(Not, however, before Frick built his company's Pittsburgh headquarters right next to Carnegie's-and taller-so that his building would overshadow his rival's.)Īfter a brief stay at Sherry's Hotel in New York, Frick rented the Vanderbilt mansion, the same house that had started him on his path as an art collector, in 1905. But Frick's reputation was sullied, and it was the beginning of a decade of strained relations between Frick and Carnegie that would ultimately send Frick from Pittsburgh to New York. Remarkably, Frick not only survived the attack but was back at his desk within the week. In retaliation, anarchist Alexander Berkman burst into Frick's office two weeks later and shot him twice at close range. In the skirmish, nine union members and three Pinkerton agents were killed. On July 6, 1892, a battle broke out between steelworkers and the Pinkerton agents Frick had contracted to reopen the mill. Soon thereafter, his young daughter Martha died, and a year later, his son Henry, Jr.Ī national scandal followed when Carnegie Steel workers in Homestead, Pennsylvania, went on strike, in part due to Frick's ongoing attempts to break the union. Though Frick quickly set up a relief fund for the victims' families, he couldn't fully dodge the club's-or his own-role in the tragedy. The dam collapse sent millions of gallons of water downriver toward Johnstown, PA, killing 2,209 people-at the time, the worst disaster in American history. On May 31, 1889, the dam gave out at Lake Conemaugh, a private lake at a fishing and hunting club Frick had helped found. The Vanderbilt mansion, with its elegant furnishings and art-lined galleries, made quite an impression on Frick according to biographer (and great-granddaughter) Martha Frick Symington Sanger, Frick later remarked, " It is all I shall ever want."īefore he could pursue his mansion dreams, misfortune began to hound Frick. Vanderbilt's art-filled mansion at 640 Fifth Avenue spurred Frick to begin collecting paintings himself (his first purchase was a Pennsylvania landscape), much of it under the guidance of art dealers Roland Knoedler and Joseph Duveen. Ten years later, already a millionaire, he entered into a partnership with steel baron Andrew Carnegie, vaulting him into the ranks of America's richest men.Īround the same time, a visit to William H.
Not only was Frick himself a polarizing figure-he was known as the " most hated man in America," and once targeted for assassination-but the construction of his mansion a century ago raised the hackles of New York's Fifth Avenue elite in much the same way that the Frick's current expansion plans have sent some New Yorkers into a tizzy.įrick, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1849, began amassing the fortune that would get him to New York at age 21, when he founded the Frick Coke Company, which supplied the fuel used in Pennsylvania's steel mills. But any museum named after Henry Clay Frick is probably destined to invite controversy.
Not only would this expansion destroy parts of an earlier, 1970s renovation (including a private garden), it would also reconfigure the experience of visiting what is often referred to as a " jewel box" of a space. The Frick Collection is heralded as one of the world's best small museums, but it has recently stirred up controversy with a proposed six-story addition that would expand the museum by over 40,000 square feet.
James Nevius is the author of three books about New York, the most recent of which is Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers.
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