Stanford White's New York

Doubleday, 1992. First edition. Hardcover. Fine/very good. First edition, first printing. Fine in very good dust jacket with some wear about the edges. Hardcover. xii+ 117 pp. with bibliography, index. Profusely illustrated with photographs and design prints. Stanford White (1853-1906) was a leading American architect during New York's Beaux Arts period of the late ninethhen and early twentieth centuries. The robber barons, wheat kings and Wall Street wizards of the time had their dreams of grandiose residences and other buildings translated into castles of luminous beauty that left the architect's mark on the age. His masterpieces included the Washington Square Arch, the Players, Metropolitan and Colony clubs, the original Madison Square Garden, and the now vanished Fifth Avenue palaces of the Whitneys, Vanderbilts, and Pulitzers. Despite his architectural work, however, White is mainly remembered today as the shooting victim of the famous love triangle---White, his 16 year old mistress and minor actress, and her deranged husband Harry K. Thaw. Thaw confronted White during the finale of a play being performed at Madison Square Garden and fired three shots at point blank range killing White. The murder trial was called by newspapers of the time "The Trial of The Century". During the trial White's private life came under great (negative) scrutiny. The first trial resulted in a hung jury and a mistrial; at the second trial, Thaw was found not guilty by reason of insanity.