Business & Economics

The name Waldorf Astoria conjures images of Gilded Age opulence for the elite and the personalities that illuminated the Gilded Age in New York. Visit the old location on Fifth and 33rd and the current day incarnation on Park Avenue.

Famed throughout the world, New York's Waldorf Astoria is quite simply the grandest of all grand hotels. Host to emperors, rajahs, potentates, and plutocrats—not to mention every US president since Grover Cleveland—its name has become synonymous with the epitome of glamour, luxury, and sophistication. The name Waldorf Astoria applied to two different but equally magnificent hotels. The first was the connecting Hotel Waldorf and Astoria Hotel operating at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West Thirty-third Street. It was a Gilded Age pleasure dome created by the Astor family for New York's social elite. The second and present Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue is the ultimate expression of Gotham's Jazz Age extravagance. Vintage photographs herein record the architecture, decoration, and history of these two extraordinary establishments as well as the outsized personalities who created and dwelt within them.

Chronicling the visual history of the design, construction and launch of the lunar module - one of the most historic machines in human history.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced his plans for landing a man on the moon by 1970 - despite the fact that the United States had a total of just 15 minutes of spaceflight experience up to that point. With that announcement, the space race had officially begun. In 1962, after a strenuous competition, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation of Bethpage, Long Island, had won the contract to build the lunar module - the spacecraft that would take Americans to the moon. This was the first and only vehicle designed to take humans from one world to another.

Although much has been written about the first men to set foot on the moon, those first hesitant steps would not have been possible without the efforts of the designers and technicians assigned to Project Apollo. Building Moonships: The Grumman Lunar Module tells the story of the people who built and tested the lunar modules that were deployed on missions as well as the modules that never saw the light of day.

Plainview–Old Bethpage presents an intriguing story of two vibrant Long Island communities that share a colorful 300-year-old history.

They were once quaint farming communities that almost overnight found themselves facing seismic cultural changes. In just 10 years, from 1950 to 1960, the combined population of Plainview and Old Bethpage soared from 2,000 to over 33,000. Plainview–Old Bethpage presents a journey back in time to the Native Americans, the settlers who followed, the farmers who worked the land, and the thousands who came to make a better life for their families. Discover why every town surrounding Plainview–Old Bethpage has a railroad station but it does not. Read about the resident who raised a Confederate flag during the Civil War and drew the ire of his neighbors. Ride along with race car drivers as they hurtle along dirt roads at breakneck speed. Learn about the deadly brawl on Election Day in 1890, the infamous Plainview kidnapper who got the electric chair, and a local company's role in molding a national memorial to Vietnam veterans.

The story of John Larkin, Buffalo businessman, and his soap company that was one largest mail -order companies in America and left the legacy of Larkinville.

Born at 13 Clinton Street in Buffalo in 1845, John D. Larkin went on to become one of the most successful businessmen Buffalo has ever had. Developing from his experience in the soap industry with his brother-in-law Justus Weller in Buffalo and Chicago, the Larkin Company, established in 1875, became one of the dominant mail-order businesses in America. In 1885, Larkin and his wife's brother, Elbert Hubbard, promoted The Larkin Idea, which brought the business a national customer base through Factory to Family direct sales. At the height of the company, 90,000 Larkin Secretaries established clubs to bring Larkin soap and other products to women in their neighborhoods. This system of secretaries and clubs created an external promotional engine unlike any other previously known. The company closed in 1967, leaving its mammoth footprint in Buffalo's Hydraulic neighborhood, now aptly called Larkinville.

IBM is heir to all the ideas for innovative ciphering machines of the past.

From granite blocks used to tell time, to beads used for accounting purposes, to punch cards, to computer chips as small as a raindrop, all are the historical roots of this corporate legend. IBM began with a small group of visionaries whose first factory was in a dismal garret in Binghamton, New York. By the time the Bundy Manufacturing Company relocated to Endicott, New York, it was part of the greatest industrial revolution in the world: the birth of computing technology. IBM in Endicott illustrates the development of a corporation and the people and ideas that made IBM a household word. With the city of Endicott at the epicenter of progress, IBM grew from a small company named Bundy Manufacturing, incorporated in 1889, to the company known as International Business Machines. Pictured are just a few of the notable moments during some of the golden years of Big Blue.

