Canfield Casino and Congress Park
Encyclopedia
Canfield Casino and Congress Park is a 17 acres (6.9 ha) site in Saratoga Springs
, New York, United States. It was the site of the former Congress Spring Bottling Plant and the former Congress Hall, a large resort hotel, which together brought Saratoga Springs international fame as a health spa and gambling site. At the peak of its popularity it was a place where the wealthy, major gamblers and stars of the entertainment world mingled. The park's artwork includes a statue by Daniel Chester French
and a landscape design by Frederick Law Olmsted
, among others.
It was declared a National Historic Landmark
in 1987 after having originally been submitted and listed as the Casino-Congress Park-Circular Street Historic District
in 1972. The later listing excluded some of the property outside the park and halved the overall size of the district.
Congress Park is currently operated by the City of Saratoga Springs as a park, bounded by Broadway, Spring Street, and Circular Street in Saratoga Springs
. The Canfield Casino building, built in 1870, houses the Saratoga Springs History Museum. Gambling was ended by reformers in 1907.
), down to its intersection with Park Place. It follows the 300 feet (91.4 m) elevation
contour line
on the west, excluding some of the buildings on Broadway (US 9/NY 50
) southwest of the park and then joins Broadway south of Union Avenue
, back to its northwest corner at Spring Street.
The original historic district included some houses on Circular and Spring streets and Whitney Place. Their removal from it made the district about 16 acres (6.5 ha) smaller
A short, narrow street, the beginning of Union Avenue, runs across the park from east to west. There are parking spaces along both sides. Stone walls set off the park from the nearby street. The section north of the road is dominated by the casino and land around it, the section to the south is primarily the park.
This area is a buffer between the developed commercial areas at the south end of downtown Saratoga Springs, and the residential neighborhoods on the east and west. Many of the surrounding areas are also included in the city's other historic districts. The Broadway Historic District
is just to the north, with the East
and West Side
districts on either side. Union Avenue is also a historic district out to the racetrack.
cornice
. On the south (front) facade
the brick around the doorway and at the corners is laid to look like rusticated
stone. A belt course
divides the first two floors.
All three stories have sandstone
window trim with a different treatment — segmented pediment
s on the first, triangular ones on the second and rectangular on the third. A free-standing segmental pediment distinguishes the roofline on the front center as well.
The east wing, used for gambling when the casino was constructed, is a two-story, three-by-five-bay
structure with front windows one and a half stories high. It has a similar window treatment to the first story of the main block, and a more elaborate cornice, also with central segmented pediment.
To the north is the dining room and kitchen wing, a 93 by steel frame
brick structure. At either end are stained glass
windows depicting horses in different historical periods.
Inside, the entrance opens onto a central hall with staircase. The office and library are on the west. To the east the original dining room opens onto the gambling room. Private gambling rooms were upstairs, and living quarters on the third floor.
The gambling room has many of its original interior details, including mirrors and statuettes. The dining room roof is of rivet
ed arches supported on columns. Its barrel vault
ing has octagonal coffer
s. The parquet flooring is original, and the early air conditioning
system of wall vents and the open coffer windows still works.
, groves of trees and lawns. A Doric
columned pavilion has been built over the site of the original Congress Spring, with water piped in from another spring. To its west is the Columbian Spring tapped by Gideon Putnam, the founder of Saratoga Springs, restored in 1983 and topped with a similarly Greek-inspired domed pavilion. The Congress 3 spring to the south was bottled and distributed worldwide in the 19th century, and the Freshwater Spring is still popular with city residents.
The water from the springs has been channeled into streams and fountains. One surrounds The Spirit of Life
, a statue by Daniel Chester French
memorializing Spencer Trask
, a great benefactor of the Saratoga area who founded the Yaddo
writers' colony. It sits on the south side of the large lagoon
in the park. Two vase
s, Night and Day, by Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen
, are positioned on the lawn in front of the casino.
bought the acre (2,000 m²) around the spring and built a hotel for guests, in what was still a largely unsettled frontier. Two years later he bought the 130 acres (52.6 ha) around the original acre and laid out plans for the town of Saratoga Springs.
