Jeffrey Epstein: The 21st-Century Rasputin

The Jeffrey Epstein saga never ends.

The mysteries around this dead pedo -- gone but not forgotten (nor mourned) -- seems to become bigger and bigger as time goes on. We appear to know so much more yet so much less at the same time.  

It's been hopelessly politicized, and I won't get into that miserable drama here. But what fascinates me about this whole saga is who Epstein was -- and why the media and public hunger for him can never be sated. 

Then it hit me: he's Rasputin!

Epstein is a 21st-century American version of the shadowy, sexually devious early-20th century Russian figure who seemed to come out of nowhere and became a friend and corruptor of the rich, powerful, and famous.

And like Rasputin, Epstein died under bizarre and shocking circumstances. 

The parallels are not exact: Rasputin was a staretz, a spiritual guide. Epstein was financier, a finance guy. Rasputin came from poverty in Siberia. Epstein came from a lower middle-class background in Brooklyn. He also became super-rich and was deeply vain, while Rasputin, for all his notoriety, did not seek riches, dressed like a slob, and smelled. And while Rasputin actually attained more direct power -- becoming so close to the last Russian Imperial family that he was eventually running the government -- Epstein's proximity to power was much more transactional and opaque.

Yet there is one big, overarching similarity of Rasputin and Epstein -- namely,  they beg the question WHO THE HELL WAS THIS GUY?

Rapsutin was a charlatan, he wasn't even a real priest. He said he spoke to God and could cure diseases when all he really did was utter platitudes, prayed with people, and "laid hands" on them. And yet it led him into the heart of late-Russian nobility and monarchy -- and, with that, he got power and influence and a place in history.

Epstein now has a place in history too, and its all the more remarkable considering that he wasn't really anybody important. He was rich, yes, and that got him access to the famous and powerful (although when you splash around cash its not hard to get doors opened to those kinds of people). But Epstein had no real institutional power nor public-facing career. He wasn't the CEO of a publicly traded or financial company, he didn't run a media or entertainment or real estate empire or any kind of big business, he wasn't a politician nor served in government, and he didn't run or manage or own anything big or well-known. All he did (supposedly) was manage money for rich people. 

And yet Rasputin and Epstein managed to work their ways into the heighest echelons of society and power in two of the most powerful empires on earth.

To a certain extent there's a degree of snobbishness in how people regard them: who are (or were) these people to think they could come from places like Siberia or Coney Island and rub shoulders with the mighty? They were climbers, upstarts, wannabes, who crashed the gates and should have been kicked out by their betters.

That's one way of looking at them.

But another way to view them is as examples of rot -- and how great countries wither and die from the inside. 

In the history of the Russian Revolution, Rasputin and his power and influence have become examples of how delusional, corrupt, and stupid late Imperial Russia had become. And Epstein -- with his private plane, Carribean island, big houses and weird artifacts and pedophilia -- is an example of late-stage capitalism, and how morally bankrupt, debauched, and nihilistic American society is today, fueled by greed, and abandoning the common good.

And in early-20th century Russian and early-21th century America, the public and the powerful allowed themselves to be controlled by gross con artists -- and we have (and will) rue the day.

Rasputin and Epstein are now no longer simply creepy wannabes who died -- they are myths, dark haunting figures that say something damning about our lives and times, about our societies, and what we have all, one way or another,  sadly become.

They are the stench left behind of dead and dying empires.  

The American Rasputin's Home -- March 21st, 2026, 4:14 PM

Russia's Grigori Rasputin lived at Gorokhovaya Street, Apt. 20 in St. Petersburg, Russia:

America's Rasputin, Jeffrey Epstein, lived at 9 East 71st Street in New York, NY:

Two buildings on opposite sides of the world -- a century apart -- sitting quietly on city streets wherein the course of history was changed and two great empires were shaken to their foundations.

The Lost Palaces Down by the Riverside ... Drive

If I had the cash to build a palace, I'd build it in a great city by a river.

