What Happened to Rockefeller's Mansion in Manhattan?
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- Опубліковано 23 лип 2022
- The name "Rockefeller" is synonymous with the term baron of industry, but how much do you know about his lifestyle? We exploring the events that led John D. Rockefeller to live a relatively modest lifestyle while he was the wealthiest man in the United States.
Location: Manhattan, New York
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Photos from: Museum of the City of New York
Creative Commons 2.0(creativecommons.org/licenses/...) Photos from: hibino
Music from: Epidemic Sound
I love the old elements of the home. I grew up in a large Victorian home. We had chores too. My Dad sold insurance for Mutual of Omaha from the early 1960's through 1984. He was also a horse breeder if American Palomino Quarter Horses and a few spare Appaloosas. I loved our ornate home with tourettes!
The Rockefeller home with heavy wood paneling and wall paper was a classic! Every detail more beautiful than the next! I love especially the staircase and fireplaces! I think they make a stately home!
I just love your videos of these classic, beautiful homes. It makes me sad to see them destroyed. Can you imagine this home refurbished today? I wish it were possible! In California, historic homes of the 20's and 30's are destroyed daily to make way for garish buildings and apartments! Beautiful homes that were owned by Valentino, the Pickfords, etc. It makes me cry!
You cry for demolishing such masterpieces, me too, but life goes on… The best of new buildings to replace these masterpieces, have only meagre craftsmanship, quality and aesthetics compared to those demolished.
Jill, I am not poking fun at you, please take this in all good humour, but your spelling mistake of tourettes for what I assume you meant turrets made me laugh. I live in a creaky old house that is always making weird noises, so I'm now going to think of it as having tourettes . . . again PLEASE don't take this as anything but good humour, I am the last person who should ever poke bad fun at someones spelling or language ;)
@@The_Smith thank you for figuring out what they meant by "tourettes" - I had no idea what that was supposed to mean!!
My father was a N.Y.C. kid. Rockefeller was known to carry a pocket full of dimes he would hand out to every kid he saw. My dad also shook Thomas Edisons hand after winning a footrace in grammar school in Manhattan.
Well 4 him to hand out dimes would be like me chipping off a bit of copper from my one cent, throwing it to a thousand people and telling them to share it. 😆
I'm from cleveland ohio. i know who rockefeller was. I studied urban development for 4 years. they taught us race theory and mass sterilization of unwanted misfits in my schooling while i was dismembering the english language at the time
This is definitely one of my favorite comments I've ever seen on YT. Rockefeller seems to have been a really good hearted man. And shaking Thomas Edison's hand... that's just too cool. Glad you have these stories to share with others
@@bazinga9473 Im happy to hear you appreciate my dads experiences. He was a highly decorated WW2 combat vet and definitely one of the Greatest Generation. He's long gone.
@@vince1638 🙏🇺🇸
The children were given an allowance to buy necessities. If they ran out, they ran out. They had to maintain their clothes and learned to sew. When running for President Nelson was teased when getting on a plane his pants had split. A newsman said "There is more showing than your liberalism Governor". On the plane Nelson took off his pants, and sewed them up. It's been said that the family knew how to manage money, and so always kept it. Teaching children to handle money and not just ask for it makes a lot of sense.
Start to finish… one of your best. It is refreshing a (mini) documentary that didn’t focus on him being a monopolist and/or the questionable business practices of those days. You gave him and his home the justices they deserved. Well done Sir. Thanks for the video.
Great video
John D. Rockefeller had a cousin who was alive into the 1930s, she lived almost as long as he did and she was the splitting image of him. She lived in a simple but quaint bungalow house in the city of Detroit. That particular house was demolished some years back, unfortunately it was the ghetto.
Such a shame people were not interested in buying the beautiful and intricate woodwork of the house when it was being demolished. There was no appreciation for that type of skilled craftsmanship. Nowadays, when people want to buy period moldings and/or woodwork to decorate their homes, it’s practically non-existent, , or very expensive, or buy fake reproductions made out of hard foam. I’ve seen them at the big hardware stores. Once painted, they resemble the real thing. I’m fortunate my Victorian house still had the original woodwork but it was no fun removing over 100 years of paint from all the wood.
Victorian is now back in style, but unfortunately for years you couldn't give it away.
Yet another stunning mansion consigned to the pages of history books. This was an excellent video; thank you.
Thank you for this informative video of the John D. Rockefeller townhouse. I also sat in the MOMA sculpture garden for a late Summer afternoon jazz concert. Amazing to realize it was the former site of the townhouse?
