It seems almost unimaginable now walking down Manhattan's bustling sidewalks lined with buildings that are locked in such a tight embrace that a piece of paper could hardly fit between them, but at the turn of the 20th century there were still parts of the island that weren't fully developed.
As with every generation, one's wealth at the time could be measured by the glory and opulence of one's mansion—the bigger and more gilded, the better—and these untouched spaces were just waiting to be paved over by the top one percent of the American industrial class as New York City carried out its own version of Manifest Destiny.
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