This led to two enlargements of the hotel. He died in 1812 while yet another was underway. The new town competed with nearby Ballston Spa
and other spa towns in Pennsylvania and Virginia for visitors. It was at an early disadvantage since one of the first temperance societies in the country had been established in Saratoga Springs, and not only alcohol but gambling and dancing were at first forbidden in the town.
Those bans were gradually relaxed to attract more resort business, and by 1820 were effectively repealed. John Clarke, who had run the first soda fountain
in New York City, moved up to Saratoga a few years after that and bought the spring property. He began to bottle
and sell Saratoga water, promoting the iodine
he had discovered in the water as a curative. This success allowed him to improve the site and create the crescent-shaped lawn, as well as drain some of the swampy areas.
By the middle of the century the city and the hotel were one of the country's most popular resorts, due to railroad access. It lost some business during the Civil War
when some of its Southern
guests could not visit, but during that time former heavyweight boxing champion John Morrissey
opened the Saratoga Race Course
, giving the city another major tourist attraction. After the war, in 1866, he opened the first part of the Casino.
He was elected to Congress himself that year, as a Democrat
from New York City's Tammany Hall
political machine
. He was well-connected, acquainted with tycoons of the era like Jay Gould
, William R. Travers
and Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt
, who were among his partners in the hotel and racetrack. They gave both a reputation for wealthy and fashionable guests that it continued to enjoy long afterwards. In 1876 he got Frederick Law Olmsted
and Jacob Weidenmann
to do some work on the park landscape.
After his death in 1878, two other New York City gamblers took over management. They sold it to John Canfield 16 years later, in 1894. He embarked on another wave of expansion, building a formal garden next to the casino, enlarging it and making it more luxurious than it had been before. This culminated in the construction of the diningroom in 1903. The clientele during this period included not only members of wealthy families like the Whitneys
, Vanderbilts
and J. P. Morgan
's, but gambling legends like Diamond Jim Brady and John Warne Gates
and prominent entertainers like Gate's girlfriend Lillian Russell
and Florenz Ziegfeld
.
This socially distinctive era, regarded as the city's golden age, ended in 1907 when reformers succeeded in banning gambling in the city. Canfield retired and sold the hotel and grounds to the city four years later, in 1911. The Pure Food and Drug Act
hurt sales of bottled Saratoga Water, and the year after buying from Canfield, the city bought the Congress Hall hotel and bottling plant and demolished them
.
In 1913, the present park was created. Henry Bacon
and Charles Leavitt were hired to do further work on its landscape.
Saratoga Springs, New York
Saratoga Springs, also known as simply Saratoga, is a city in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 26,586 at the 2010 census. The name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area. While the word "Saratoga" is known to be a corruption of a Native American name, ...
, New York, United States. It was the site of the former Congress Spring Bottling Plant and the former Congress Hall, a large resort hotel, which together brought Saratoga Springs international fame as a health spa and gambling site. At the peak of its popularity it was a place where the wealthy, major gamblers and stars of the entertainment world mingled. The park's artwork includes a statue by Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor. His best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Life and career:...
and a landscape design by Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
, among others.
It was declared a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1987 after having originally been submitted and listed as the Casino-Congress Park-Circular Street Historic District
Historic district (United States)
In the United States, a historic district is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided...
in 1972. The later listing excluded some of the property outside the park and halved the overall size of the district.
Congress Park is currently operated by the City of Saratoga Springs as a park, bounded by Broadway, Spring Street, and Circular Street in Saratoga Springs
Saratoga Springs, New York
Saratoga Springs, also known as simply Saratoga, is a city in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 26,586 at the 2010 census. The name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area. While the word "Saratoga" is known to be a corruption of a Native American name, ...
. The Canfield Casino building, built in 1870, houses the Saratoga Springs History Museum. Gambling was ended by reformers in 1907.
Geography
The district boundaries are curved and irregular, generally following those of the park itself. It is bordered by Spring Street on the north and Circular Street (both part of NY 9PNew York State Route 9P
New York State Route 9P is a state highway in central Saratoga County, New York, United States. It is an alternate route off U.S. Route 9 between Malta and Saratoga Springs that connects US 9 to the eastern shore of Saratoga Lake. NY 9P meets NY 423 in the town of...
