The Washington herald., 1911-03-26

Wall street is the place where New
Workers make money the fastest but
it has its counterpart uptown in a sec
ton of a street equally limited in ex-
tent where money is spent with equal
facility and rapidity. This is not as might
be expected part of Broadway or Fifth
avenue but the portion of Forty-fourth
street lying between the two more fam
GUS thoroughfares. Within this narrow
space, two blocks in extent foregather
every day men and women whose in
dividual yearly incomes surpass the larg-
est fortunes of a hundred years ago.
What the total of their combined for
tunes may be no one has attempted TO
estimate. but it must be so large as to
reckoned only in billions.
In the part of Forty-fourth street just
mentioned, are many of the resorts where
these money princes take their pleasure.
1t is the home of clubdom, of great
hotels, and luxurious restaurants, where
during the season there is a continual
succession of dinners. luncheons, suppers,
and balls, in the giving of which cost is
not considered, except to outdo some
previous entertainment in lavish extray-
agance. Among the wealthy and ex-
elusive clubs that line this street. with
valuation anywhere between 81, 600
and s1o,OO0,0O0 each, is the St Nicholas,
which admits no one who is not the des-
cendant of 4 New Yorker resident in
the city prior to 17S5. Membership in
this organization is almost the only
thing on FOrty-fourth street that money
cannot buy. Nothing but conclusive
proof of descent from the old city
fathers obtain admission, and names like
those of Van Rensselaer,, Astor, Living
str paVSfor nd mt
dominate its register.
Not far away, though fronting on the
next street, is the Racquet Club, the
favorite resort of wealthy sporting men.
Among its eight hundred members are
the Vanderbilts, from William X. to
Reginald, the Goulds, John Jacob and
William Waldorf Astor, Clarence H
Mackay, Payne Whitney, the Belmonts,
and many others in the same set, to
whom $1,000 supper is a matter of no
moment whatever. The money spent an
nually on sport by the members of this
club is estimated at more than 5000, 900.
Most of these men also belong to the
New York Yacht Club, which occupies
n magnificent building close by, and
counts ]. P. Morgan c. Oliver Iselin.
Lewis Cass Ledyard, and many others
Of wealth and prominence among its
members. No less than s5o,000.OO0 is repre-
sented in the yachts owned by members
OF this club.
Houses of Famous Clubs.
The clubhouses of Harvard and Yale
occupy opposite sides of the street and
close by are the Academy of Medicine
and the building occupied by the Bar
Association, Upon the rolls of these
associations and the college clubs are to
be found the names of some of the
brightest men in the nation, such as
Theodore Roosevelt, Elihu Root, Joseph
Choate, Paul d. Cravath. William Ira
vers Jerome, and the most prominent
medical men in the country, men who
earn their fortunes by the practice of
their profession. judges, Congressman,
diplomats, and statesmen who are known
all over the Union.
In this street, too. is the home Of the
Lambs. Some of them are wealthy, but
more are richer in brains than in money.
though they spend the latter when they
have IT with an open-handedness equal to
that OF any of the millionaires around
them. The City Club, where many of
the important reform movements that
have influenced the political history of
New York have had their inception. is
located in Forty-fourth street. ana al
most across from it is the Phi Gamma
Delta Club, made up of members of that
college fraternity.
At opposite ends of these two short
blocks. In which is concentrated SO mnch
OF the lavish expenditure OF wealthy New
Workers, are located three Of the most
celebrated establishments in the country