Benkard Mansion - SW Cor. 5th Ave and W 15th Street NYC - 1865

(Image above) The Benkard Mansion, Later the Manhattan Club House. S.W. Cor. Fifth Ave. and 15th Street - 1865 - Watercolor by Abraham Hosier  - From the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York -

http://collections.mcny.org/Collection/The-Benkard-Mansion,-Later-the-Manhattan-Club-House.-S.W.-Cor.-Fifth-Ave.-and-15th-Street-2F3XC58TL2RL.html

This is a companion image from the building in the 1850s that Mrs. Charles Parker ran society from, a generation before the so-called “The” Mrs. Astor of the 1880s and 1890s and her list of “400”. 

Supposedly it was this building in Brownstone that made that building material the desired sheathing for all future upper middle class and rich gilded age New Yorkers.

In their day, Mrs. Charles Parker on the SW corner of 5^th Ave and 15^th Street was a competing society swan with Mrs. R. K. Haight in the Haight mansion opposite on the SE corner of 5^th Ave and 15^th Street.

Also home of the Manhattan Club from 1865 to 1890.

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