), down to its intersection with Park Place. It follows the 300 feet (91.4 m) elevation
Elevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface ....
contour line
Contour line
A contour line of a function of two variables is a curve along which the function has a constant value. In cartography, a contour line joins points of equal elevation above a given level, such as mean sea level...
on the west, excluding some of the buildings on Broadway (US 9/NY 50
New York State Route 50
New York State Route 50 is a state highway in the Capital District of New York in the United States. The southern terminus of the route is at an intersection with NY 5 in Scotia...
) southwest of the park and then joins Broadway south of Union Avenue
Union Avenue Historic District (Saratoga Springs, New York)
Union Avenue Historic District is a historic district in Saratoga Springs, New York. It was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1978....
, back to its northwest corner at Spring Street.
The original historic district included some houses on Circular and Spring streets and Whitney Place. Their removal from it made the district about 16 acres (6.5 ha) smaller
A short, narrow street, the beginning of Union Avenue, runs across the park from east to west. There are parking spaces along both sides. Stone walls set off the park from the nearby street. The section north of the road is dominated by the casino and land around it, the section to the south is primarily the park.
This area is a buffer between the developed commercial areas at the south end of downtown Saratoga Springs, and the residential neighborhoods on the east and west. Many of the surrounding areas are also included in the city's other historic districts. The Broadway Historic District
Broadway Historic District (Saratoga Springs, New York)
The Broadway Historic District is located along that street in Saratoga Springs, New York, United States. It has a twofold character. The southern section is the commercial core of the city, with many of its important public and private buildings, most intact from the its peak days as a resort town...
is just to the north, with the East
East Side Historic District (Saratoga Springs, New York)
The East Side Historic District is a primarily residential neighborhood located to the east of downtown Saratoga Springs, New York, United States...
and West Side
West Side Historic District (Saratoga Springs, New York)
The West Side Historic District is a residential area of Saratoga Springs, New York, United States, located west of its downtown section. It is a area extending from the blocks west of Broadway to extensions along Church and Washington streets...
districts on either side. Union Avenue is also a historic district out to the racetrack.
Property
The two major historical resources on the property are the casino and the park. The former is the only surviving building from the resort era; the latter has many notable art objects in addition to its landscaping.Casino
The casino's main block is a three-story building faced in brick on an exposed basement. It is topped by a flat roof, bordered by an ornate bracketedBracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
. On the south (front) facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
the brick around the doorway and at the corners is laid to look like rusticated
Rustication (architecture)
thumb|upright|Two different styles of rustication in the [[Palazzo Medici-Riccardi]] in [[Florence]].In classical architecture rustication is an architectural feature that contrasts in texture with the smoothly finished, squared block masonry surfaces called ashlar...
stone. A belt course
Course (architecture)
A course is a continuous horizontal layer of similarly-sized building material one unit high, usually in a wall. The term is almost always used in conjunction with unit masonry such as brick, cut stone, or concrete masonry units .-Styles:...
divides the first two floors.
All three stories have sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
window trim with a different treatment — segmented pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
s on the first, triangular ones on the second and rectangular on the third. A free-standing segmental pediment distinguishes the roofline on the front center as well.
The east wing, used for gambling when the casino was constructed, is a two-story, three-by-five-bay
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
structure with front windows one and a half stories high. It has a similar window treatment to the first story of the main block, and a more elaborate cornice, also with central segmented pediment.
To the north is the dining room and kitchen wing, a 93 by steel frame
Steel frame
Steel frame usually refers to a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal -beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame...
brick structure. At either end are stained glass
Stained glass
The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...
windows depicting horses in different historical periods.
Inside, the entrance opens onto a central hall with staircase. The office and library are on the west. To the east the original dining room opens onto the gambling room. Private gambling rooms were upstairs, and living quarters on the third floor.
Rivet
A rivet is a permanent mechanical fastener. Before being installed a rivet consists of a smooth cylindrical shaft with a head on one end. The end opposite the head is called the buck-tail. On installation the rivet is placed in a punched or pre-drilled hole, and the tail is upset, or bucked A rivet...
ed arches supported on columns. Its barrel vault
Barrel vault
A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault or a wagon vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve along a given distance. The curves are typically circular in shape, lending a semi-cylindrical appearance to the total design...
ing has octagonal coffer
Coffer
A coffer in architecture, is a sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault...
s. The parquet flooring is original, and the early air conditioning
Air conditioning
An air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle...
system of wall vents and the open coffer windows still works.
