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“I want to be in New York,” I announced one morning in early spring. It had taken me years to realize it, and then another while afterward to gather the courage to say it aloud, but there it was; Greenwich did not feel like home. Not to me, anyway. And with Eddie in the city so often during the week, it felt like the right thing for the girls and me to make our primary residence there. And so, with my assurances that we’d keep The Boulders for summertime and weekends and other extended visits, Eddie begrudgingly agreed.
Because Eddie wanted space and a yard, we bought a brownstone on Ninety-second Street, in the posh Upper East Side quarter nicknamed Millionaire’s Row. I was content to accommodate this wish, as the neighborhood was less heavily trafficked than farther downtown, and we had a spacious garden for the girls to play in with their new puppy, Woofie, who shadowed them everywhere. We put in a rose garden as well as a small circle for the children to ride their bicycles. Our neighbors were the Astors, the Carnegies, the Woolworths, the Carlisles, and the Guggenheims—families that had enjoyed wealth for long enough to garner Eddie’s approval.
In Manhattan my life settled into a pleasant rhythm. I’d complained in Greenwich that I’d had few friends and few activities to fill my calendar; that was not the case in New York. I met the other women in our neighborhood, befriending them over walks along the East River or play arranged between our girls, and suddenly my days were filled; invitations trickled in for tea with Elsie Rockefeller at the Ritz-Carlton, luncheons with May Carlisle in the big bright room at Delmonico’s, where the society dames feasted as much on the gossip overheard from the surrounding tables as they did on the tiered plates of oysters and smoked salmon. Dinner at the Metropolitan Club with Edna Woolworth and Consuelo Vanderbilt. There was always another art gallery opening or some traveling exhibition that could not be missed. Woofie and I would accompany the girls when they went horseback riding along Central Park’s Bridle Path or else to feed the ducks in the lake. There were outings to the shops along Central Park and Fifth Avenue or visits to the glittering counters of Tiffany and Cartier.
Manhattan evenings, too, unfurled with endless variety. Banquets sparkling with crystal and silver at the Savoy. Dances in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, with its soaring ceilings and tiered balconies. Galas at the Plaza where the women ogled one another’s diamonds and the men compared notes on stocks, golf, and real estate. Broadway’s Great White Way ablaze at all hours, performances along Theater Row, and the new behemoths of the Public Library, Metropolitan Opera House, the Olympia, and Carnegie Hall rising up from the wide, noisy avenues.
Whereas I found it all to be dazzling and wonderfully diverting, Eddie found it all to be a bit flashy—and he wasn’t wrong. The patrons of these locales and the company we kept at these events were largely what my husband called “new money,” families that had made their millions in just the previous generation in railroads or the banks of Wall Street, or by finding gold or iron out west. Eddie, a stolid scion of the Old Guard, looked down on this newer, brighter, faster world.
But I couldn’t help but see the hypocrisy in his criticisms. “Money coming from Wall Street or gold mines, what a faux pas,” I said, responding to Ed’s most recent grumble as we sat side by side in the back seat of our car. It was a dark winter night, but the scene before us was dazzlingly bright, with theater fa?ades aglow and streetlamps casting a flickering halo over the throngs of people who darted along the sidewalks, to and from dinners, shows, concerts. We were being driven from our townhouse to the opera. “The only thing worse would be money coming from midwestern cereal factories.” I shuddered into my fur stole of pristine cream-colored mink and then flashed my husband a wry smile.
Ed looked out the car window and ignored the comment, just as I largely ignored his gripes against anyone whose blood was not of the purest blue. I could have reminded him that our new money, though it came from cereal and from farther west than the Hudson River, financed our full-time staffs. Our beautiful mansion in Manhattan with its soaring ceilings and crystal chandeliers. Our sprawling estate in Greenwich with our stables, tennis courts, and golf course. The girls’ expensive tutors and his late nights at his clubs filled with card games and cocktails. Even this new Rolls-Royce in which he now sat beside me, scowling.
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The next morning I received my new friends Edna Woolworth and May Carlisle in the sunlit breakfast room of my Upper East Side mansion. Over tea, Edna filled us in on the plans for her upcoming wedding. She was marrying a man named Frank Hutton who was kind and well liked, even though he was—shudder to say it aloud—new money. I’d met Frank with Edna several times at the theater and dinner parties and had instantly warmed to his open smile and approachable demeanor.