Vanderbilt Gates & Conservatory Garden via 105th

    It is never a bad thing to get lost in New York, because you stumble upon treasures like this. Actually, I wasn't lost the day I found this garden, way back in the spring of '09, but I was well out of my neighborhood. I was attending an Earth Day exhibit at the Museum of New York; I don't remember much about the exhibit, save for the fact that the United States hates bicyclists and Amsterdam loves them. Or something.

    But I do remember strolling along upper-Fifth Avenue and walking through the Vanderbilt Gates to see this: 

  

     The Vanderbilt Gates used to adorn the Fifth Avenue mansion of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. There are two clues and to how legitmate this man was: One, his name was Cornelius. Two, he owned a mansion. In New York. On Fifth Avenue. It was no homely Park Avenue penthouse. Oh no.

     Determined to reign supreme, Cornelius II built a mansion so large that it took up an entire city block. Three brownstone houses had to be demolished in order for the property to be complete. Now that's a man.

This chap approves. (Vanderbilt mansion seen in the background.)