New Year, Same Excess

Let’s party like it's 1899.

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As the final hours of the year slipped away, New York glittered.

Carriages rolled through gas-lit streets, stopping beneath the glow of electric chandeliers newly installed in mansions and hotels. Silk skirts brushed marble floors. Diamonds caught the light. Orchestras tuned their instruments as clocks edged towards midnight. In Gilded Age New York, New Year’s Eve was more than a mere party; it was a social reckoning.

Who you celebrated with, where you were seen, and whether your name appeared in the next morning’s society pages all mattered profoundly. And nowhere was this more apparent than at the lavish New Year’s Eve celebrations hosted by the city’s elite families and its grandest hotels.