Description
Gracie Mansion has been the official residence of New York's mayors since 1942. This exquisite political showcase is where visiting dignitaries occupy rooms once familiar to Alexander Hamilton, Washington Irving, and John Quincy Adams. Lavishly illustrated with 150 images, including paintings and watercolors, menus and maps, invitations and elevations-and enhanced by domestic memories from Ed Koch, Mary Lindsay, and other former tenants-the book documents over 200 years of colorful life in this historic house. Through designers' sketches and before-and-after photos, the book explores the changing interior, from original furnishings to the individual tastes of many mayoral first ladies, and the splendid restoration of 2002.Written with the full cooperation of the Gracie Mansion Conservancy, this is the first anecdotal history of the house, its gardens and ghosts, and the mayors who have lived there, from Fiorello La Guardia to Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.
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With a foreword by Mayor Bloomberg and the full cooperation of the Gracie Mansion Conservancy, this book is the first-ever tribute to Gracie Mansion, New York City’s mayoral residence?from its construction as Archibald Gracie’s country home in 1799 to its importance as the home of New York City’s mayors and their families (starting with Fiorello LaGuardia in 1942) to its splendid 2002 restoration and new role as the “People’s House” under Michael R. Bloomberg. Combining a detailed architectural history of the mansion (including the Susan E. Wagner wing built by Mott B. Schmidt and the contributions of such master decorators as Albert Hadley, Mark Hampton, and Jamie Drake) with anecdotal portraits of the mayoral inhabitants, lavishly illustrated with more than 150 images (including paintings and watercolors, letters and maps, invitations and elevations, designers’ sketches and before-and-after photos), and enhanced by exclusive interviews and the recollections of those who have lived and visited there, this handsome volume will be the definitive work on a charming landmark that is more popular today than ever before.
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