When the Astor’s Owned New York, Book Review Example

Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age

In his account of an American empire unlike any other, Justin Kaplan’s When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age traces the origins, careers, and lifestyles of a unique dynasty making its mark in a unique era.  Beginning with the life of the legendary founder, John Jacob Astor, Kaplan presents in fact an extraordinary circumstance wherein one man’s relentless ambition matched perfectly with a city just coming into prominence.  From the start, Kaplan sets out a founder in broad strokes; Astor, an immigrant from a small German village, comes to New York, builds up his fur trade, and steadily ensures that his wealth grows.  By the second generation, the Astor name is a fixture of New York business and society, yet John Jacob himself never bothered with “genteel” behavior: “He ate peas with his knife…and was not averse to using a guest’s sleeve as his napkin” (Kaplan 9).  Money and real estate were his dominant passions and, as Kaplan presents the succeeding generations, the Astor influence came to embody the rapidly emerging New York City.  In this family history Kaplan emphasizes the link between the two, as in the impact of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, which in a sense perfectly symbolizes the Astor influence – and demand for excess – on a city stunned by its splendor.  Blended with the family narrative is a sense of the broader social scene.  As the city’s leading and richest residents, the Astors virtually defined society’s standards in an age and place desperate to install rank.  Within this too is the inevitable fading from glory, as the last days of the original Mrs. Astor, who looked down upon newcomers such as the Vanderbilts, were spent in a fantasy of her still dominating New York society (149).

As a reconstruction of one family’s trajectory of wealth and power, Kaplan’s book succeeds in offering fact supported by documented, witness accounts.  Being so wealthy, the Astors attracted the attention of the famous, and artists such as Walt Whitman and Edith Wharton refer to the family in various instances.  This in turn helps to establish the broader canvas implied by the book’s tile; it is, after all, not entirely about the Astors.  This, however, is an issue, because Kaplan’s work very much belies its title.  The focus is unrelentingly on the Astors and, while the family is important and interesting, there is not a sufficient sense given of the era.  Kaplan offers bits and pieces, in order to emphasize how John Jacob established his presence.  The New York City of the mid-19^th century is set out as far more confined, just as Astor understood the significance of the new transit systems and how they would make Manhattan real estate immensely valuable.  The ambition was also handed down; John Jacob III demanded that his son, William Waldorf, set aside his passion for acquiring art to buy real estate (126).  Nonetheless, there remains a lack of context  throughout the book, and mainly because Kaplan does not give the city and the era the attention required to illustrate the full Astor impact.  The author gives glimpses of this wider life and unusual age, but not enough to give dimension to the story of the Astor family and, most importantly, its presence in shaping the age.

This weakness of the book is due in part to Kaplan’s style.  While too much description and editorializing would harm the book’s integrity, it nonetheless fails to capture real reader interest because the tone and style are extremely dry.  Much of the book, in fact, reads like reference material, rather than an insightful exploration.  For example, one chapter documents the rich hotel venture made by other industry giants such as Henry Flagler, who was the “Astor” of Palm Beach.  There is an assessment of how all these men dreamed of operating lavish hotels, but no real examination into the interesting motives that would generate such ambitions in men already at the heights of wealth.  They were men who were, “proud to be innkeepers” (73), but Kaplan goes no further in exploring this seemingly odd drive.  His book is in many ways a valuable chronicle of rising fortunes in an era when forceful – and ruthless – men could carve out empires of unprecedented power and wealth.  The facts appear to be well documented and the style, if dry, is professional.  At the same time, the reader comes away disappointed.  Justin Kaplan’s When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age is only partially true to its title, as it presents information, but lacks the context necessary to give meaning to that information.

Works Cited

Kaplan, J.  When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age. New York: Viking, 2007.  Print.