Photo Credit 9/18/24 Anderson Cooper’s Instagram
Breaking News! “Astor” a favorite read of STP-News was released this morning in paperback. The book is more than a story about an American family; it’s a cautionary tale of arrogance, greed, and lust, in other words~ It’s a book club must!
If you haven’t read it yet it’s worth picking up.
If you don’t believe this review originally published 10/5/23 would you consider this morning’s endorsement by Anderson Cooper?
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Following their success with “Vanderbilt“, Anderson Cooper and Katherine Howe have written another book together. This time the salt-and- pepper duo take on the Astors.
“Astor” explores, and in many ways explains, the fascinating place this family continues to hold in America history. It’s also a modern-day account of wealth, indulgence and dynastic arrogance.
This book not only reveals the unlikely trail of success and failures within the celebrated family, but can be more broadly interpreted as a cautionary tale of myopic ambition. Almost Greek in it’s chronicle of monumental human foibles, “Astor” is as much a social commentary on a family, as the family of all men.
Synonymous with luxury the name ‘Astor’ is culturally ubiquitous. From subway stations to swanky hotels the moniker has a mystique that transcends the iconic family and their ultimate downfall.
Recently, Cooper and Howe spoke to a full-house at the Old South Church.The sanctuary was filled with proper-Bostonians as eager to learn about the Astors as they were to scope-out the chalk-topped, boot-strutting, hunk from new York and the mahogany-haired kitten-heeled hottie from Boston’s NorthShore. The team of complimentary talents didn’t disappoint. They were engaging, funny and ohhh so thought-filled.
Together, Cooper and Howe traced the remarkable life-story of Johann Jakob Astor. With a plan to sell flutes as his livelihood, the ‘Son-of-a-Butcher’ left Waldorf, Germany for London in 1779. Four years later, Johann boarded a ship for America.
A chance meeting with a fur-trader lead the newly Americanized John Jacob Astor to envision an alternative career with his young wife. Growing success with trapping beaver and trading pelts consumed the imaginative newlyweds. With blinding ambition and eight children, Sarah and John Astor foresaw converting unsettled parts of the North American continent into ‘Astor~ia’, an empire of their own.
Transactional in all things, Astor annexed his steel-trap personality and beaver pelts into a global trading enterprise. Investing wisely, he amassed a fortune to spend on property around New York. Intellectually boorish and psychologically indifferent, the land-baron’s wealth couldn’t leverage his plan to build Astor~ia across. Instead, he built countless tenements to house immigrants teaming into Ellis Island. The campaign to shelter the masses had the unintended consequence of metaphorically trapping Astor and future generations of dilettantes into a silo for vapid snobs.
The authors explained, while the family’s legacy was fixed on financial gluttony the Astors were emotionally starved. Miserly and misanthropic they lived lives of conspicuous consumption. Situated in posh-ghettos populated by social-climbing nouveau-riche, John Jacob Astor and his heirs outwardly swaddled themselves in the finest things in life. Inwardly, they had no psycho-sociological values.
Isolated by pretense and blind ambitions the Astors seldom saw residents of the ramshackle land they owned. Generational progeny convinced themselves their family-money would never dwindle. Before it evaporated, extended relations lived in a cultural-cluster-fuck most easily understood as a social vacuum. As the moral of all Greek parables teaches, ultimately time took it’s toll on this legendary family. They couldn’t escape drowning in a sea of inflated egos, greed and lust.
The monies they earned while transforming America into a mecca of civilization morally and financially bankrupted the Astors, the way excesses of self-indulgences predictably do.
Cooper and Howe end the night in Boston’s Old South Church with a selfie and fans.
“Astor” is book-club worthy!
As America evolved, the crown of “Wealthiest Man in America” has changed heads multiple times. After the Astor’s cash was spent, Standard Oil founder John Rockefeller wore the mantle. Tech-titans, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk wrestle for the title now. The challenge for them, as it will always be, is how to bank wealth with wisdom that leads to social reform to do less transitional harm and more good than ‘Astor’ ever could.
The Luxury boutique Hotel ‘Chandler’ 117 Memorial Blvd, on Newport, Rhode Island’s famous Cliff Walk. Built as a summer ‘Cottage” for John Winthrop Chanler and his wife Margaret Astor Ward ( Great grand daughter John Jacob Astor)
Entrance to the Chanler today
580 Bellevue Ave. Newport Rhode Island “Beechwood: was the Gilded Age summer ‘Cottage’ built for Caroline Astor in 1853. It’s present owner, Oracle’s Larry Ellison , is converting it and adjacent properties into a home and museum.
Construction around Astor’s “Beechwood’ continues.
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