To “Fifth Avenue” is owed the following description of the neighbourhood of the present Plaza in the middle of the last century.  It is from the reminiscences of John D. Crimmins, who has been already quoted in the course of this book.  Mr. Crimmins’s father was a contractor and at one time in the employ of Thomas Addis Emmet, whose country-seat was on the Boston Post Road near Fifty-ninth Street.

[Illustration:  SOUTH OF WHERE “ST. GAUDENS’S HERO, GAUNT AND GRIM, RIDES ON WITH VICTORY LEADING HIM,” MAY BE SEEN THE FOUNTAIN OF ABUNDANCE, AND, IN THE BACKGROUND, THE NEW PLAZA HOTEL]

Says Mr. Crimmins:  “In the immediate vicinity were the country-seats of other prominent New Yorkers, such as the Buchanans, who were the forebears of the Goelets, the Adriance, Jones, and Beekman families, the Schermerhorns, Hulls, Setons, Towles, Willets, Lenoxes, Delafields, Primes, Rhinelanders, Lefferts, Hobbs, Rikers, Lawrences, and others.  A little farther to the north were the country-seats of the Goelets, Gracies, and the elder John Jacob Astor.  With all these people, who were practically the commercial founders of our city, my father had an acquaintance.  The wealthy merchants of New York at that period frequently invested their surplus in outlying property and left its care largely in the hands of my father, who opened up estates, as he did the Anson Phelps place in the vicinity of Thirtieth Street, which ran north and extended from the East River to Third Avenue.  He also opened up the Cutting and other large estates.  When I was a lad, as I was the oldest son, my father would take me to the residences of these gentlemen, several of whom had their permanent homes on Fifth Avenue or in the vicinity.  At that period, these wealthy citizens conducted much of their business at their homes.  James Lenox had his office in the basement of his house at Fifth Avenue and Twelfth Street.  R.L.  Stuart attended to much of his business at his residence, Twentieth Street and Fifth Avenue, and the same may be said of the Costers, Moses Taylor, and others.  These men had no hesitation in receiving in their homes after business hours the people whom they employed.  I remember distinctly before gas was generally introduced how very economical in its use those who had it were.  In the absence of the butler the gentleman of the house would often walk to the door with his visitor and then lower the gas.  The estates of many of these wealthy merchants were rented to market gardeners.  And it was not an unusual sight to see a merchant drive in his carriage to the vegetable garden, select his vegetables, and carry them to his table, showing the economy and simple manners of the people of that older day as compared with our present extravagance.