The Museum of the City of New York* has just named its version of “the 400” — a new elite of the city’s movers and shakers — paralleling the list put together for Caroline Astor by Ward McAllister, the late-19th-century arbiter of social status, as suitable for being entertained in her ballroom.
This list was made to help mark the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s epic 1609 voyage into New York Harbor, and create excitement about “New York 400: A Visual History of America’s Greatest City,” published by the museum for the occasion. It includes the living (who number 46) and the dead. It was released yesterday for the opening of a small exhibition, mostly cityscapes related to the book.
Now New York likes to think of itself as the cultural capital of the U.S., if not the world. So I perused the list carefully, counting how many were artists, definintg that loosely to include some in pop culture.
Turns out the Museum did pretty well: 137 of the 400, at least, are artists, architects, actors, writers, choreographers, filmmakers, critics, or other kind of cultural bigwig. That’s more than a third, and the number includes Berenice Abbott, Alvin Ailey, Woody Allen, Diane Arbus, Harold Arlen, Louis Armstrong, Brooks Atkinson, Louis Auchincloss, John James Audubon, Richard Avedon in the As alone. (In the Bs, there was Margaret Bourke-White, above.)
Granted, my count was personal and therefore somewhat arbitrary. Jackie Gleason, yes; Elsie de Wolfe, no. J.P. Morgan — as omnivorous collector and patron that mattered — yes; Henry Clay Frick, no. Your count, then, could be even higher — have a look for yourself.
Don’t go to the museum looking for an exhibit of the 400, though. For the moment, the list is just a list. But at a reception on Wednesday, the museum was taking nominations for its next version — for release next year?
The book, on the other hand, is a physical presence: It’s hefty, containing more than 500 images from the museum’s collection and dozens of essays by historians of the city — much bigger than any September issue of Vogue.
*Disclosure: a consulting client of mine supports the museum.