This book is about the design of the facade of 51 of America's most extravagant early skyscrapers. Included are the biographies of noted architects and the aristocrats who financed America's first skyscrapers. This book discusses the influences of European aesthetic values in America--and scandals, rogues and class distinctions. Interpretations by contemporary critics are sprinkled throughout the text. Woven throughout the book are inquiries about the validity of Greek and Roman mythologies and their relationships to "modern" America and its spirit of invention and progress. Foreign traditions were challenged by some architects but then accepted by most. Why was it necessary for the long-dead hero of a faraway civilization to be included on the facade of a newly invented American skyscraper? This book tells why.

This book is about the design of the facade of 51 of America's most extravagant early skyscrapers. Included are the biographies of noted architects and the aristocrats who financed America's first skyscrapers. This book discusses the influences of European aesthetic values in America--and scandals, rogues and class distinctions. Interpretations by contemporary critics are sprinkled throughout the text. Woven throughout the book are inquiries about the validity of Greek and Roman mythologies and their relationships to "modern" America and its spirit of invention and progress. Foreign traditions were challenged by some architects but then accepted by most. Why was it necessary for the long-dead hero of a faraway civilization to be included on the facade of a newly invented American skyscraper? This book tells why.

This book is about the design of the facade of 51 of America's most extravagant early skyscrapers. Included are the biographies of noted architects and the aristocrats who financed America's first skyscrapers. This book discusses the influences of European aesthetic values in America--and scandals, rogues and class distinctions. Interpretations by contemporary critics are sprinkled throughout the text. Woven throughout the book are inquiries about the validity of Greek and Roman mythologies and their relationships to "modern" America and its spirit of invention and progress. Foreign traditions were challenged by some architects but then accepted by most. Why was it necessary for the long-dead hero of a faraway civilization to be included on the facade of a newly invented American skyscraper? This book tells why.

The Castro Theatre, the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Headquarters, 450 Sutter Medico-Dental Buildingthesemasterpieces of San Francisco's Art Deco heritage are the work of one man: Timothy Pflueger. An immigrant's sonwith only a grade-school education, Pflueger began practicing architecture after San Francisco's 1906 earthquake. While his contemporaries looked to Beaux-Arts traditions to rebuild the city, he brought exotic Mayan, Asian, and Egyptian forms to buildings ranging from simple cocktail lounges to the city's first skyscrapers. Pflueger was one of the city's most prolificarchitects during his 40-year career. He designed two major downtown skyscrapers, two stock exchanges, several neighborhood theaters, movie palaces for four smaller cities (including the beloved Paramount in Oakland), some ofthe city's biggest schools, and at least 50 homes. His works include the San Francisco Stock Exchange, the ever-popularTop of the Mark, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and the San Francisco World's Fair. It is a testament to his talentthat many of his buildings still stand and many have been named landmarks. Therese Poletti tells the fascinating story of Pflueger's life and work in Art Deco San Francisco. In lively detail, she relates how Pflueger built extravagant compositions in metal, concrete, and glass. She also tells the story behind the architecture: Pflueger's commissioning and support of muralist Diego Rivera, his association with photographer Ansel Adams and sculptor Ralph Stackpole, and his childhood friendship turned to adulthood sponsorship with San Francisco Mayor James "Sunny" Rolph Jr. Beautiful archival photography mixes with stunning new photography in this collection of a truly Californian, but ultimately American, story.

What do you picture when you think of New York City? For most, it is the city's distinctive skyline, made famous bycountless movies and photographs. Everyone in Manhattan, whether first-time visitor or longtime resident, experiences the awe of gazing up at the soaring stone, steel, and glass towers of Wall Street or Midtown, and wonders how those structures came to be built. First published in 1999, Manhattan Skyscrapers was the first book to document the most important peaks in the city's concrete canyons. From the earliest skyscrapers built in thecity—such as the 1896 American Tract Society Building—to the most well known, including the Woolworth, Empire State, and Chrysler buildings, the book has become the definitive reference work on the Big Apple's skyline. Now available in a revised third edition, Manhattan Skyscrapers presents more than a century's worth of New York's most fascinating and important buildings. Each skyscraper is presented with informative and entertaining texts by New York Times contributor Eric Nash, a striking full-page photograph by architectural photographer Norman McGrath, archival images, interior views, and architectural drawings. In addition to the eighty-five buildings documented in previous versions of the book, Manhattan Skyscrapers showcases eight of the most exciting new skyscrapers built in the past few years. These wonderfully diverse additions to the city—the New York Times Building by Renzo Piano, the Standard Hotel byPolshek Partnership Architects, 7 World Trade Center by SOM, the Blue Tower by Bernard Tschumi, Bank of America Tower by Cook + Fox, 11 Times Square by FXFOWLE, 200 West Street by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, and 425 Fifth Avenue by Michael Graves—give an indication of how the city continues to evolve in the twenty-first century. Manhattan Skyscrapers is an indispensable book for both the serious student of architecture and the casual collector of all things New York.

Reproduces all of Sheldon's fascinating and historically important photographs and plans for a total of 97 buildings (93 houses, 4 casinos) built during the 1880s. Approximately 200 illustrations.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Janet Maslin, The New York Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch When Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed in 2009 a grand home for sale, unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled through a surprising portal into American history. Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the nineteenth century with a twenty-first-century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress named Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, no new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Though she owned palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, why had she lived for twenty years in a simple hospital room, despite being in excellent health? Why were her valuables being sold off? Was she in control of her fortune, or controlled by those managing her money? Dedman has collaborated with Huguette Clark’s cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have frequent conversations with her. Dedman and Newell tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter, born into a family of extreme wealth and privilege, who secrets herself away from the outside world. Huguette was the daughter of self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, nearly as rich as Rockefeller in his day, a controversial senator, railroad builder, and founder of Las Vegas. She grew up in the largest house in New York City, a remarkable dwelling with 121 rooms for a family of four. She owned paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls. But wanting more than treasures, she devoted her wealth to buying gifts for friends and strangers alike, to quietly pursuing her own work as an artist, and to guarding the privacy she valued above all else. The Clark family story spans nearly all of American history in three generations, from a log cabin in Pennsylvania to mining camps in the Montana gold rush, from backdoor politics in Washington to a distress call from an elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. The same Huguette who was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11 held a ticket nine decades earlier for a first-class stateroom on the second voyage of the Titanic. Empty Mansions reveals a complex portrait of the mysterious Huguette and her intimate circle. We meet her extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her French boyfriend, her nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives fighting to inherit Huguette’s copper fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, Empty Mansions is an enthralling story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms. Praise for Empty Mansions “An amazing story of profligate wealth . . . an outsized tale of rags-to-riches prosperity.”—The New York Times “An evocative and rollicking read, part social history, part hothouse mystery, part grand guignol.”—The Daily Beast “Fascinating . . . [a] haunting true-life tale.”—People “One of those incredible stories that you didn’t even know existed. It filled a void.”—Jon Stewart, The Daily Show “Thrilling . . . deliciously scandalous.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)