I remember after I left the MOMA, walking to the corner of 54th and Madison, and seeing the Morgan Library with an incredible French Chateau on the opposite corner.
Great neighborhood! 😊
Great video. I'm a native New Yorker and to be honest, I didn't know the half of this. My friends across The Pond say that in Europe a home of that caliber would never have been destroyed, despite no one wanting to buy it. Thus more older buildings in European cities.
Here in the UK they were very fond of tearing down beautiful old buildings up until the 1970s. A former boss of mine told me how she and her then boyfriend wagged off school on the day a lovely 16th century half-timbered building in our home town Manchester was being demolished. They just wanted to be there to say good-bye to part of our city's history.
In NY City there are no house Museum’s to visit except for one which has to fight tooth and nail to fight off the Aholes in that city who are dying to “develop” the site. In London there are so many of those house museums. That’s what happens when your city is run by international global types.
@@safarygirl ... "The Frick Collection", Mansion and Museum; 1 East 70th Street, Upper East Side. The most beautiful mansion remaining in the City!
I would venture to say the Moorish smoking room simply because it was different plus the fact it was preserved if only in a museum. Too bad no one wanted to salvage the wood but then again "things weren't done that way" much before the 1970's when preservation started to make a lot of historic (cents) sense.
You said exactly what I was thinking the wood ugh just thrown out
I have been to the sculpture garden at MoMA many times and didn't realize it was the footprints of this house. And only a quick stroll to Rockefeller Center too. You learn something new each day. Thank you!
Tell me, do those statues come even close to the craftsmanship, beauty, symmetry, and style of the sculptures within the home that decorated the walls, staircases, and mantels? Or, are they dull, lazy, ugly, and talentless hunks of stone/metal that usually qualify as Modern Art sculptures?
This is my favorite house of the series so far, it's awesome without being "over the top". A classic Victorian city mansion!
I believe the home was owned by Arabella Huntington (The mistress of Collis P Huntington) before John D. Rockefeller bought it. The dressing room was displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of art.
Mistress turned Wife.
R u talking about the Huntington’s who used to be like the Walton’s coz they used to own the A&P stores
@@tam7509 The Huntingtons were one of the 4 families that built the Railroads.
@@frenchartantiquesparis424 oh okay cool. I didn’t know about the ones who built a railroad empire just the ones who built the retail empire
Enjoy your stories so much. 👍🏼
Nice vid! When I hear Flagler, I think of Flagler Beach, FL. Thank you for posting a vid on a Sunday, not many people do. Keep cool!
Well there is a reason you thought of Flagler Beach, it was named after HENRY FLAGLER, along with John Rockefeller Sr., he was a founder of Standard Oil. As such he had the money and power to have the Atlantic coast of Florida built out . He also owned the Florida East Coast Railway ( which was built through Convict leasing- Prison Wardens made the money off of AFRICAN-AMERICAN prisoners doing the free labor to build the infrastructure ) Flagler was the founder of the cities of Miami, and Palm Beach. Keeping in mind that all of the building of Flagler’s tourist empire was throughout many years exclusively used two VERY BRUTAL LABOR SYSTEMS that ONLY affected AFRICAN-AMERICANS Boys & Men as slaves without calling it SLAVERY ! Over 4,000 HUMAN BEINGS of AFRICAN DESCENT built all of Miami, and Flagler’s properties all over south Florida ! Even when this was found out , Flagler used his wealth and the like mindedness of fellow white men to ensure the successfully erase any stigma or hint of scandal by lobbying in Congress and using the media (Flagler’s own newspapers to quell the alarm of his INHUMAN JUSTIFICATION !) MRS. E.E. ZAYAS 331
The saddest part is the property was never used for another dwelling, meaning it never really needed to be demolished in the first place =(
What a great house. Too bad it was demolished. At least a couple rooms were saved, that's better than most houses like this. The kids of people like this MUST be spoiled, aside from what they said. The house was 'outdated'. In England you have families who are still in homes handed down several hundred years. They don't say they're 'outdated'.
Well thanks for ruining the video!
There was a time period after WW2 during which most Europeans also believed buildings from this era to be 'outdated.' They generally lacked central heating and other modern necessities, so they were often demolished. Such buildings were apparently not considered to be works of art. It is hard to understand.
It doesn't mean you're spoiled. It just means you must have another house to live in.
True
@@phileeepaye1641 I think your logic is flawed. No big deal. Just: you should be intelligent enough to understand that the comment section will tell you peoples views on the content in the very clip you want to watch. If you read the comment section before finishing the clip - it's your own fault that the content was spoiled for you. Rarely do I comment on comments - but this one was just too illogical for me to not take note of. Well done! You managed to make a complete stranger take the time to lecture you on something you should definitely know before commenting such nonsense as you did. Have a good day and please don't keep at this behaviour. Revolting.
