The Wickedest Woman in New York - Madame Restell
This is part two of what I hope will be a continuing mini feature on the blog of Notorious New York Women, inspired in part by a lecture I attended at the New York Historical Society. New York has always been a place where people can reinvent themselves. It looms large in the imagination and has done almost from its beginnings as a trading post for the Dutch called New Amsterdam. The point of embarkation for most immigrants in the 19th century, for most of the early part of the 19th century, it was as unlawless as the Old West. Fortunes were made and lost in New York City. A humble peddler through shrewd real estate investments became the landlord of New York, Jacob Astor. Cornelius Vanderbilt, from humble origins ferrying citizens from Staten Island to New York, by the time of his death was one of the richest men in American, his statue welcoming patrons to his Grand Central Station. But what of the women who came to New York? What were their stories? Madame Restell was once known as ...