An Old Fifth Avenue House
Former Residence of the Late James Lenox
James Lenox was born in New York in 1800, and was the son of Robert Lenox, a wealthy Scotch merchant. He graduated from Columbia College in 1820 and entered upon a business life, but on the death of his father in 1839 he retired and devoted the rest of his life to study and works of benevolence. The collection of books and works of art became his absorbing passion, and eventually he gathered about him the largest and most valuable private collection of books and paintings in America. In 1870 he built the present Lenox Library. The collection of bibles is believed to be unequaled even by those in the British Museum, and that of Americana and Shakespeareana greater than that of any other American library, in some respects surpassing those in Europe. He conveyed the whole property to the City of New York. He was the founder and the benefactor of the Presbyterian Hospital.
Another Old Fifth Avenue House
Former Residence of the Late Robert B. Minturn
Prior to the Civil War, the principal merchants and bankers were among the most prominent men in the city. The multimillionaire had not then appeared. The ships of Howland & Aspinwall, N. L. & G. Griswold, A. A. Low & Brother, and Grinnell, Minturn & Co. carried the flag to the farthest quarters of the globe, where their owners’ credit stood second to none. For speed the American clipper was unsurpassed. These “vessels performed wonderful feats—as when the Flying Cloud ran from New York to San Francisco, making 433¼ statute miles in a single day; or the Sovereign of the Seas sailed for ten thousand miles without tacking or wearing; or the Dreadnought made the passage from Sandy Hook to Queenstown in nine days and seventeen hours.”[17]