Thank you for the tour. Nice to know that some items from the Rockefeller house were saved before it was demolished. It was hard to pick a favorite room. 😁💝
Enjoyable video.
The picture of Maurice B. Clark is not Rockefeller's partner, but John Maurice Clark. Junior had the house torn down for MOMA (his wife Abby was a co-founder). The person who had the house remodeled for herself and then sold it to Rockefeller was quite a character: Arabella Worsham. She was never married to Worsham but her "late husband" helped explain her child (probably Worsham's). Then she was the mistress of Collis P Huntington; then his second wife.; then his widow. She got 1/3 of his estate; her son got a chunk; and his nephew, Henry, got the rest. Then she married Henry (about the same age as she was)!! She and Henry created the magnificent estate and gardens of San Marino in Pasadena, CA. By the way, John Sr. did not become a billionaire until Standard Oil was broken up: he realized that the parts would be worth more individually than as a whole. Flagler is the one who thought up the idea of a Trust to hold companies in different states. Both San Marino and Flagler's Whitehall would make great videos.
Yes. We know. Thank you.
Plus Flagler developed the Florida east coast and the Keys as a destination. Many of his buildings still stand, i.e. Flagler College and more.
@@UncaDave Even having toured Biltmore, Flagler's Whitehall in Palm Beach is my pick for a knock your socks off mansion.
@@LJB103 I agree. Plus Flagler is really a much more interesting fellow to read about. The man had vision for sure. The stories of land speculators and developers in Florida is fascinating. Even building roads and bridges in that hostile swamp environment. Read about the Tamiami Trail that Collier built across the Everglades even using something called a “walking dredge”. One is still on exhibit at the Collier-Seminole SP.
I can never pick my favorite room in these videos. I love them all.
As a person who has had a passion for designing and building wood structures since a child building forts in the woods, (in the 60's) I really enjoy watching these informative brief videos. The historical side of the subject makes it even more interesting for me. To see the old photos and hear about the people who had them built is something one can't easily learn about on their own. Thank you for your interest in producing such videos, I believe it is valuable work. Well done.
The work you must put into these videos to get this kind of descriptive and visual detail is mind blowing.
The bedroom from the Rockefeller house is preserved in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The “Moorish” Smoking Room is preserved in the Brooklyn Museum. The small dressing room is preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This was very interesting. John, Sr.'s son, John Jr. was married to a distant relative of mine, Abbie Aldrich Rockefeller.
Me too!
@@a1wend1l We're probably cousins somehow.
We probably are. Our branch of the family had 8 children, whose names spelled out Aldrichs. My grandfather was the D - Delbert.
What an amazing report. Thank you for your well researched work.
The floating stairway and balusters are incredible.
Love this channel and your videos, but this has been your best to date.
Absolutely amazing! So interesting style of life! The house reflects that! Very beautiful!
This house was actually designed, built and furnished by our #HuntingtonFamily under the auspices of Arabella Huntington (Collis Huntington's second wife) who was responsible for selling the home to John D. Rockefeller, complete with all of its furnishings for a breath taking price for the era. Arabella had a robust real estate portfolio during the course of her marriages to Collis and Henry Edward Huntington (Collis' nephew) which left her independently wealthy. We are thankful that two of the rooms have been preserved in their entirety and are housed at museums.
That is amazing and so cool your family created that master piece !!
Are you from the same Huntington Family associated with The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California?
@@jaspervonbach3621 Yes
Wow...that atrium was breathtaking
Once again.... brilliant content
Thank you Sir
You should consider Casa Loma in Toronto for video
Fantatsic video. Well put together with a mix of his life and how he lived.
What an awesome home!
Great Video. Important to note that the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is not there by chance but was founded by John Sr's daughter-in-law, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. John Jr donated his father's land as well as his own.
Anything Moorish! The smoking room is incredible and I am so glad it got saved! Thanks for sharing the history!
Love your work, thanks!
I’ve sat a enjoyed that present day garden next to the Museum; amazing to think this wonderful house was once there
Incredible story and home. Very well done
I heard that John D Sr went on an extended road trip with his chauffeur to avoid a Federal subpoena in the antitrust legislation.
But after John D Jr first child was born, he could not stay away and was served.
In the aftermath of the antitrust legislation, he was forced to divest his interests, but his net worth went up a lot...
