Historian Keith Taillon Leads Gilded Age Walking Tour Through Downtown Manhattan

On November 1, season four of The Gilded Age premieres, prompting renewed interest in New York's Gilded Age. Historian Keith Taillon, who holds a bachelor's degree in history and a master's in urban planning, leads walking tours that explore the era's origins in Lower Manhattan. His Downtown tour begins in Greenwich Village, where he argues the Gilded Age started, rather than the Upper East Side where it 'went to die.' Taillon notes that 90% of the buildings he discusses Downtown are gone, but the area still reflects the families who defined the era. The term 'Gilded Age' was coined by Mark Twain in his 1873 book The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, mocking the thin veneer of wealth and prosperity. The era, spanning from the Civil War to World War I, saw a new wealthy class emerge from industrialization in cities like New York, Baltimore, and Boston. Taillon highlights Grace Church, built in 1846, as a surviving Gilded Age epicenter with names like Schermerhorn, Astor, and Livingston. He also shares the scandal of Evelyn Nesbit and architect Stanford White's murder by Harry Kendall Thaw. The widening of streets starting in 1911, due to automobiles, forced mansions to remove stoops and bay windows, leading the wealthy to abandon them. Taillon disputes the portrayal of old money vs. new money in the TV show, stating the real conflict played out in Murray Hill, not the Upper East Side. He offers three tours: Downtown, Midtown, and Upper East Side.