About book When The Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods & Grand Hotels In A Gilded Age (2006)
Much to my family's annoyance, I read this on vacation and intermittently shared what I was learning about the Astors. (They politely nodded and resumed applications of sunscreen.) Author Justin Kaplan manages here to provide just enough entertaining details to make the book an engaging read straight through to the end. The Astors created a paradigm shift in innkeeping, leading to today's entire spectrum of hotels---from the Super 8/Motel 6/Red Roof/La Quinta/No Assembly Required genre along the interstate to the mints-on-the pillow five star deals. Kaplan's book traces the rise and fall and really clever ideas of this family who found a way to make a bunch of money by helping people pretend (even for just one night) that they already have a bunch of money. Great Great Grandpa Astor came to the US and realized that although inns were plentiful, they were awkward--no privacy, no choice of meals, and women and men were isolated from each other. Further, the US's quickly growing "new money" class had nowhere to showcase their recently acquired status. Astor's dream was to create a conspicuous palace of elegance and luxury, making it available, one night at a time, to anyone willing to pay for it. The realization of that dream involved developing so much of hotel-staying that we take for granted--private hotel rooms, restaurants with menus (instead of one-dish-fits-all), nicely-appointed lounges in hotel lobbies, bell hops/doormen in Marching Band-looking uniforms, even chafing-dishes and the humble velvet rope. It's all there--and it includes a little good gossip, too, about the socialite wives and mistresses, the untimely death of John Jacob Astor on the Titanic, the lavish Manhattan parties, and of-course the personal eccentricities that tend to accompany great wealth. On a personal note, my own great great grandparents (should those "G's" be capitalized?)ran a little hotel along the Mississippi River in northern Missouri. My Grandma has told me stories of happy times spent visiting her Grandparents there, and entertaining herself while her Grandparents did the hard work of innkeeping. While my Great Great Grandfather did the check-ins, kept the books, made repairs, etc, my Great Great Grandmother hand-washed all the linens everyday in a big iron kettle in the yard, plus cooked the evening meal for all the guests to be served in a large dining room. In the evenings, the men would sit in the parlor and smoke, and the women basically were expected to keep to themselves in their rooms. (Grandma said that women didn't travel as frequently as men did though, and rarely stayed in hotels on their trips.) In the morning, a light breakfast of rolls, coffee and tea was served before checkout. Then most of the guests got on a riverboat and headed up or downstream to wherever.Thank God for the Astors and their vision of a better vacation. I will remember them each trip that I am NOT confined to my hotel room as the sun sets. :o)
When The Astors Owned New York by Justin KaplanThe Astors were the self appointed American aristocracy. There was nothing money could not buy for them. Their hotels, their New Port, RI "cottages", their Fifth Avenue mansions, were all overly ostentatiously over the top.The copious consumption left the underlings of America throwing stones at their barbarias upper class values. Unlike Andrew Carneige who generously funded libraries throughout small-town America, The Astors and The Vanderbilts selfishly kept the wealth in the family.While this book contains interesting tidbits, it falls flat as the turn of the century values of the Astors.
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I enjoyed the history of New York and the Astors that was spread throughout this book - but I was not thrilled with the writing. I think it might be something that could be chalked up to poor editing -- you hear about a term or nickname without any context, and then learn about it in more detail in a following chapter. And while I enjoyed how the book jumped back-and-forth in telling the stories of two different Astor heirs, it was at times difficult to follow, or confusing as it told about them on two different timelines.
—Martha
I’m a historical voyeur. I enjoy looking back and seeing the way that people used to live in all walks of life. And of course a peak into the uber-rich’s lifestyle is always interesting. That is what drew my attention to this book.If you’re interested in historical New York hotels, why they were built, why they were destroyed, and a very little detail about the goings-ons in them back in the day, this book might almost be for you. If you are interested in ritzy New York generally from about 100-125 years ago, this book is not for you. I guess I just didn’t take the author’s title literally enough. I guess at one point the Astor family owned a not inconsequential chunk of Manhattan. And that is all that this book is about–oh, with a little sibling rivalry built in so that we leave New York for a few pages to visit England. Otherwise, it’s about the Astor family’s acquisition of property and pissing match as to who could build the biggest, most ostentatious hotel.My historical life-and-times voyeurism was not fed. The end.
—Mullgirl
The Astor dynasty began in Waldorf, Germany, in the late 1700s. John Jacob Astor traded furs with the Indians of North America and began to build his wealth and his empire. By the mid 1800s, his descendants ate off the finest china and controlled the social scene in New York City. Their greatest achievements were the magnificent hotels they built to go along with their lavish lifestyle. The hotels, the family, friends and foes are examined in this informative and compelling nonfiction work of a bygone era.
—Kalendra Dee