Wow, that Moorish smoking room !! The blue velvet curtains contrasting with the wood- divine ✨ 💙
So very sad that the house was torn down. Wow....What a beautiful home.....
Great video!
I actually liked this house (the kitchen though??). I can totally understand how he bought it furnished and just added some rugs. It seemed warm and inviting and I imagined living there. I don’t think I’ve ever felt quite that way with the other old time-y mansions featured previously (maybe those were too Victorian for me?).
Thank You, for enriching us with your videos. Much appreciated. Hey who needs elaborate housing, we gots sheet rock (boring). No more craftsmanship.
What’s strange is that Los Angeles still has the Doheny (a rival oil company of the same era) mansion, Greystone. People say LA does not value it’s history as much as New York City. Ironic. The city of Beverly Hills now owns it because like this mansion, no one has been able or willing to purchase and upkeep it.
Awesome Video!!😄
Excellent commentary.
A beautiful home, and to think, it was one of modest houses of that neighborhood; makes me wonder what the other houses on the block looked like on the inside!
I don't think that it is very much
different from the van Rhijin
residence in the current "The
Gilded Age" (TV/mini-series)
Very enjoyable video. Can you do one of Jr.'s 9 story mansion that was next to Sr.'s. it is shown in photos through out this video.
Thanks again for the content
I really liked the parlor and kitchen. The parlor was just beautiful. The kitchen was so rustic.
Great story. Never heard it before. Thx 4 the hx lesson.
For a more detailed description of his life, read “ the titan” by rod chernow. Great history of the oil business.
we actually have a close friend to our company whose parents came to america coming in first from canada and then crossed the canadian river by foot and gained a really good loan at a very good interest rate. he's in his 80's now, but he remembers the very low price they got the loan for from blessed be his memory, mr rockefeller. They also gave out most loans and charities during the great depression.The oil where he'd lower his prices so low to help them is exactly how we all remember him in
Awesome Video!
The atrium is my favorite room but the spacious bedroom is pleasing too.
Stunning 💗 Just Stunning 💖
JUST LOOK AT THOSE FOREVER FORLORN FACES. EVEN AS CHILDREN. How miserably unhappy they appeared.......tragic!
What an amazing building, I hope someone buys and restores this home. ❤️
My faves are the 2 rooms disassembled & then reassembled in the museum’s.
My grandfather was in the same circles as one of the Rockefellers, and what he always told me was you havnt met true success until you’ve met a Rockefeller
Wow that's great...You must be from a rich family
@@honeststranger1070
It took J.D.R. Sr. a long time
to be really rich. They were
upper-middle class for a
long time. He didn't become
a billionaire until his monopoly
was broken up.
He grew up very poor, and
worked his whole life until
his oldest son took over
the businesses and set
up trusts. He also worked
his way through a business
school (sometimes these
places called themselves
"colleges") while supporting
his mother and siblings
It took two generations
before the Vanderbilts
were really rich. The
third and fourth generations
were the ones who spent
all of the money.
Interesting that he had to succum to his farhers ways intitially, to get ahead, but then went to back to his mothers way of thinking later in life.
Do you have any videos of famous houses outside the US? I would really like to see your take on the many Renaissance homes in Florence (the exterior of the Carnegie home reminded me a bit of the Riccardi Medici palazzo).
I adore these videos
Great videos
New subscriber 💯🍿
That was interesting, thank you
Wow. Cheers from Australia
@ThisHouse the kitchen picture @8:14 is upside down!!!!!
If it had a library, that would be my favorite room. 😊
Still can’t believe they didn’t preserve this house as a historic site
This was great
Appreciate the history!
The photo of Maurice B. Clark is actually of another gentleman.
Interesting video
Hello-
it seems the grand homes of Olde New York most at risk were those right on or quite close to 5th Ave.
He also owned a modest small home on Cleveland’s Millionaire Row (Euclid Ave). It was located on the south side of Euclid Ave which was one step down from the huge stone mansions that lined the north side of Euclid Ave. his home was eventually town down when commercial businesses were built on Millionaire Row in the early 20th century.
I have a fondness for Cleveland, particularly, "the Flat's".
I traveled the US with my job, was born in Chicago, educated in the South, TN, my Dad's home area, grad "University of Memphis" and remain a fan of the Cities that defined the USA, they each have their own, very American flavor ...
Have friends from Cleveland area, Irish and Italian, love both, the latter have businesses in Las Vegas, I lived there 17 years.
Best Thoughts ...