Park
The basin-shaped park contains Grecian pavilions around the springs, Italian gardensItalian Renaissance garden
The Italian Renaissance garden was a new style of garden which emerged in the late 15th century at villas in Rome and Florence, inspired by classical ideals of order and beauty, and intended for the pleasure of the view of the garden and the landscape beyond, for contemplation, and for the...
, groves of trees and lawns. A Doric
Doric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
columned pavilion has been built over the site of the original Congress Spring, with water piped in from another spring. To its west is the Columbian Spring tapped by Gideon Putnam, the founder of Saratoga Springs, restored in 1983 and topped with a similarly Greek-inspired domed pavilion. The Congress 3 spring to the south was bottled and distributed worldwide in the 19th century, and the Freshwater Spring is still popular with city residents.
The Spirit of Life
"The Spirit of Life" is a sculpture by American sculptor Daniel Chester French."The Spirit of Life" began as a commission for a memorial to the famous Wall Street financier Spencer Trask . Trask was a summer resident in Saratoga Springs, New York and a founder of the committee which was charged...
, a statue by Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French was an American sculptor. His best-known work is the sculpture of a seated Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.-Life and career:...
memorializing Spencer Trask
Spencer Trask
Spencer Trask was an American financier, philanthropist, and venture capitalist. Beginning in the 1870s, Trask began investing and supporting entrepreneurs, including Thomas Edison's invention of the electric light bulb and his electricity network...
, a great benefactor of the Saratoga area who founded the Yaddo
Yaddo
Yaddo is an artists' community located on a 400 acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment."...
writers' colony. It sits on the south side of the large lagoon
Lagoon
A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...
in the park. Two vase
Vase
The vase is an open container, often used to hold cut flowers. It can be made from a number of materials including ceramics and glass. The vase is often decorated and thus used to extend the beauty of its contents....
s, Night and Day, by Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen
Bertel Thorvaldsen
Bertel Thorvaldsen was a Danish-Icelandic sculptor of international fame, who spent most of his life in Italy . Thorvaldsen was born in Copenhagen into a Danish/Icelandic family of humble means, and was accepted to the Royal Academy of Arts when he was eleven years old...
, are positioned on the lawn in front of the casino.
History
Congress Spring was named in 1792 when it was visited by a group that included two members of the newly established U.S. Congress. A decade later, in 1803, an entrepreneur named Gideon PutnamGideon Putnam
Gideon Putnam was an entrepreneur and a founder of Saratoga Springs, New York. He also worked as a miller and built the city's Grand Union and Congress Hotels...
bought the acre (2,000 m²) around the spring and built a hotel for guests, in what was still a largely unsettled frontier. Two years later he bought the 130 acres (52.6 ha) around the original acre and laid out plans for the town of Saratoga Springs.
This led to two enlargements of the hotel. He died in 1812 while yet another was underway. The new town competed with nearby Ballston Spa
Ballston Spa, New York
Ballston Spa is a village in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 5,556 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Saratoga County. The village is named after Rev. Eliphalet Ball, a Congregationalist clergyman and an early settler. The village lies on the border of two...
and other spa towns in Pennsylvania and Virginia for visitors. It was at an early disadvantage since one of the first temperance societies in the country had been established in Saratoga Springs, and not only alcohol but gambling and dancing were at first forbidden in the town.
Those bans were gradually relaxed to attract more resort business, and by 1820 were effectively repealed. John Clarke, who had run the first soda fountain
Soda fountain
A soda fountain is a device that dispenses carbonated drinks. They can be found in restaurants, concession stands and other locations such as convenience stores...
in New York City, moved up to Saratoga a few years after that and bought the spring property. He began to bottle
Bottled water
Bottled water is drinking water packaged in plastic or glass water bottles. Bottled water may be carbonated or not...
and sell Saratoga water, promoting the iodine
Iodine
Iodine is a chemical element with the symbol I and atomic number 53. The name is pronounced , , or . The name is from the , meaning violet or purple, due to the color of elemental iodine vapor....
he had discovered in the water as a curative. This success allowed him to improve the site and create the crescent-shaped lawn, as well as drain some of the swampy areas.
