Wait, what?? Stanford White had homosexual affair?

Stanford White was a 19th-century architect well-known in Boston for his co-design of the Boston Public Library (the third name in ‘McKim, Mead, and White’). (The three architects tried to get their names cryptically added to the edifice, btw, but were found out by public officials before the names were added.)

He’s better known to some for being quite the Lothario. In fact, he was killed in 1906 by the husband of a woman he was having an affair with, Evelyn Nesbit.

But, in an article appearing in the New York Times that quotes from a biography of Mr White, he may have been intimate with men, as well.

[Augustus] Saint-Gaudens was particularly close to Stanford White, and in 1884 gave White and his new wife, the former Bessie Smith, a marble relief portrait of Mrs. White as a wedding present. But at the same time it is known that the sculptor and architect enjoyed a life of enthusiastic unchastity.

Paul R. Baker is emeritus professor of history at New York University, and his book “Stanny: The Gilded Life of Stanford White” (Free Press, 1989) delicately summarizes their activities in rooms rented by their secret “Sewer Club.” Sometimes Saint-Gaudens signed his letters to White with epigrams like “Kiss me where I can’t” or a phallic symbol. Such ribaldry may have been traditional masculine ribbing, although Professor Baker notes a continuing thread of homoerotic overtones.

I’m skeptical it means anything of note but I don’t know much on the subject of same-sex love in the 1890′s.

(The Times’ article, btw, is about Saint-Gaudens and his architecture in NY. It mentions that he created the famous Robert Gould Shaw memorial on Boston Common across the street from the state capitol building.)

Related posts:

1. Ed Glaeser nails it, once again: historic preservation can hurt cities
2. NYC gives $25 million to non-profit theater group; would Boston do this?
3. Extreme Makeover Home Edition homeowners defaulting, losing homes
4. Hooray! 450-foot windmill turbine to rise in Charlestown … wait a minute
5. Big buildings mean green cities