Jewish Museum ca. 1978 When Jacob Schiff saw the design for this building, he told his daughter, Frieda, that it was "terribly conspicuous" and that it would "add to the social anti-Semitism" if she and her husband Felix Warburg, built "such an ornate house right on Fifth Avenue." Schiff was the longtime and exceedingly successful president of the German-Jewish investment banking firm Kuhn, Loeb, and Company, and his thoughts on the mansion spoke to the divide between elite Jews and Protestants in Gilded-era New York. The two groups had what was called "a nine-to-five relationship." They did business with one another because it was in their financial interest. But outside of office hours, and particularly between the 18880s and 1920s, they traveled in their own social circles. The Jewish elite formed their own social clubs, which didn't make it into the social register. And wealthy Jewish families took a vacation at the Jersey Shore while the non-Jewish elite vacationed in Newport. The separation was due in some part to choice. German Jews-mostly members of banking families- referred to themselves as "Unser Kreis," German for "Our Crowd." There was an interest in preserving cultural and religious values, and children often married within the circle. But prejudice was the greater cause. Anti-Semitism had increased with the influx of Eastern European Jews at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, and prejudiced remarks often referred to Jewish people not only as foreign but as non-white. In 1904, J.P. Morgan that he considered his firm and Barings (a British firm with a branch in New York) to be the only "white firms in New York." And Morgan's son, Jack, wrote to his relative- who was the president of the board of the American Museum of Natural History Museum- that he wouldn't go to any of the meetings if Felix Warburg was there. "I cannot stand the German Jews," he said. "In my opinion, they have made themselves impossible as associates for any white people for all time." Felix Warburg, however, was concerned neither with what his father-in-law, nor those outside the Jewish community might think of his new house. He proceeded with the design that you see in front of you, which was drafted by architect Charles P.H. Gilbert who had designed the Fletcher Mansion, just a few blocks down from the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 79th and Fifth.

Carnegie Hill residents revere their neighborhood for its proximity to Central Park as well as for its architectural treasures. Residents and visitors alike also appreciate and enjoy the diversity of Carnegie Hill’s fine homes, apartment houses, and cultural attractions, many of which lie along the stretch of Fifth Avenue known as Museum Mile.

A walk of the best tourist spots New York City's Upper East Side has to offer.

As the city expanded and the relentless churning of commerce caused New York's population to explode, the city pushed northward. As the city itself moved northward, so did its elite. They settled along the undeveloped edge of the brand new Central Park, building enormous homes and mansions to celebrate their fabulous wealth. This walk takes you through a selection of the Fifth Avenue mansions that would have once dominated the Avenue.

The New York Preservation Archive Project is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to documenting, preserving, and celebrating the history of historic preservation in New York City. The Archive Project is devoted to celebrating neglected narratives of New York historic preservation using the archives that hold these stories. This collection includes a selection of historic sites that became flashpoints of the city's preservation movement(s). For more information, visit: www.nypap.org/phd-category/places/

In 1892, 27% of the country's millionaires lived in New York, when the city only made up 2% of the country's population! Welcome to the society of the Gilded Age. This tour takes its inspiration from an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York that explores the visual culture of New York's richest residents from the mid-1870s to the start of World War One. It stops at several places, such as the old headquarters of Tiffany \&Company that are connected to the dazzling objects in the show. It also introduces you to some of the people at the center of Gilded-age society, and illuminates how-over the course of three decades- the city transformed more rapidly than ever before. It was during this time that New York became a world capital on par with London and Paris. Before the 1870s the lives of the rich and the places they frequented had been more private and understated. By the 1890s they were public and over the top: Simple brownstones gave way to French chateaux, cluttered dry good stores became palatial department stores; and grand hotels and restaurants became premiere places to entertain, outside the home. Even if shoes are more comfortable now than they were in the Gilded Age, you may find it tiring to walk this tour from beginning to end. So feel free to split it up!

Fifth Avenue alongside Central Park is one of New York's most recognizable locales. This walk focuses on the institutions that lend this turf its name: the Museum Mile!