They were wealthy but, they didn't look like they were happy at all!💯% 🥺
At 2:11, the photo of Maurice Clark? You preface it by saying in 1859 he joined forces with Maurice Clark. That photo looks more like 1959, not 1859
It's not wrought with waste, but 'fraught' with waste, meaning that it's full of it. Not used very often anymore. 😢
So sad to lose yet another NYC treasure. Happy that at least a few rooms were spared.
The best part…. Not a Tv in the entire place
I met Thomas Edison and Rockefeller.
I was a young kid.
This channel on UA-cam. All hail the king ✨👑✨
Is there any more houses like this or it’s architectural style? This seems bigger than normal brownstones
It is estimated that at his peak Rockefeller net worth is about 3 to 5% of US GDP. Using the current US GDP that put his wealth at around $690 B to $1.1 Trillion. His wealth dwarf any current billionaire on earth.
But Junior, Rockefeller's son, gave away a lot of his wealth. Junior in particular contributed a lot in creating the Acadia and Grand Teton National Parks.
Rockefeller is a controversial figure. But you can't deny him making a much longer lasting positive impact than many robber barons of his time.
Do a video on J.P. Morgan library on 39st
Wow!
This is absolutely crazy that his wife and kids had to maintain that house! That's a full time job. It was a beautiful home
Absolutely crazy become all owners and - even worse their children - when living in such places, and doing nothing for this, even some minor chores. Sure you can do this, but it is contrary to human nature. The price for doing the wrong thing can not be escaped. Just recall children raised and living in similar environments how they become…
The children did chores,,,,, but there was a large staff to do anything else that needed to be done, Put it this way, by ww-2 started the Rockefellers had an office staff of about 700 people that did nothing but attend to the charitable arm of the family, taxes and personal expenses and trust funds of the grown children . It boggles the mind to need that many people to manage your money, something "normal people" take a couple hours a week on the kitchen table doing
The smoking room is beautiful.
The Bedroom has been at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond for many years.
I'm a Native of Baltimore, where the Rockefeller Standard Oil Building houses the Greek Gods that were raised during the Jesuit "Death to the Old Gods" Jubilee of 1906 and where Rockefeller Public Health in the Middle East of Baltimore arrived one year before it's sister in Jerusalem.
John Rockefeller's country house was on a large estate about 25 miles from the city with a 40 room mansion. John Jr had a 20,000 sq ft apartment with 37 rooms.
He had several others. One was in Cleveland and the one in Ormond Beach, FL where he died.
I lived down the street from their home in Tarrytown New York@
The great men who built America
Not only were these wonderful palaces too expensive to maintain. The taxes were unbelievable and they typically didn’t have electricity unless it was added later. Last but not least, the houses on millionaires row became surrounded by tall buildings and noise which made living there undesirable. Most were torn down and replaced by tall buildings.
What a gorgeous home! The austere external appearance is a perfect foil for the magnificently detailed Victorian interiors. I would prefer this type of home over the nearby gilded mansions of the pretentious New York elite.
I love the Moorish Smoking Room with its beautiful black lacquer woodwork and the truly unique moldings at the ceiling, I also love the open fret work in the arch surround of the bedroom. The kitchen is so humble and has paint peeling off the walls, such a stark contrast to the splendor of the rest of the house.
Once again we see a fabulous gilded age mansion being left to the owners children, who see no value in the property and have it bulldozed, the thought of all that beautiful woodwork being demolished just makes me sick. To make things even more disturbing is to have the property turned into a garden walkway, when they could have built something remarkable on the highly coveted real estate.
I guess if I were one of his children and the only thing that I inherited was a partial share of a 4 story mansion, I would probably try to sell it off as well, the thought that their father was a billionaire and they didn’t inherit a fortune is really sad, and it must have been hard for them to grow up in the extreme wealth of the noble elites and be responsible for doing household chores while their contemporaries were waited on hand and foot by a calvalcade of servants. Poor Mrs Rockefeller being laden down with cooking and dish washing in that run down kitchen, she was practically worked to death. To think that the elites were dining on oysters Rockefeller named after the richest man in the country while probably never having had any for themselves. Also, how many richest men in the country were there, every episode tells the story of the wealthiest person in America, I suppose these were all for different years throughout the gilded age.
Your fans ChuckandMax
Absolutely exquisitely beautiful 😍
4:32 the reptile features showing up on the older he got
Epigenetics.
Demolished?! 😳 My first instinct is - that’s crime against history - but given that it was used for charitable organizations, maybe it wasn’t in good condition at the time?
1:28 -- Wow, that's a clan, isn't it? You gotta wonder how shallow that gene pool might have been.
you people don't understand, they have DIRECT contact with SA-TON, look at that house!!!!