Gilded Age Mansions
Between roughly 1870 - 1900, industrialization sparked a rapid expansion of the American economy, resulting in a period of opulent wealth known as the Gilded Age. Industry tycoons who profited from the booming steel, oil, and railroad industries built extravagant houses across the country, yet the highest concentration of these Gilded Age mansions lined 5th Ave in New York City. Despite the money, ingenuity and craftsmenship that went into constructing this monumental architecture, many no longer exist today, leaving little to no trace of their existence in the everchanging New York City landscape.
Gilded Age Mansions of New York City is a data visualization project that investigates the rise and fall of these pieces of American history using open source data[1]. The project consists of two parts—a static infographic that could be used for print, and a corresponding website that allows a user to interact with the same data. Together, these visualizations highlight interesting correlations between each mansion’s location, the architect that designed it, and it’s current preservation status. A corresponding map allows readers to locate mansions that still exist today and identify the locations where demolished houses used to be.