By the middle of the century the city and the hotel were one of the country's most popular resorts, due to railroad access. It lost some business during the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
when some of its Southern
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
guests could not visit, but during that time former heavyweight boxing champion John Morrissey
John Morrissey
John Morrissey , also known as Old Smoke, was an Irish bare-knuckle boxer and a gang member in New York in the 1850s and later became a Democratic State Senator and U.S. Congressman from New York, backed by Tammany Hall...
opened the Saratoga Race Course
Saratoga Race Course
Saratoga Race Course is a Thoroughbred horse racing track in Saratoga Springs, New York, United States. It opened on August 3, 1863, and is the oldest organized sporting venue of any kind in the United States. It is typically open for racing from late July through early September.-History:John...
, giving the city another major tourist attraction. After the war, in 1866, he opened the first part of the Casino.
He was elected to Congress himself that year, as a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
from New York City's Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...
political machine
Political machine
A political machine is a political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses , who receive rewards for their efforts...
. He was well-connected, acquainted with tycoons of the era like Jay Gould
Jay Gould
Jason "Jay" Gould was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has long been vilified as an archetypal robber baron, whose successes made him the ninth richest American in history. Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American CEO of all time...
, William R. Travers
William R. Travers
William Riggin Travers was an American lawyer who made a fortune on Wall Street. A well-known cosmopolite and high liver, Travers was a member of 27 private clubs, according to Cleveland Amory in his book Who Killed Society?-Biography:He was born in 1819.Along with John Hunter, in 1863 he founded...
and Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt
Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...
, who were among his partners in the hotel and racetrack. They gave both a reputation for wealthy and fashionable guests that it continued to enjoy long afterwards. In 1876 he got Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
and Jacob Weidenmann
Jacob Weidenmann
Jacob Weidenmann was a noted American landscape architect.Weidenmann was born in Winterthur, Switzerland, and educated at the Akadomie der Bildenden Kunste, where he studied art, architecture, and engineering. After graduating, he worked in Munich, Paris, London, New York City, Panama, and Peru,...
to do some work on the park landscape.
After his death in 1878, two other New York City gamblers took over management. They sold it to John Canfield 16 years later, in 1894. He embarked on another wave of expansion, building a formal garden next to the casino, enlarging it and making it more luxurious than it had been before. This culminated in the construction of the diningroom in 1903. The clientele during this period included not only members of wealthy families like the Whitneys
Whitney family
The Whitney family is an American family notable for their social prominence, wealth, business enterprises and philanthropy, founded by John Whitney who came from London, England to Watertown, Massachusetts in 1635.-Rise to prominence:...
, Vanderbilts
Vanderbilt family
The Vanderbilt family is an American family of Dutch origin prominent during the Gilded Age. It started off with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and expanded into various other areas of industry and philanthropy...
and J. P. Morgan
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan was an American financier, banker and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892 Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric...
's, but gambling legends like Diamond Jim Brady and John Warne Gates
John Warne Gates
John Warne Gates , also known as "Bet-a-Million" Gates, was a pioneer promoter of barbed wire who became a Gilded Age industrialist.-Biography:...
and prominent entertainers like Gate's girlfriend Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th century and early 20th century, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.Russell was born in Iowa but raised in Chicago...
and Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. , , was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies , inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat...
.
This socially distinctive era, regarded as the city's golden age, ended in 1907 when reformers succeeded in banning gambling in the city. Canfield retired and sold the hotel and grounds to the city four years later, in 1911. The Pure Food and Drug Act
Pure Food and Drug Act
The Pure Food and Drug Act of June 30, 1906, is a United States federal law that provided federal inspection of meat products and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated food products and poisonous patent medicines...
hurt sales of bottled Saratoga Water, and the year after buying from Canfield, the city bought the Congress Hall hotel and bottling plant and demolished them
Demolition
Demolition is the tearing-down of buildings and other structures, the opposite of construction. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apart while carefully preserving valuable elements for re-use....
.
In 1913, the present park was created. Henry Bacon
Henry Bacon
Henry Bacon was an American Beaux-Arts architect who is best remembered for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. , which was his final project.- Education and early career :...
and Charles Leavitt were hired to do further work on its landscape.
See also
- List of National Historic Landmarks in New York
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Saratoga County, New York