Read Online The Interpretation Of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld - Free Book Online
Authors: Jed Rubenfeld
Ads: Link
City. Designed
by Richard Morris Hunt - not only the most famous American architect of the
time but a welcome guest of the Astors - 660 Fifth Avenue became a white
limestone French chateau in the style of the Loire Valley. Its stone entry
foyer was sixty feet long, with a double-height vaulted ceiling, at the end of
which rose a magnificent carved Caen stairwell. Among its thirty-seven rooms
were a soaring dining hall lit by stained-glass windows, an enormous
third-and-fourth-floor gymnasium for her children, and a ballroom capable of
holding eight hundred guests. Throughout the house were Rembrandts,
Gainsboroughs, Reynoldses, Gobelin tapestries, and furniture that once belonged
to Marie Antoinette.
As the mansion neared completion in
1883, Mrs Vanderbilt announced a housewarming party, on which she would
eventually spend some $250,000.The cleverest use of her wealth, by far, lay in
securing in advance the attendance of a few notable but purchasable guests not
beholden to Mrs Astor s rules, including several English ladies, a smattering
of Teutonic barons, a coterie of Italian counts, and one former United States
president. Dropping hints of these advance bookings, as well as of sumptuous
and unheard-of entertainments, Mrs Vanderbilt issued a total of twelve hundred
invitations. Her anticipated ball became the talk of the town.
One especially eager little partygoer
happened to be Carrie Astor, Mrs Astor's favorite daughter, who all summer long
had been preparing with her friends a Star Quadrille for Mrs Vanderbilt's ball.
But of those twelve hundred invitations, not one had gone to Carrie Astor. All
Carrie's friends had been invited - they were already excitedly planning the
gowns they would wear for their quadrille - but not the tearful Carrie herself.
To everyone who would listen, Mrs Vanderbilt expressed sympathy for the poor
girl's plight, but how could she invite Carrie, the hostess asked the
world, when she had never been introduced to the girl's mother?
So it happened that Mrs William
Backhouse Astor took to her carriage one afternoon in the winter season of 1883
and had her footman, clad in blue livery, present her engraved card at 660
Fifth Avenue. This gave Mrs Vanderbilt an unprecedented opportunity to snub the
great Caroline Astor, an opportunity that would have been irresistible to a
less farsighted woman. But Mrs Vanderbilt immediately responded by delivering
to the Astor residence an invitation to her ball, as a result of which Carrie
was able to attend after all, accompanied by her mother - in a diamond bodice that
cost $200,000 - and the rest of Mrs Astor's Four Hundred.
By the turn of the century, New York
society had been transformed from Knickerbocker bastion into a volatile amalgam
of power, money, and celebrity. Anyone worth a hundred million could buy his
way in. Society gentlemen mixed with showgirls. Society ladies left their
husbands. Even Mrs Vanderbilt was Mrs Vanderbilt no longer: she had obtained a
shocking divorce in 1895 in order to become Mrs Oliver H. P. Belmont. Mrs
Astor's own daughter Charlotte, the mother of four children, ran away to
England with another man. Three sons and one grandson of the multimillionaire
Jay Gould took actresses for wives. James Roosevelt Roosevelt married a
prostitute. Even the occasional murderer could be lionized, provided he was of
the right breed. Harry Thaw, heir though he was to a modest
Pittsburgh mining fortune, would
never have achieved celebrity in New York had he not killed the renowned
architect Stanford White on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden in 1906.
Although Thaw shot the seated White full in the face in plain view of a hundred
diners, a jury acquitted him - by reason of insanity - two years later. Some
observers said that no American jury would convict a man for murdering the
scoundrel who had bedded his wife, although, to be fair to White, his liaison
with the young lady in question occurred when
by Richard Morris Hunt - not only the most famous American architect of the
time but a welcome guest of the Astors - 660 Fifth Avenue became a white
limestone French chateau in the style of the Loire Valley. Its stone entry
foyer was sixty feet long, with a double-height vaulted ceiling, at the end of
which rose a magnificent carved Caen stairwell. Among its thirty-seven rooms
were a soaring dining hall lit by stained-glass windows, an enormous
third-and-fourth-floor gymnasium for her children, and a ballroom capable of
holding eight hundred guests. Throughout the house were Rembrandts,
Gainsboroughs, Reynoldses, Gobelin tapestries, and furniture that once belonged
to Marie Antoinette.
As the mansion neared completion in
1883, Mrs Vanderbilt announced a housewarming party, on which she would
eventually spend some $250,000.The cleverest use of her wealth, by far, lay in
securing in advance the attendance of a few notable but purchasable guests not
beholden to Mrs Astor s rules, including several English ladies, a smattering
of Teutonic barons, a coterie of Italian counts, and one former United States
president. Dropping hints of these advance bookings, as well as of sumptuous
and unheard-of entertainments, Mrs Vanderbilt issued a total of twelve hundred
invitations. Her anticipated ball became the talk of the town.
One especially eager little partygoer
happened to be Carrie Astor, Mrs Astor's favorite daughter, who all summer long
had been preparing with her friends a Star Quadrille for Mrs Vanderbilt's ball.
But of those twelve hundred invitations, not one had gone to Carrie Astor. All
Carrie's friends had been invited - they were already excitedly planning the
gowns they would wear for their quadrille - but not the tearful Carrie herself.
To everyone who would listen, Mrs Vanderbilt expressed sympathy for the poor
girl's plight, but how could she invite Carrie, the hostess asked the
world, when she had never been introduced to the girl's mother?
So it happened that Mrs William
Backhouse Astor took to her carriage one afternoon in the winter season of 1883
and had her footman, clad in blue livery, present her engraved card at 660
Fifth Avenue. This gave Mrs Vanderbilt an unprecedented opportunity to snub the
great Caroline Astor, an opportunity that would have been irresistible to a
less farsighted woman. But Mrs Vanderbilt immediately responded by delivering
to the Astor residence an invitation to her ball, as a result of which Carrie
was able to attend after all, accompanied by her mother - in a diamond bodice that
cost $200,000 - and the rest of Mrs Astor's Four Hundred.
By the turn of the century, New York
society had been transformed from Knickerbocker bastion into a volatile amalgam
of power, money, and celebrity. Anyone worth a hundred million could buy his
way in. Society gentlemen mixed with showgirls. Society ladies left their
husbands. Even Mrs Vanderbilt was Mrs Vanderbilt no longer: she had obtained a
shocking divorce in 1895 in order to become Mrs Oliver H. P. Belmont. Mrs
Astor's own daughter Charlotte, the mother of four children, ran away to
England with another man. Three sons and one grandson of the multimillionaire
Jay Gould took actresses for wives. James Roosevelt Roosevelt married a
prostitute. Even the occasional murderer could be lionized, provided he was of
the right breed. Harry Thaw, heir though he was to a modest
Pittsburgh mining fortune, would
never have achieved celebrity in New York had he not killed the renowned
architect Stanford White on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden in 1906.
Although Thaw shot the seated White full in the face in plain view of a hundred
diners, a jury acquitted him - by reason of insanity - two years later. Some
observers said that no American jury would convict a man for murdering the
scoundrel who had bedded his wife, although, to be fair to White, his liaison
with the young lady in question occurred when
Similar Books
