On February 2, 1991, I bought my first copy of American Heritage and thoroughly enjoyed your historical article on the banking industry in the United States. I admired it on two professional levels. First, as a Wall Street lawyer in the banking industry, I was intellectually touched by the subject matter. Second, I admired the clear, fluid writing. It is an especially pleasant and refreshing respite in my environment, where I am frequently surrounded by the opposing counsel’s brackish verbosity. Their swampy writing style results in confused, ambiguous legal product and makes me a strong advocate of your style to the thirty attorneys in my department.
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January 2011
The article “Prescott’s War” startled me while I was reading your February/ March issue, as Linzee Prescott was a 1942 member of my 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment Intelligence Platoon— later to be part of the 82d Airborne Division. He was quite a bit off the wall even then, but the regimental commander, Col. James M. Gavin, was always high on Prescott’s artwork as a morale booster, and he was a regular contributor to our raunchy unit newspaper, The Static Line .
American Heritage is must reading. It brings momentum, relevance, and perspective to the issues of the day. I never miss reading it. It’s an important contribution to literature, and I am delighted that Forbes is publishing it.
Archibald Gracie, a man accustomed to getting what he wanted, was one of a remarkable coterie of aggressive merchants who in the early nineteenth century helped make New York City the commercial capital of the United States. Scottish-born, the son of a weaver, Gracie had clerked for a London shipping firm and acquired a part interest in a ship. In 1784, not yet thirty, he sailed to America in charge of a full cargo of goods whose profits went directly into his pocket. With this windfall he helped form a mercantile company in New York, then transferred to Petersburg, Virginia, where he made a bundle trading tobacco. Back in New York in 1793 he went into business as a commissary merchant and shipowner. A friend of Alexander Hamilton and John Jay and a member of the Tontine Association, which supervised the trading of stocks, active in insurance and banking affairs, Gracie was one of the most powerful men in town. Although he maintained a principal residence near his office downtown, he presently began looking for a spot in the outlying countryside on which to build a suitable summer home.
Staten Island’s Alice Austen House, though delightful for its own sake, occupies a special place among New York’s great historic properties in that it commemorates, and is imbued with the spirit of, a woman who devoted her life to taking photographs in which she chronicled, with rare skill and perception, the world around her that she knew best. And what gives her story special poignancy is that both her house and her astonishing collection of some three thousand photographs just barely missed being lost entirely to posterity.
Since the houses are administered by different organizations, call them directly for more information or directions and to confirm their hours, which can change. THE PIETER CLAESEN WYCKOFF THE VAN GORTLANDT HOUSE THE MORRIS-JUMEL MANSION GRACIE MANSION
HOUSE MUSEUM
Clarendon Road at Ralph Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11203 (718-629-5400). Hours: Friday through Sunday, noon to 5:00 P.M.
Van Cortlandt Park, Broadway and 242d Street, Bronx, NY 10471 (212-543-3344). Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 11:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. ; Sunday, 1:00 to 5:00 P.M.
1765 Jumel Terrace, at 160th Street, New York, NY 10032 (212-923-8008). Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
Eighty-ninth Street and East End Avenue, New York, NY 10028 (212-570-4747). Hours: tours by appointment Monday through Thursday.