GLR March-April 2023

and the painter and sculptor Francis Millet. Joseph Wells was employed by McKim, Mead &White, ostensibly as a draughts man, but his superb design skills and encyclopedic knowledge of architectural history had a major influence on the style for which the firm would become renowned. Described as a shy, reserved and cynical bachelor, Wells was the “beloved friend” of Stanford White, but he also won the heart of Augustus Saint Gaudens. The sculptor wrote a campy letter to Wells (employ ing the feminine form throughout): “Mon amour adorée, ma belle fille, je n’aime que toi, toi seul au monde—ton beau sourire me fait mourir d’amour.” [My adored love, my beauti ful girl, I love no one but you, you only in the entire world— your beautiful smile makes me die of love.] Thomas Hastings, another employee of McKim, Mead & White, also drew the amorous attentions of Saint-Gaudens. Hastings eventually entered into a partnership with his friend John Carrère, and when the firm of Carrère & Hastings was awarded a contract for the design of the New York Public Li brary, Hastings wrote to the sculptor for help in choosing art work for the building—but asked Saint-Gaudens to be discreet with his reply: “Write me a letter which I can read to [the members of the library committee], that is, do not put too many love words and other things in it. But write me a love let ter apart.” In 1900, Hastings married Helen Benedict, whom the gossip sheets chided for being more masculine than her husband. The couple lived largely apart, with Thomas keeping a penthouse apartment in the city, while Helen lived on Long Island with a female companion to whom she left her extensive fortune. Painter Thomas Dewing, though married, continued to have erotic forays with both men and women. From Paris he wrote back to Stanford White in New York about an evening spent at a gay nightclub, where he and art collector Charles Freer spent

unfurling my furs were about me pissing in the crowded mens urinals fishnets and red lips 10,000 sweaty old men of toronto grabbing their groins to death mammal grunting my furs were about me sweating, red lipp’d like a fish exploding fruit in the fountain in the eaton centre men’s room

intricate tiles of men

wriggling in fishnets salao in foodcourt silence a woman in noirs

bent about

a fountain of hands

& out without a wash & out

G WEN A UBE

anything he found disturbing). In their surviving letters—which Saint-Gaudens refers to as “love-songs”—they call each other “Darling,” “Beloved Beauty,” “Doubly Beloved,” and “My Beloved Snooks.” In one letter Saint-Gaudens writes to White: “I’m your man to dine, drink, Fuck, bugger or such, metaphor ically speaking”—though it is highly unlikely the men restricted themselves to metaphor; very little of their incessant sexual ban ter made any reference to women. Each would sign his letters to the other with a small caricature of himself, or decorate them with multiple drawings of erect penises. A standard closing con sisted of the initials K.M.A., sometimes spelled out as “Kiss My Ass” or translated into French or Italian by Saint-Gaudens. Also employed were S.M.A., S.M.B., and S.M.C., as the sculptor urged the architect to orally stimulate various parts of his anatomy. One letter closes with Saint-Gaudens pleading, “Kiss me where I can’t.” Many of the letters were standard business correspondence, as the men frequently worked on the same project (such as Trin ity Church in Boston), but they devised a way to maintain the flirtation without shocking the secretaries. White would dictate or roughly draft a letter and leave it for an assistant (always male) to flesh out and type up on official firm letterhead. The as sistant would leave the salutation and the closing of the letter blank, so that White could later pencil in his additions. As a re sult there are conventional business letters that open with a hur riedly jotted “Beloved!!” No guest lists survive for the parties of the Sewer Club, of course, but from sketchy records we know the core members of the group. Besides White and Saint-Gaudens, the club included Gus’ brother Louis (also a sculptor), architect Joseph Wells, stained-glass artist Francis Lathrop, and painter Thomas Dew ing. Probable guests included the architect Thomas Hastings

The Benedick in 1925, when the building was acquired by NYU.

The G & LR

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