Imagine living in a huge home, gilt and elegance everywhere, looking out the window and seeing a brilliant cityscape, and then looking out another window and seeing a big placid stream of water.

How lovely, how mesmerizing, how ... rich.

This is not, obviously, an original idea to me. There have been several historic palaces built next to rivers in great cities but today, sadly, most of them are gone.

And here in NYC, we also have phantom riverside palaces -- the lost mansions that used to exist on Riverside Drive in Manhattan.

But foist, to history!

In London, in the medieval era, there was a huge palace on the banks of the River Thames in London called the Savoy Palace. It was huge, gorgeous, and absolutely screamed of power and wealth. Unsurprisingly it was owned by the then-royal family of England, the Plantagenets. Its last resident was John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III, and an important political and military leader of his time -- a kind of guy-behind-the-guy, a Bismark or James Baker or Tywin Lannister kind of guy.

But tragedy befell the Savoy Palace in 1381 when, during the Peasants Revolt, it was burned down, totally destroyed (John of Gaunt had levied a very unpopular tax on the peasants and the peasants let him know what they thought of it). A smart politician, John didn't rebuild the palace -- instead, he made tax reforms and quelled the rebellion, restoring peace.

John of Gaunt is also the grandfather of every British monarch since Henry IV. John and his longtime-mistress/last wife, the gorgeous and amazing Kathrine Swynford, had four kids. John of Gaunt's riverside palace may not have survived but his DNA sure does!

Moving down to Paris, on the right back of the River Seine, used to stand the Tuilleries Palace. It was one of many residences of the French Kings and it was actually built by the great Queen Catherine de Medici herself. The French Kings before the 1789 didn't actually live there much (they soon headed out to Versailles) but in the 19th century it was used by the short-lived monarchs Louise-Phillipe and Louise Napoleon.

But the Tuilleries Palace became another victim of mass fervor when, during the Paris Commune of 1871, it was destroyed, never to be rebuilt. Now it's a massive public park, the Tuilleries Gardens, where families stroll and couples go to ... French.

Sidenote: a forgotten historical figure named Prince Phillipp of Saxe Coburg Gotha was born in the Tuilleries Palace in 1844. He was the brother-in-law and best friend of the Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary who, along with a couple of others, discovered Rudolf and his dead mistress at Mayerling in January, 1889. Philipp is an intriguing, pivotal character in Episode 4 of Fall of Eagles (see below, it's an amazing episode). Phillipp also put his crazy cheating wife (who was also his cousin) in an insane assylum and fought a duel with her lover that he lost, and then divorced her. During Word War 1, his son was killed when his son's mistress threw acid in his face. He had a life of both great privilege and great tragedy, an example of late 19th century/early 20th century European monarchy that vanished with the war.   

Then there's the Yusupov Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. Built by the insanely wealthy and noble Yusupov family on the banks of the Moika River. It was as huge, as gorgeous, as jaw-droppingly splendid as any palace ever built anywhere. It was (literally) a shining example of Tsarist Russia -- the kind of place that represented everything that the Communists hated and wanted to destroy.

Amazingly, however, the Communists didn't destroy it after the 1917 Russian revolution. It was too big, too impressive, and too useful to destroy. Instead, the Yusopov family fled Russia and the Communists turned into a ministry. Now its a museum. But even though this riverside palace still exists, it's still a phantom -- no one lives there, its original use abandoned, a curiosity of history and not a living part of it.

But what's most interesting about this palace is that while it's huge and gorgeous and an architectural marvel, its best known for something that happened in a basement room in the palace late at night on December 30, 1916. That's the night that Prince Felix Yusupov and his friends killed the mysterious and fake holy man/Tsarist whisperer and advisor Rasputin. They fed him poisoned cakes and wine and, when those failed to kill him, shot him. Rasputin managed to flee outside of the palace where Yusupov and his friends shot him again. Then they chained him up and drove him outside St. Petersburg where they dumped his body into another river. And while Yusopov and his friends thought killing Rasputin would save the Russian monarchy, it was in fact the moment when its doom was sealed.

