When the Astors Owned New York by Justin Kaplan

Yet while they helped to transform the very idea of the hotel into an ostentatious showcase for the lifestyles of the extremely wealthy, the Astor scions maintained the tradition of their dynasty’s founder by also serving as the city’s leading slumlords. Together, they created the original Waldorf=Astoria, which debuted in 1897 as the world’s most opulent hotel, but their fragile alliance soon shattered as the cousins engaged in a continuing struggle of competitive extravagance that produced such luxurious establishments as the Hotel Astor (William) and the St. William Waldorf (1848–1919) was a rigidly disciplined intellectual and collector of fine art who eventually immigrated to England. John Jacob (1854–1912), better known as Jack, was tagged in the newspapers with the sobriquet “Jack Ass,” thanks to his knack for political blunders, social faux pas and a habit of running the family’s mammoth 250-foot yacht aground or into other vessels.

They inherited a family feud along with their fortunes, exacerbated by their divergent temperaments. Great-grandsons of America’s first millionaire, and prototypical scions of America’s Gilded Age, the two men left enduring marks on their native New York City’s architecture, high society and especially on the business of luxury hotels that they all but defined. National Book Award–winning biographer Kaplan ( Walt Whitman, 1980, etc.) tells a tale of two cousins, William Waldorf Astor and John Jacob Astor IV.

When the Astors Owned New York by Justin Kaplan