This week The Frick Collection will reopen its doors to the public after a renovation and restoration of nearly five years and a cost of $220 million dollars. Visitors will again see the elegant Beaux Arts mansion once occupied by Gilded Age industrialist Henry Clay Frick and his wife and daughter. They will also see the priceless collection of masterworks of art from the Renaissance through the 19th century, much of acquired by Frick himself.

In this episode, a companion show to the Bowery Boys "House of Beauty: The Story of the Frick Collection", Carl talks with managing educator Caitlin Henningsen about her work researching the domestic staff who worked in the mansion, just who they were and what their roles in the household were. They also speak about how Frick thought about blending art with domestic space in several of his homes and what he wanted to achieve with this mansion before it became a museum after his death in 1919.

Caitlin and Carl also discuss, thanks to extraordinary archival records, how the Fricks entertained in a grand Gilded Age style in the very dining room visitors see today.

Find PART ONE over at the Bowery Boys podcast House of Beauty: The Story of the Frick Collection

Between the late 1890s and early 1920s, over 2 million Jews from Eastern Europe made the long, arduous and unsettling journey to America to escape persecution and violence in their native countries.

Many of these Jews were fleeing Russia, where a state sanctioned antisemitism forced many to escape for their lives. This mass immigration was, in large part, the result of the efforts of three entrepreneurial men whose efforts insured escape for tens of thousands.

-- Albert Ballin, the director of the Hamburg-America line; Jacob Schiff, the German born New York based philanthropist and financier; and the Gilded Age financial titan J.P Morgan, all insured methods of escape that would otherwise not have been possible.

So much of this story has not been told until now and it is through the research and writing of historian Steven Ujifusa that has finally brought the full story to light.

Steve joins The Gilded Gentleman table in this episode to discuss what exactly happened, the enormous difference Ballin, Schiff and Morgan all made in helping so many to escare. In addition, Steve shares his own story as well and how he was able to uncover little-known material to tell the larger story.

New York's NoHo neighborhood, wedged between Greenwich Village and the East Village, holds the stories of many people and places that then went on to become deeply associated with the Gilded Age.

The Astor family began their dynasty here in both investment and real estate as did the well known Dutch-American merchant family the Schermerhorns. Caroline Schermerhone who went on to become the famed Mrs. Astor grew up right here on Bond St along with many members of her family.

NoHo today still contains many remnants of its early 19th century glamorous past as well as sites where the tensions between the wealthy residents of the Lafayette Place neighborhood classed with the growing immigrant population just one street away on the Bowery.

Master Bowery Boys Walks tour guide Aaron Schielke joins Carl for a look at this fascinating neighborhood which includes stories of the rich and famous as well as the macabre details of a dramatic and grisly 19th century murder that took place on Bond St in the heart of NOHO that remains unsolved to this day.