On November 1, season four of The Gilded Age will premiere, and all over again, audiences will daydream about residing in ornate Beaux-Arts mansions along Fifth Avenue. While several structures from this era still stand and are open to the public—including the Frick, Cooper Hewitt, and the Morgan Library—there’s something about tracing this era of Manhattan on foot, neighborhood by neighborhood, past rows and rows of private homes, that really feels like traveling back in time. On a recent afternoon, I met up with historian Keith Taillon to do just this: view the city with fresh eyes, but through a nostalgic lens.
In addition to being a historian, author, and tour guide, Keith also runs a popular Instagram account (@keithyorkcity), where he rabbit holes on topics like the demolition of the original Penn Station, why we call it ‘The Big Apple,’ and Gilded Age fun facts galore. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s in urban planning, so his tours contextualize the city’s past through its “structural configuration,” as he puts it.
We begin our Gilded Age walkabout on a tree-lined street in Greenwich Village on a sunny Wednesday in late September. Very few tour guides focus on Lower Manhattan when covering the Gilded Age, but for Keith, it’s the start of his entire narrative arc (and for good reason).
Eager to learn why? Continue below for a few of the riveting (and sometimes juicy) tidbits I learned along the way.
The Upper East Is Where the Gilded Age Went to Die
When we think about the Gilded Age (and see its glamorous depictions in film and television), the Upper East Side is often the centerpiece. But this is only half the story. “Most people focus on that neighborhood because it’s where the surviving mansions are,” Keith explains. But when he does his Upper East Side tour, he always tells guests it’s where the Gilded Age went to die. “It’s where the younger generations of families who got their start down here, in houses like these, moved with their inheritance and spent themselves into oblivion just in time for World War I and the Great Depression.” So while the Upper East Side is an example of the excess that led to the end of the Gilded Age, the houses in Greenwich Village up to about 42nd Street are more indicative of the kinds of families who led to the start of the Gilded Age. “I often tell people, 90% of the buildings I’m talking about on my tours Downtown are gone,” he says. “But down here, you’re actually walking in the footsteps of the people that defined how the Gilded Age played out.”
