Free previewStop 8 of Rockefeller Center Christmas Walk: The Tree, the Windows and Fifth Avenue
New York's Wealthiest Janitor
You're on Fifth Avenue between 57th and 58th Streets, in front of Bergdorf Goodman. Step back far enough to take in the whole block. The building is pale white marble with colored veins running through it, and on top sits a green mansard roof, the steep French kind. That roof is a clue. It was meant to echo the house that stood here before.
For decades, this block held the mansion of Cornelius Vanderbilt the Second, completed in 1882. After he died in 1899, his widow, Alice Vanderbilt, kept the house while Fifth Avenue turned commercial around her. Selling was tangled: every one of Cornelius's heirs had to agree, and the court had to approve. In 1925 Alice asked the court for permission, citing the neighborhood's redevelopment, and got it that same year.
That's the opening. The rest plays at stop 8 of Rockefeller Center Christmas Walk: The Tree, the Windows and Fifth Avenue (3 min in all). Unlock the tour to hear it all, or try stop 1 free first.
