> Troy, New York City Gilded Age twins.
Similarities make Collar City a natural to mirror the Big Apple
If Isaiah Townsend Burden strolled north from Washington Park up Second Street to Monument Square today, the Gilded Age industrialist and financier who was one of three city residents counted among the socially elite “Astor 400” would find the streetscape comfortably familiar after 140 years.
“He would recognize a lot of it today,” said Kathy Sheehan, the city of Troy historian and the Rensselaer County historian based at the Hart Cluett Museum at 57 Second St.
For HBO’S “The Gilded Age,” location scouts and production designer Bob Shaw the trip up the Hudson River to find a stand-in for 1882 New York City was to step back into the actual Gilded Age they were searching for as the backdrop of Julian Fellowes’ 10-part dramatic series. Filming wrapped up Wednesday with scenes at Oakwood Cemetery.
Troy and New York City shared a common 19th century experience of growing population and soaring wealth. Commerce spurred their growth as
New York City grew as an international seaport and Troy as a shipping center linking the west via the Erie Canal and New York City south down the Hudson.
Industry would follow. The Burden Iron Works, founded by Burden’s father, Henry Burden, would be local creator of wealth and jobs.
“He inherited his father’s wealth and took it all to a new level,” Sheehan said.
That next step was into the New York social elite for Burden. His wife, Evelyn Byrd Moale Burden, and their daughter Evelyn B. Burden were the other two residents counted among the Astor 400. This social grouping is part of Fellowes’ “The Gilded Age,” and the 400 is supposedly the number of fashionable people in society then. The social group was led by Caroline Astor, who was known as Mrs. Astor. Some other prominent members of the group included John Jacob Astor IV, Hamilton Fish Jr., Ogden and Ruth Livingston Mills, and Cornelius Vanderbilt II and his wife Alice Claypoole Gwynne Vanderbilt.
Troy became New York City’s stand-in due to its 19th-century architecture surviving with block after block intact, like that stretch of six blocks from Washington Park to Monument Square. When the scouts arrived at Sheehan’s office several years ago they walked away not only with a location for filming, but also with insightful knowledge of what was available to bring Fellowes’ creation to life.
Shaw said Sheehan and historians at other locations used in the filming provided detailed information about the local area and period. The Collar City and the Big Apple’s 19th-century history mirrored each other including Dutch roots. New York began as a Dutch trading port in the 17th century while Troy grew from the 18th-century farm of Jacob Vanderheyden, who donated land for the county courthouse and other municipal sites.
“The Gilded Age” staff was looking for upscale office space, homes, tenement housing and concert hall space circa 1882. “We filled the bill on all of them,” Sheehan said.
Fellowes, who also created the popular dramatic series “Downton Abbey,” is known for his attention to historic detail. “The Gilded Age” is set in late 19th century New York several decades before the action of “Downton Abbey,” which opened with news of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. The show portrayed the lives of British aristocrats through the late 1920s. There is expected to be a crossover between the two series. Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Carrie Coon and Denée Benton are in the new show, according to HBO’S synopsis.
There are only two privately owned ornamental parks in New York state. There’s Gramercy Park in Manhattan and Washington Park in Troy. You need a key to get into either one. Jim Martin, president of Washington Park Association, and its board welcomed the production company throwing open its gate and seeing filming taking place around the park. Both parks were created in the 1840s as exclusive real estate projects.
Tenement housing was created a few blocks away between the park and the site of Reed’s Alley at the foot of Prospect
Park. Reed’s Alley was Troy’s equivalent to Five Points, the notorious crime-ridden slum in lower Manhattan.
When it comes to judging criminals, New York City had its Tweed Courthouse. Troy provided the Rensselaer County Court House with its grand ceremonial courtroom to step in.
And Oakwood Cemetery in Troy’s Lansingburgh neighborhood filled in for funeral and related scenes that could have taken place in Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Both opened around mid-century and were the preferred burial sites for the wealthy and famous.
The Troy Savings Bank Music Hall on Second Street provided the theater space need for filming.
Monument Square provided a concentration of buildings for filming. “It did great as the stand-in for New York. We have concentrations of buildings,” Sheehan said.
While HBO has not yet announced a second season for “The Gilded Age,” scouts were at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs looking at it as a possible location showing the 19thcentury millionaires at play during the summer racing season.
Troy residents and businesses are ready for another visit from the HBO production. Sheehan observed, “There’s a lot of vintage and unused body of building they can choose from for the next phase.”