High Society

The Vanderbilt Cup, with its initial location on Long Island, New York, was known for attracting the cream of "Society:" the Astors, the Payne-Whitneys, the Goulds and more. These were the people that sat in specially constructed grandstands - the place to be seen. Average New Yorkers - and others from outside the state - clustered at points all around the meandering circuits on public roads through the rural community, numbering at times over 200,000. There were no tickets purchased for these vantage points, people left to their own devices simply watched at no charge.