Along with the Dodgers and Prospect Park, the Abraham & Straus department store was a legendary piece of Brooklyn's history and identity.

From Abraham Abraham's modest store of 1865, A&S developed into one of America's largest department stores, eventually becoming a charter member of the powerful Federated Department Stores Corporation in 1929. Known for unparalleled customer and employee loyalty, the stores rode a wave of demographic and economic changes. Today, the former Fulton Street Abraham & Straus operates as a Macy's and remains one of America's last downtown department stores. Author, historian and lecturer Michael J. Lisicky chronicles the rise and fall of Brooklyn's iconic store.

Schenectady’s General Electric Realty Plot was formed in 1899 when the General Electric (GE) Company purchased 70 acres of land from prestigious Union College.

This move provided unique housing opportunities for its executives and scientists and attracted brilliant minds from around the world to work for GE. The original 178 homes were designed by leading architects from as far away as Boston, New York City, and Chicago. The neighborhood, colloquially known as “The Plot,” would also become home to political and religious leaders, businesspeople, and entertainment elite. Inhabited by luminaries such as Charles Proteus Steinmetz, 1932 Nobel Prize winner Irving Langmuir, Ernst Alexanderson, and William D. Coolidge, the GE Realty Plot was also home to many important historic firsts, including the first demonstration of radar in the United States and the first reception of a television signal in a house.

Devour this delectable, surprising history of one of America's most beloved confectioners with first-hand accounts and stories.

In 1898, Switzerland's Nestlé Company was searching for a location to build its first milk processing plant in the United States. Upstate New York's bountiful dairy farms sealed the deal for a factory in Fulton. Soon another Swiss company requested space at the factory to produce a confection that had taken Europe by storm: the milk chocolate bar. Over the next century, factory technicians invented classic treats including the Nestlé Crunch Bar, Toll House Morsels and Nestlé Quik. With 1,500 workers churning out 1 million pounds of candy per day, Fulton became known as the city that smelled like chocolate. Author Jim Farfaglia recounts the delectable history of Nestlé in Fulton.

Possessed with a spirit of optimism and an innate gift for retailing savvy, entrepreneur William T. Grant revolutionized the nation’s retailing industry with the 1906 debut of his W.T. Grant Company department store in Lynn, Massachusetts. Taking aim at the lucrative yet untapped middle ground between the discount five-and-dime variety stores and traditional department stores of the era, he built a well-deserved reputation as the store “Known for Values.” Grants quickly became one of the nation’s fastest-growing and most beloved department store chains, encompassing 1,238 stores in forty-six states at its height in 1972. While the Grants stores are now just a fond memory, the legacy of William T. Grant continues to be remembered today, along with the vibrant philanthropic nonprofit William T. Grant Foundation, which he started in 1936.

Discover the transformation of the small community of Breslau, built by German immigrants, to the vibrant village of Lindenhurst, New York.

The 1867 advent of the South Side Railroad provided the transportation infrastructure for a new Long Island community conceived by Irish immigrant Thomas Welwood and Prussian immigrant Charles Schleier. Specifically marketed to German immigrants, the city of Breslau was dedicated in 1870. Welwood and Schleier encouraged business and manufacturing growth, providing local employment and economic stability. The gentlemen planned a model community, but their business dealings were not as harmonious and ended in years of litigation. Although thriving, in 1891, the community sought to discard the name Breslau, and residents chose the name Lindenhurst, honoring the proliferation of local linden trees. In the early 20th century, local business prospered, the population blossomed, and the community built by German immigrants strove to demonstrate their American patriotism when the United States joined the war against Germany.

Visit historic Sag Harbor on Long Island, through whaling village to homes in the National Register and home to writers and artists.

