Gilded Age: Why George Russell's New York Railroad Station Won't Happen
Warning: SPOILERS for The Gilded Age Episode 2 — «Money Isn't Everything»
In The Gilded Age, George Russell's (Morgan Spector) ambition is to build a new railroad station in New York City but real-life history suggests his dream won't happen. George and his wife Bertha (Carrie Coon) are New Money, in that the Russells' fortune is self-made, as opposed to inherited like the wealth of Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and most of the elites who make up Old New York's snooty high society. As a railroad tycoon, George is a powerful industrialist whose wealth dwarfs someone like Agnes van Rhijn, but even with all of that money, Russell may not get what he ultimately wants.
What The Gilded Age has revealed about George Russell thus far is that he's the feared owner of Russell Consolidated Trust, which controls the railroads from New York to Chicago. The Russells have been in New York City for three years but until April 1882, they lived below 23rd Street. Having built and moved into their opulent palace on 5th Avenue and 61st Street, the Russells are staking their claim into New York's money-obsessed high society, which George handling the business and financial side of the family's fortunes while Bertha schemes for the Russells to become accepted as one of New York's elite families. George is a loving husband and father but he's ruthless in the boardroom with no qualms about putting his competitors out of business to get what he wants. And what George Russell wants most is to build a new railway station in New York City for his trains.
Related: Where The Downton Cast Are During The Gilded Age
While The Gilded Age is a fictionalized version of history circa 1882, the series weaves in real historical figures like Mrs. Astor
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