The Fireproof Building...?

Not long ago there was a "New York Times" article by David W. Dunlap about the total destruction of the Manhattan headquarters of the Equitable Life Insurance Company 100 years ago. It is a fine article and one I would encourage you to read. There is, however, much more to the story.

Yes, it was New York City's first skyscraper, mistakenly said to be "fireproof".

Yes, it was and remains one of the most impressive insurance companies in the world.

But the article fails to even mention its founder, Henry Baldwin Hyde, whose statue graced the main facade of the building, or his son James Hazen Hyde, whose expensive ball in 1905 changed the way insurance companies do business, forever.

A small mention of that (as well as the machinations behind the scene that involved the former chairman of Carnegie Steel whose Manhattan mansion is now a famous museum and a former United States President) would have been, I think, an appropriate paragraph or two in the long article. There is more to the story, of course, since Henry Clay Frick, that former chairman of Carnegie Steel, and James Hazen Hyde's future father-in-law John G. A. Leishman, were both members of the infamous South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, the club whose dam at Lake Conemaugh burst to cause the Johnstown Flood. Not to mention that Leishman saved Frick's life in a daring assassination attempt in Pittsburgh.

And there is more, yet, to the story as James Hazen Hyde's son became a famous OSS officer and early CIA operative and his two daughters Isabel and Lorna are often "seen" on "Page Six" in the society columns, today.

Maybe a follow up article is called for? Or better yet, a book.

You can read the article here:

Equitable Fire - 100 Years Ago