\"New York Yacht Club Commodore\" Vincent Astor Hand Signed 3X5 Card For Sale

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\"New York Yacht Club Commodore\" Vincent Astor Hand Signed 3X5 Card:
$69.99

Up for sale "Philanthropist" Vincent Astor Hand Signed 3X5 Card. 

1891 – February 3, 1959) was an American businessman, philanthropist, and

member of the prominent Astor family. Called

Vincent, he was born in New York City on November 15, 1891. He was the elder son of John Jacob Astor IV, a wealthy businessman and inventor, and

his first wife, Ava Lowle Willing, an

heiress from Philadelphia. He graduated

in 1910 from St. George's School in Middletown, Rhode Island,

and attended Harvard University from

1911 to 1912, leaving school without graduating.  Like his father, Astor belonged to the New

York Society of Colonial Wars.

He served as commodore of the New York Yacht Club from

1928 to 1930. Astor was interested in trains. In the early 1930s, he

established an estate in Bermuda which included a

private narrow-gauge railway and union station with the Bermuda Railway. The estate is now divided between several

private owners, none of whom are part of the Astor family. As recently as 1992,

the remains of some of his rolling stock were visible. Vincent Astor was, according

to family biographer Derek Wilson, "a hitherto unknown phenomenon in

America: an Astor with a highly developed social conscience." He was 20

when his father died, and, having inherited a massive fortune, dropped out

of Harvard University. He set

about to change the family image from that of miserly, aloof slum landlords who

enjoyed the good life at the expense of others. Over time, he sold off the

family's New York City slum housing and reinvested in reputable enterprises,

while spending a great deal of time and energy helping others. He was

responsible for the construction of a large housing complex in the Bronx that included sufficient land for a large children's

playground, and in Harlem, he transformed a valuable piece of

real estate into another playground for children. Astor appeared as No. 12 on

the first list of America's richest people, compiled by Forbes magazine. His net worth at the time was

estimated at $75 million. Amongst his holdings was Newsweek magazine, and he was its chairman. The

magazine had for a time its headquarters in the former Knickerbocker Hotel, which had been built by his father. He

also inherited Ferncliff, the Astor family's 2,800-acre (11 km2)

estate near Rhinebeck, New York, where

his father had been born. Vincent Astor, however, would be the last family

owner of the estate and occupant of the "Ferncliff Casino", a Stanford White—McKim Mead & White designed 1904 Beaux Arts style 40,000

square feet (3,700 m2) building, inspired by the Grand Trianon at Versailles. On his death in 1959, Astor bequeathed

a main house at Ferncliff to the Benedictine Hospital in Kingston, New York. His

widow, Brooke, later donated "Ferncliff Casino" to the Catholic

Archdiocese of New York, and sold off many parcels of the estate. In 1963,

Homer Staley, a local retired businessman in the area, asked Brooke Astor to

preserve the remaining natural acreage of woodlands from development. She donated the land to the

Rotary Club of Rhinebeck, to become the Ferncliff Forest Game Refuge and Forest Preserve. 

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