The Rise and Fall of Gilded Age Manhattan: New York Documentary

In the 1880s, Fifth Avenue was lined with some of the most lavish private homes ever built in America: Vanderbilt palaces with imported European marble, a French chateau transplanted to 52nd Street, and a 130-room mansion that took up an entire city block. Families like the Astors and Vanderbilts used limestone and ballrooms to manufacture an American aristocracy, complete with Mrs. Astor's famous "400."