Greed & Its Rewards (SIN SERIES) - Hardcover

Drew Fetherston

9780966957334: Greed & Its Rewards (SIN SERIES)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0966957334 ISBN 13: 9780966957334

Publisher: Red Rock Press, 2000

A romp through history and culture to offer engrossing tidbits about wealth gods, gold rushes and speculation fevers from the South Sea Bubble to today's dot.com sweepstakes.

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About the Author:

Two-time Pulitzer finalist Drew Fetherston is a Newsday business columnist and former Wall Street Journal reporter. His last book was The Chunnel.

Many of the rich have sought some sort of immortality in architecture. Louis XIV had pragmatic reasons for building Versailles-all those courtiers, all that state business-but it's hard to imagine what necessity dictated the Gilded Age extravagances that once lined New York's Fifth Avenue and Newport's waterfront.

One small detail can give an idea of the luxuries that were their hallmark: When financier Thomas F. Ryan built his 50-plus-room Fifth Avenue mansion about a century ago, his wife understandably wanted a rose garden. Ryan bought the adjoining and very opulent Yerkes mansion and tore it down to make room for a garden. He left a $50,000 marble staircase standing, though, as a trellis. Ryan was proud of his thrift. "That sort of thing can run into money if you build it from scratch," he said of his rose arbor.

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