Landlords, as John Stuart Mill (whose statue is in Embankment Gardens) put it, grow rich in their sleep. To some extent John Jacob Astor I was merely a rogue of his time, behaving no differently to other magnates across the industrialising world with its newly urbanised and exploited working class. Land was bought up with characteristic opportunism on the cheap with little effective governance. Typically, he owned a number of lots within a neighbourhood, a series of perhaps five or six contiguous blocks. On each block, he would improve a few lots by building houses, digging wells, and putting in through streets. Then these lots and buildings were sold, and as the neighbourhood gained population, the value of Astor’s remaining lots rose in value. The long-held Astor motto “Buy and Hold, let others Improve” was the ultimate statement of the indifferent landlord. Much of Astor’s New York land was covered in tenement blocks, covering as much of 90% of each plot with the inevitable result of lack of light and air. These were fire traps and their lack of sanitation sent hundreds into city cemeteries.
William Waldorf’s grandfather took their property ownership in New York to the next level. In this period, the mid-19th Century, tenements were an average of six stories high and 25 feet wide and were planned to house 24 families each. Waterfront rights on the Hudson river were effectively handed over by a corrupt city leadership to the big new real estate owners for mere pennies. This period is rich with anecdotes about New York city corruption and mismanagement, at substantial cost to the mid-19th century poor. This is the New York of Herbert Asbury’s “Gangs of New York”, which it should be remembered is a non-fiction book despite getting the Martin Scorsese film treatment. The issue of slavery was then a great strain and stain on the wider US but plays no role in the Astor fortune. That was made in New York as slum landlord to the extraordinary volume of European immigrants.
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