We advertised an auction of this property for April 5, 1898. Because of the expectation of a war with Spain, a number of people asked me to abandon the sale. I agreed with their arguments that the sale would not succeed, but I wanted to see if my analysis of the psychology of prospective buyers was correct, which was, that some persons expecting big bargains would come to the sale and would buy. So I concluded to put up a few of the least valuable lots--those that had considerably more rock above the surface--and then try some of the St. Ann Avenue fronts. Just as I expected, the rock lots brought a very low price, but really all they were worth, and were purchased by one of the shrewdest dealers in New York. We stopped the sale after thirty were sold. In the winter of 1894 great excitement was caused among the real estate men by mysterious efforts to secure the block on the east side of Sixth Avenue between Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets. I was keenly interested because if the east side of Sixth Avenue was to be developed it would injure our Hoagland property, especially if it were a retail concern, which would throw the travel from Macy’s on the east side. I, therefore, called on my old friend William R. Rose, who was acting as attorney in the matter. On my assuring him that I wished to benefit by my information without interfering with his scheme, he told me that the site was being collected for a retail drygoods store with a main entrance on Sixth Avenue, and it finally turned out to be Siegel-Cooper & Company. I immediately negotiated for the properties on the east side of Sixth Avenue adjoining this block and secured for Lachman, Morgenthau & Goldsmith from William Waldorf Astor the Nineteenth Street corner now occupied by the Alexander Building, and for myself alone the entire block from Seventeenth to Eighteenth street to a depth of 180 feet, from some of the descendants of John Jacob Astor. Simultaneously with the completion [Illustration: Mr. Morgenthau playfully refers to this picture as the Morgenthau dynasty] of the Siegel-Cooper Company, I modernized the block front from Seventeenth to Eighteenth Street, and we erected a new building on the corner of Nineteenth Street, and sold it to Andrew Alexander. One evening Alwyn Ball, Jr., told me that Henry Parish wanted to sell his house at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Nineteenth Street. I suggested that I would buy the property if Mr. Parish would take in part payment the second mortgage of $100,000 that Alexander had given us on his corner. The Astor Estate held the first mortgage of $100,000. Ball looked aghast.