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um, the 1920s started in 1920, not 1929. ok do I really have to specify "98 years" instead of 100.
but , your quote was actually " According to Wiki, the Jewish community became centered in SH in the 1920s, definitely well past "old money" time."
You said the 1920s was well past old money time. Presumably meaning anything in the 1900s is not old money. Which is up to 118 years ago.
My definition really would be roughly anything that was made more than two generations ago, so that would be around 1960 or older. it's just that they didn't tend to build the same type of mansions in new neighborhoods then, that they did in earlier times.
You're talking about someone who is currently "old money".
Two generations before 1920, when those Squirrel Hill houses were built (some earlier) would be about 1860, a generation being about 30 years.
After looking through this thread, it's almost too hard to pick a favorite neighborhood... but I think Guilford in Baltimore might take the cake architecturally for me personally. The beauty and consistency of the architecture there is just astounding-- nearly every single house is a stunner.
I don't think your pictures are proof of "old money"; they're proof of big old houses. You don't know who built them. The original owners may well have been "new money" people rather than people with inherited wealth of several generations..
Hancock Park, West Adams, and parts of Pasadena are well known in LA for being old money. They may not be OLD MONEY like on the east coast where some cities were settled in the 1600s and 1700s. But for how new LA is as a modern city, the aforementioned neighborhoods are well known as old money by LA standards.
BTW, EVERYONE at one point was new money.
West Adams from Wiki:
West Adams is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Los Angeles, with most of its buildings erected between 1880 and 1925, including the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. West Adams was developed by railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington and wealthy industrialist Hulett C. Merritt of Pasadena. It was once the wealthiest district in the city, with its Victorian mansions and sturdy Craftsman bungalows, and a home to Downtown businessmen and professors and academicians at USC.
Hancock Park:
Hancock Park is a historic and affluent residential neighborhood in the central region of the City of Los Angeles, California. It has many mansions from the early 20th centry. Many celebrities have been known to live here. The nicest area in Hancock Park is Windsor Square. Hancock Park is built around the grounds of a private golf club...Hancock Park was developed in the 1920s by the Hancock family with profits earned from oil drilling in the former Rancho La Brea. The area owes its name to developer-philanthropist George Allan Hancock, who subdivided the property in the 1920s.[1][2] Hancock, born and raised in a home at what is now the La Brea tar pits, inherited 4,400 acres (18 km2), which his father, Major Henry Hancock had acquired from the Rancho La Brea property owned by the family of Jose Jorge Rocha.
Pasadena:
The popularity of the region drew people from across the country, and Pasadena eventually became a stop on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, which led to an explosion in growth. From the real estate boom of the 1880s until the Great Depression, as great tourist hotels were developed in the city, Pasadena became a winter resort for wealthy Easterners...
Piedmont:
According to the city's web page, "In the Roaring Twenties, Piedmont was known as the “City of Millionaires” because there were more millionaires per square mile than in any city in the United States."[10] Many of these millionaires built mansions that still stand, notably on Sea View Avenue and Sotelo Avenue/Glen Alpine Road in 'Alta' Piedmont.
I don't think your pictures are proof of "old money"; they're proof of big old houses. You don't know who built them. The original owners may well have been "new money" people rather than people with inherited wealth of several generations.
100 years? The 1920s were not quite 100 years ago, in fact, 1929 wasn't even 90 years ago. So someone came over here from Europe as an immigrant with nothing but the clothes on their back, and made enough money to build a big house in the 1920s and that makes it "old money"? There's not a lot of inherited wealth in that scenario. Sounds like "new money" to me.
While I'm at it, I'd like to say that all these pictures of big old houses are just that, big old houses. There are many similar styles.
um, the 1920s started in 1920, not 1929. ok do I really have to specify "98 years" instead of 100.
but , your quote was actually " According to Wiki, the Jewish community became centered in SH in the 1920s, definitely well past "old money" time."
You said the 1920s was well past old money time. Presumably meaning anything in the 1900s is not old money. Which is up to 118 years ago.
My definition really would be roughly anything that was made more than two generations ago, so that would be around 1960 or older. it's just that they didn't tend to build the same type of mansions in new neighborhoods then, that they did in earlier times.
Four generations of sustained wealth isn't brand spanking new money, but people who see themselves as old money often have wealth spanning back far earlier--to early America or even the colonial era.
Certain Spanish/Portuguese and German Jewish dynastic lines excepted, American Jews almost never fall into this category of old money.
Also, just to be nit-picky about the history of Jewish Pittsburgh, Jews began moving to Squirrel Hill in significant numbers in the 1920s, but the Wikipedia article notwithstanding, it didn't really supplant the Hill District until the 1940s. And even at that point, Highland Park and East Liberty were close contenders (and had Jewish enclaves of all economic backgrounds).
Grosse Pointe (Detroit), Shaker Heights (Cleveland), Ladue (St Louis), Indian Hill (Cincinnati), Wayzata (Minneapolis), Lake Forest (Chicago), Mission Hills (Kansas), are all areas long considered to be “old money”.
It should be noted that to someone in their 60s, hundred-year-old wealth really might not seem like old money, because those families were “new money” in his/her childhood.
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