10 Washington Place, huddled over ash can fires, stamping their boots to keep the blood moving in their feet. They had been out there for months. Inside, a great man—or, certainly, a formidable one—was dying. He was an upstart from Staten Island. He had overseen construction of the town house in 1846, when he was fifty-two years old, rich with an extraordinary fortune made in shipping, but he was only getting started.
