NYC free hotel for millionaires who lost their fortunes (Lee: credit, houses)

[Henna]

Yup, this place actually existed back in the day.

Andrew Freedman built a huge mansion/hotel in the Bronx that where anyone who used to be rich but had lost their wealth could stay for free. The only rule was you had to prove you used to have a fortune.

It's right on the Grand Concourse, across from the Bronx Art Museum and up the street from the court house.

From Wikipedia:

During the Panic of 1907, Andrew Freedman, a self-made millionaire, came to the realization that he almost lost his entire fortune. He feared what would have happened to him in his later life without his wealth. As a result, he developed the idea of a charitable trust to build a home for older individuals who had lost their fortunes, where they could live in their retirements.

The Home could accommodate 130 residents at a time. Although the first guests to move into the Home did not have the intended cultural background, many wealthy individuals who lost their fortunes in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 moved into the Home in the 1930s. After World War II, various Jews of European descent moved into the home.

At dinner, formal dress was a requirement. People were forbidden to sleep on couches or put their feet on the furniture in the public areas.






NYC has a lot of strange history!

[SeventhFloor]

Thats cool! I believe this place is at the corner of the Grand Concourse and 166th Street.

[Merrily Gather]

Nice. A poor house for the upper class.

[Henna]

Originally Posted by Merry Lee Gather

Nice. A poor house for the upper class.

A lot of poor houses required a work component, like farming. This one you just had to work to remember not to put your shoes on the coffee table while lounging around in the parlor!

[macnyc2003]

Along the same lines, there was a home for "respectable aged indigent females." The building is now a youth hostel.

From the web page:

In the early 19th century, women who were born to affluent families and who subsequently married “well” could expect lives of comfort in fine homes, catered to by servants. They could expect such things as long as their husbands survived.

Quite often a gentleman’s entire estate would pass to his eldest son while sometimes, but not always, allowing his wife to continue living in the house and using his carriage and horses. Just as often the widow was left to the compassion of her family and creditors. Women who months before had worn silk dresses and attended the theatre in pearls found themselves essentially penniless.

In 1814, in response to the large amount of needy widows subsequent to the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, the Association for the Relief of Respectable Aged Indigent Females was founded. Many citizens found the entire concept unfounded. “The alms-house was thought to be the suitable provision for all those who must be supported by charity,” according to a later association report.

The group, however, perservered, endeavoring to promote the welfare of “those who have been born and bred under happier auspices, many accustomed to the refinement of affluence, and all of a class too respectable in their connections and associations in earlier life, and too worthy in themselves, to be the proper subjects of the common alms house.”

http://http://daytoninmanhattan.blog...-indigent.html