Horace Greeley’s advice, “Go West, young man, go West and grow up with the country.” was far from new when he penned that in 1865. Although the “growing up with the country part” was likely construed as “make a fortune.”
What’s fascinating is that for those that did go west and make a fortune, they quickly went East. Taking their newly acquired wealth with them to put it on display. New York City was the number one wealth magnet and it ate up not a few fortunes.
Once such individual was William A. Clark. Less than twenty years after heading west and within a few years settling in Montana, he and his family were living part of the year in New York and Paris. He was a widower and empty-nester when he began the construction of his Manhattan mansion. Almost thirteen years and ten million dollars (over $200 million in current dollars) later, this was the castle he built: 
It was razed shortly after his death in 1925. Hardly a unique fate for late nineteenth and early twentieth century NYC mansions, although Clark’s may have been the costliest and shortest standing mansion to see wrecking-ball. It was both ostentatious and hideous, and like other wealth barons of his time, Clark wasn’t known for being kind and generous. There is one feature of his house is worth pondering:
…[it included] 35 servants’ rooms with men’s quarters to the east and female rooms in the western wing…
The lives of his household staff were likely not pleasant and I’m not suggesting a return to that standard. However, how many of the cooks, housekeepers, chauffeurs, nannies and all the other laborers that make the lives of NYC elites possible today, live in places far from work and subject to the worst impacts of severe weather events?
And who will be picking up the tab for the clean-up and rebuilding in locations that shouldn’t have been built on in the first place. The cost to build the Tame the Sea barriers the residents will demand? To preserve the way of life for the David Koch’s and David Rockefeller’s of NYC?
