Stanford White's Metropolitan Club

Stanford White was an extremely accomplished artist with a turbulent personal life...he had many friends and could be as charming as hell, yet he totally ignored his only son, whom he sent to live with his grandmother so he would not be underfoot and bother him...swore like a trooper at the drop of a hat, especially at people who worked for him..

He was a favorite architect for the elite of the Gilded Age era...such as for this club of theirs, the Metropolitan, on Fifth Avenue in the 60's...club was so exclusive it would not accept Jews no matter how rich they were...some of the club's members then withdrew and formed a new club, the Harmonie, that was non-discriminatory ( still had to be very rich though of course)..

White's skill as an architect is for instance evident here the way he just punches these little windows into the upper part of the building...and you don't notice them at all even though they are all out of proportion and scale with the design...

A jealous husband shot and killed White while he was watching a show-- " Mademoiselle Fifi"--very risque by standards of the day-- at the rooftop theater of a building he had designed...the old Madison Square garden..

Just for fun, drawing style version of building below as if it were some part of the planning process for the building...