The Gilded Age in New York City, much like contemporary New York, was full of opulence, power, and wealth. A Walk Through Gilded New York is a mobile app I worked on with the Museum of the City of New York. We visited 16 key locations throughout New York City, and I rephotographed them, doing my best to match the angle and perspective of the archival images.
Download the app A Walk Through Gilded New York from the Apple Store or Google Play, and you’ll learn about how the famous families such as the Astors, Carnegies, the Fricks and the Vanderbilts held lavish parties, financed iconic buildings and mansions and founded cultural institutions. Some of the structures are long gone, but most are among the treasures of New York City architecture that make the city a vibrant place to explore. In addition to the app, you can view all of my images here or click on the locations below.
I chose to capture all of the images digitally with a tilt shift lens mounted onto my Nikon. Then in post, I worked to warp the images over the vintage photographs to match the perspective and angle more closely.
It's fascinating to see all the differences in the city but also how so much would be recognizable to a person of that era. It's precisely this layering of histories that makes the experience of walking in a city like New York so pleasurable. In spending so much time with each location, it was great to slow down and notice the differences all the while imagining the photographers of that era lugging around their large cameras, setting them up and making the pictures.
Actress Grace Gummer narrates the tour. The app curated and written by Jessica Lautin and produced by Acoustiguide for the Museum of the City of New York.
The Siegel-Cooper department store
The Metropolitan Club
Cornelius Vanderbilt II Mansion
James B. Duke House
The Metropolitan Museum
William K. Vanderbilt Mansion
Mrs. William B. Astor House
Metropolitan Opera House
Waldorf Astoria
The Plaza Hotel
Andrew Carnegie Mansion
JP Morgan House
Henry Clay Frick House
Felix Warburg Mansion
Lord and Taylor
Tiffany & Co., Union Square Flagship Store