A prosperous deepwater shipping port on the south shore of Long Island, Sag Harbor was in its heyday as a whaling village in the early 1800s. By 1850, whaling was unprofitable, petroleum had been discovered, and the 1849 Gold Rush led to an exodus. As Sag Harbor fell into economic decline, the arrival of the railroad helped reinvigorate it as a factory town, bringing Fahys Watchcase, Alvin Silver, Bliss torpedo testing, and Bulova, until those industries shuttered. The silver lining to Sag Harbor's boom and bust has been the preservation of its heritage. The grand homes of captains and whaleship owners, tradesmen's cottages, and factory houses were untouched for years, attracting a wave of artists, writers, and weekenders. This fine collection of 18th- and 19th-century homes and public buildings placed the village in the National Register of Historic Places, drawing tourists to walk in the footsteps of Native Americans, colonists, whalers, and resident-writers James Fenimore Cooper and John Steinbeck and to visit the village's war monuments and museums and charming Main Street.

White Plains in the 20th Century explores the community's growth as the county seat of Westchester through historic images that span a century.

White Plains, located about 25 miles north of New York City, is the county seat of Westchester County and the birthplace of New York State. Its central location in Westchester made White Plains the hub of 18th-century stagecoach roads that ran from New York City to upstate New York and Connecticut. After the Revolutionary War and a famous battle, White Plains continued to grow into a large village connected to the city by train; its population exploded in the first decade of the 20th century thanks to European immigrants. In the 1920s, the population grew again, with professionals and commuters filling the new house and apartment developments created during a real estate boom. The city’s last growth spurt was during the post–World War II baby boom, when urban renewal transformed the city into an imposing urban landscape. Through it all, White Plains has been a city with a diverse population in an affluent suburban county with strong governmental, business, educational, cultural, and commercial institutions.

Briarcliff Lodgeis a record of a New York landmark that disappeared from the landscape in a spectacular fire in September 2003.

When it opened in 1902, Briarcliff Lodgewas America's premier resort hotel. Located some thirty miles north of New York City, this magnificent Tudor-style building was surrounded by dairy barns and greenhouses, all built by Walter Law, the laird of Briarcliff Manor.

Here, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were hosted, as were Tallulah Bankhead, Johnny Weissmuller, Jimmy Walker, Babe Ruth, and other luminaries. The hotel business declined in the 1930s, here and at other nearby resorts, but Briarcliff Lodgecontinued in use as the home of the Edgewood Park Schoolfrom 1936 to 1954 and as the King's Collegefrom 1955 to 1994.

Rob Yasinsac is a lifelong Westchester County resident who documents neglected historic sites throughout the Hudson Valleyin an attempt to save them. He works for Historic Hudson Valley, serves as a trustee on the boards of the Westchester Countyand Irvington Historical Societies, and is a member of numerous other historical organizations.

Possessed with a spirit of optimism and an innate gift for retailing savvy, entrepreneur William T. Grant revolutionized the nation’s retailing industry with the 1906 debut of his W.T. Grant Company department store in Lynn, Massachusetts. Taking aim at the lucrative yet untapped middle ground between the discount five-and-dime variety stores and traditional department stores of the era, he built a well-deserved reputation as the store “Known for Values.” Grants quickly became one of the nation’s fastest-growing and most beloved department store chains, encompassing 1,238 stores in forty-six states at its height in 1972. While the Grants stores are now just a fond memory, the legacy of William T. Grant continues to be remembered today, along with the vibrant philanthropic nonprofit William T. Grant Foundation, which he started in 1936.

For more than 150 years, Finger Lakes Wine Country has played a major role in American wine history.

At its heart are the four deepest Finger Lakes, part of a group of 11 long, narrow lakes in central New York. There, nestled among Canandaigua, Keuka, Seneca, and Cayuga Lakes, farmers began planting vineyards in the 1830s. In 1860, the Pleasant Valley Wine Company became America's first bonded winery, turning Keuka Lake into a busy shipping hub for fresh grapes and award-winning champagnes. Other wineries soon followed, as did railroads and basket factories. Early 20th century business was good until Prohibition forced wineries to reinvent themselves. In the 1950s and 1960s, innovators like Charles Fournier, Dr. Konstantin Frank, and Walter S. Taylor experimented with hybrid and European vinifera grape varieties. But by the 1970s, local grape growers faced extinction; it would take a grassroots movement and landmark legislation in 1976 to bring about a Finger Lakes wine renaissance.

Author Steven M. Lucas provides a glimpse into the lively story of Patchogue through the comparison of historic and modern photographs that showcase how this small farming community developed into the vibrant place it is today.