Sunday Pages: White Houses

Dear Reader,

He was dashing, charming, talented, and brash: a self-made man of wealth and distinction, whose power and influence extended well beyond New York City. He lived there, in Manhattan, in a lavish but oddly decorated mansion. He knew everyone there was to know, and he used his social network to great advantage. Those who had not made his acquaintance wanted to, because to know him, to socialize with him, to befriend him, was to enter society’s inner sanctum, that most rarified of worlds, where sex, money, and power were all on offer, there for the taking.

But he had a secret—an open secret, among the well-heeled New Yorkers who traveled in that exclusive class: He liked girls. Young girls. And he preyed upon them, using his wealth, and his influence, and his preternatural powers of seduction to have his way with them. He was especially well connected in the world of fashion and theater. When he felt like it, he would help the girls who were his victims land modeling deals or plum roles in Broadway shows. This was a valuable tool for recruiting and grooming the girls he desired.

His fancy apartments were tailored to suit his debauched lifestyle. One of the vast rooms was painted dark green: walls, floor, ceiling. From the extravagantly high ceiling hung a swing, a child’s swing, the kind you see at a playground, but with a seat made of soft red velvet. He would use this to lure his victims in. Who wouldn’t want to swing on a red velvet swing inside one of the toniest residences in New York?

Dark rumors swirled around him like cigar smoke. Those in the know were also complicit, and thus had no great urge to spill the beans; those who suspected could only go on intuition and rumor—and it was easier to forget about it than to call him out. And so his predation continued, year after year after year, from one century into the next.

It was only after his death—such a violent, unusual, headline-making death!—that the full extent of his dissolution became known. And it became known to everybody. The public was curious, the press coverage was massive, and the massive press coverage only made the public more curious to know the answer to the question: How had he operated so wantonly, and for so long, without being detected?

One biographer