Last week a white marble staircase which spirals from the first to the fourth floor of Elbert Henry Gary’s Fifth Avenue mansion in Manhattan went begging for a buyer at $1. Twelve years ago the staircase cost $150,000. Today it could hardly be duplicated for twice that sum. But because modern homes want no white marble staircases, because the labor of removing this one intact would cost thousands of dollars, the wrecking company which will raze Judge Gary’s home to the ground to make way for a large co-operative apartment house, has decided to pound the marble staircase to pieces and dump the blocks into Long Island swamps. Two Tudor ceilings, a green lacquer and crystal tea room, marble and hardwood floors, will be similarly served. Three years went into the making of the Gary mansion. Thirty-six union working days will see its obliteration. The heavy bronze doors, however, will be saved—in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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