When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age.

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Author: Machleder, Elaine

HISTORY

Kaplan, Justin. When the Astors Owned
New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels
in a Gilded Age. Viking. Jun. 2006. c.195p.
photogs. bibliog. index. ISBN 0-670-03769-9.
$24.95. HIST

From humble origins in Waldorf, Germany, where he was born in 1763, John Jacob Astor became the wealthiest man in America. Through a fortune founded mainly on the fur trade and Manhattan real estate, he left heirs who have influenced the social life of New York City almost to this day. Kaplan (Walt Whitman: A Life) eloquently tells a part of the family story in his highly literate book, focusing on two of John Jacob's great-grandsons, cousins William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV, who developed separate--but ultimately conjoined--hotels, the Waldorf (opened in 1893) and the Astoria (opened in 1897). In discussing these men's lives and projects, Kaplan writes charmingly about an era in all its cultural prominence and extravagance. John Jacob Astor IV's life ended as a first-class passenger on the Titanic; William Waldorf Astor became an English aristocrat who hired genealogists to search for a possible noble ancestry. He died in his adopted country after achieving his long-sought British peerage. This book will be a welcome addition to all libraries.

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By Elaine Machleder, Bronx, NY