BROWDERBOOKS
Evening of June 25, 1906. A fashionable crowd has gathered on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden, a vast Beaux-Arts structure at Madison Avenue and 26th Street, for the premiere of Mamzelle Champagne, a frothy musical comedy to be performed on the rooftop’s outdoor stage.
At 10:55 p.m., as the performance was nearing its conclusion, a burly redheaded gentleman of fifty with a formidable red mustache entered alone and sat at the table customarily reserved for him, five rows from the stage. Everything about him said money, power, success.
Ten minutes later a handsome younger man left his own table, walked about nervously while muttering to himself, then approached the older man’s table. As a performer onstage began singing “I Could Love a Million Girls,” three shots rang out.
A stunned silence gripped performers and audience alike. Was this a part of the performance, spectators wondered, or another of the party tricks common in fashionable circles? But the older man’s lifeless body fell to the floor, and the table overturned with a clatter.
People screamed, rose from their seats, and rushed for the exits. At the theater manager's insistence, the orchestra tried to continue playing, but the performers were frozen in horror, and the panic continued. Someone put a tablecloth over the body, and when blood soaked through, added a second one as well.
The murderer had left carrying his revolver high in the air to indicate that he was done shooting. Himself in a daze, he was easily disarmed and arrested in the lobby. “That man ruined my wife!” he exclaimed.
The next day the headlines screamed it big:
THAW KILLS STANFORD WHITE ON ROOF GARDEN
The victim was Stanford White, the most successful architect of his time, whose firm had created the Garden itself, the Washington Square Arch, and Columbia University's Low Memorial Library.
Unknown to his wife and family, he was also a connoisseur and seducer of young girls, among them the hauntingly beautiful Evelyn Nesbit.
The murderer was Harry Thaw, a Pittsburgh millionaire and man about town who had married Evelyn Nesbit. Morbidly jealous of White, he had plied his wife for details of her former relationship with White, stoking his anger to the point that it became murderous.
Trials of Thaw for murder followed (yes, more than one), Evelyn Nesbit told different versions of her story, and White's reputation was assailed by some and defended by others.
The story has many twists and turns. Thaw was mentally unstable, his version of the story questionable.
Was Evelyn a shamefully seduced victim or a dazzled, willing one?
If White was a heartless seducer, why did he continue to give Evelyn money long after he left her for other conquests?
And what happened when, years later, Hollywood made a film of the story and hired Evelyn, now long forgotten, as an adviser? And what finally became of her, the onetime “lethal beauty”?
This is just one of many stories told in Fascinating New Yorkers: Power Freaks, Mobsters, Liberated Women, Creators, Queers and Crazies.
A collection of biographical sketches of New Yorkers, some remembered and some forgotten, it is the second title of my #Wild New York series of nonfiction works about New York and New Yorkers, past and present.
A new paperback edition with a stunning front cover is now available from Amazon.
Readers won't soon forget these people. They are sometimes admirable, often shocking, and sometimes despicable, but never, never boring.
Where could they fulfill themselves better than in the wild, crazy, vastly exciting city of New York?
© 2021 Clifford Browder
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