Alison Maura Shay, assistant editor Kelly Balenske, design specialist Lynn Wilcox, and marketing analyst Mona Hamlin have earned my gratitude for their knowledge, enthusiasm, and endless patience.

And never to be overlooked, sincerest thanks go to Barney Levitt and Tom Wilhelm, for their much valued advice and consent; son-in-law Michael Maher for technical assistance; Ben Chentnik, visual wizard and Creative Director of Lucid Prints; Eric J. Nordstrom of Building 51 / Urban Remains Chicago; Janet Stewart at Newsbank and Meghan Brown at Art Resource; Mark Coen, President of Page Belting Co. in Boscawen, New Hampshire, for information on Saint-Gaudenss Columbian medal; Jim from Carbonite who found my missing files and photos when my computer was mysteriously wiped clean; Char because I said I would; and the kind and caring staff at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, who pulled me through two rounds of cancer during the course of the book and patiently let me blather on when I needed to.

And finally, but certainly not last, the home team, for their love and support, including dear sister Judith, brother Robert, and Jake and Laurel, Jessie and Mike, Claire and Seth, Ali and Nick, and all their bambini. And of course, my beloved husband Jeffrey, who made notes on every chapter, always had just the right idea, ever knew the right person to contact at Dartmouth, and endured twelve years of this.

Prologue

November 2, 1891

NEW YORK CITY, the diamond stickpin on the shirtfront of America. Thousands were beginning to fill Madison Square and the streets surrounding it, standing out in the crisp evening air on Fifth Avenue, on Broadway, and on Madison, crowding in front of Manhattans finest hotels, celebrated restaurants, and exclusive shops, fingers pointing, mouths agape. Male and female, young and old, greenhorns off the boat and old Fifth Avenoodleson that night New Yorkers of all sorts had come from all over the city and from the now-nearby suburbs as well, brought in by ferry and bridge, railroad, horse car, cable car, and elevated railway.

At seven oclock a sharp flood of light illuminated the graceful arcade of roofed arches on Madison Avenue that had been built in the Italian Renaissance style. It was a new sort of walkway, the first in the cityone meant to welcome and to shelter. It was constructed, finally, after a year of wrangling with the city fathers, who feared such a place would surely become a haven for loose women and thieves.

1. Madison Square, New York, J. S. Johnston, 1893. The New York Public Library / Art Resource, NY.

2. Madison Square Garden, The Arts (Dec. 1928). Wikimedia Commons.

Nobly planned and admirably constructed, it was simply the largest building in the world devoted solely to extravagance, elegance, sawdust, and splendor, all whipped up and tossed together in the heart of Americas Gilded Age and its golden city. Nowhere were the fruits of American expansion and industrialization more gleefully gathered or more lavishly celebrated than here in Manhattan. And how welcome was this nights celebration, a momentary break from the nearly crushing issues and worries of the day: a flood of immigration, labor union demands, domestic terrorism, political corruption, the overt display of wealth, recession, and a coming war half a world away.