Fifth Avenue; glances at the vicissitudes and romance of a world-renowned thoroughfare

(New York :  Printed for the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York,  1915.)

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  Page 35  



FIFTH    A V E N U E
 

35
 

From a photograph.
 

JOHN G. WENDEL HOUSE.

Northwest corner of 39th Street and Fifth Avenue
 

Copyright, 1915, by Perry Walton.
 

were the social, political and literary celebrities of the time. Having
lost his fortune in the financial crash of 1857, Mr. Waddell was obliged
to sacrifice his estate. The grounds were levelled to make way for
the growing city, and the villa, after standing less than a dozen years,
was torn down.

At the northeast  corner of 39th  Street and Fifth Avenue is the   Union
home of the Union League Club, built at a cost of $400,000 in 1879-  I^eague
1880.    The interior decorations are the work of Louis Tiffany, John   ^^^^
La Farge and Franklin Smith.    The club, organized in 1863,  "to
oppose disloyalty to the Union, to promote good Government, and
to elevate American citizenship," had been housed from 1868 until
it moved into its present quarters, in the former Jerome residence on
Madison Square.

Opposite the Union League Club, on the northwest corner of 39th   The Wendcl
Street, with a yard along Fifth Avenue, guarded by a high board   House and
fence, is an old-fashioned brick and brownstone house, dating back   ^^-^ Story
to 1856.    Three elderly sisters of the late John Gottlieb Wendel live
there amid surroundings which recall the simple days of fifty years ago.
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