Okay, so we've delved into history of some of the riverside palaces in London, Paris and St. Petersburg. Let's come home to NYC.

And here you can learn all about the huge, beautiful mansions -- some of them almost as big and gorgeous as palaces -- that were built in the 19th-century on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. Obviously no nobles or royals built or lived in them, but they were examples of the Gilded Age, of New Money, of trying to show their European counterparts that they could build great homes as grand as anything in the Old World. And Riverside Drive, that great stretch of road by the watery Western frontier of NYC, seemed like the perfect place.

Sadly, most of these mansions on Riverside Drive are gone today. A couple still exist but, during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, their wealthy residents could no longer afford their upkeep and sold them to developers. The new owners proceeded to knock them down and build apartment buildings -- some quite splendid themselves but not quite as interesting as the mansions they replaced. 

This documentary below about the lost mansions, the lost palaces, of Riverside Drive tells the story about ten of these long-gone gems.

And I have a personal interest in this -- one of the mansions mentioned in this documentary was replaced by the building that I grew up in myself and where my family still owns the apartment.

So yeah ... I kinda-sorta-but-not-really-but-want-to-believe that I grew up and lived for years in a kinda-sorta-palace on the riverside of a great city.

And that I have a some stuff in common with other previous residents of riverside palaces, like personal intelligence and elegance, except for ... 

John of Gaunt; I mean this guy had it all -- money, power, a hot woman (and women), kids, bling -- I just wouldn't want to have my home burned down. 

... or Catherine de Medici but without all the killing. 

... or Prince Phillipp of Saxe Coburg Gotha but without putting my wife in a loonie bin or discovering my brother-in-law dead. 

... or Prince Felix Yusopov without killing a gross and weird holy man and then fleeing the country.

And if you want to just enjoy the beauty and impressive current day architecture of Riverside Drive, I strongly suggest taking a walk along this most amazing and unique of NYC thoroughfares. 

The Epstein Mansion in NYC History

As the world continues to grapple with fallout from the Epstein Files -- and the horrible system of abuse that he enabled and that society ignored for too long -- the issue of the 21st-century Rasputin's real estate (in which so much ugly stuff happened) continues. 

Epstein's Island in the Carribean as well as his house in Palm Beach are the most notable places. As was his townhouse -- the largest in Manhattan -- on the Upper East Side. (See the video below for more.)

The house has a long and varied history, like any piece of NYC real estate, and the story behind it is an interesting as it is sordid. One thing that has been noted is that the house used to be a school -- which is deeply, darkly ironic considering the man's crimes.

And here's the  thing: I remember it as a school!

The Epstein mansion used to be the home for the Birch Wathen School. It was one of those fancy townhouses on both the Upper East and West Sides that were converted into apartments or schools or various business & non-profit headquarters in the 20th century. In 1989 Birth Wathen merged with the Lenox school and it moved ... leaving the mansion vacant. The Victoria Secret founder Lex Wexner bought it and, so it seems, turned it back into a home. He eventually gifted it to Epstein who then made it into his headquarters for foul deeds.

The fact that a townhouse that was turned into a school was eventually turned back into a home is one of those regressive things like a republic becoming a monarchy that's really depressing.

Anyhoo, when I was a kid I went to another private school nearby -- also in a converted townhouse. And one year I took a private school bus service to school that my parents paid for (one of my fellow bus-mates was Cameron Douglas, son of Michael, who was a nice kid but sadly whose life went awry). But the other school that used this service was, you guesed it, Birch Wathen. And every day we would stop first at Birch Wathen -- and the mansion that would, decades later, fall into infamy.

I never went to the school nor was in the mansion so it's interesting to hear stories of those who did. But I was close to it back in the day, a creepy thing to realize now.

Postscript: about three years ago I walked by the mansion on a cold weekday morning. No one was there thankfully, no voyeurs or people taking pictures -- at least not as far as I could tell. Epstein was dead, the FBI had taken whatever they had needed back in 2019, and it was just sitting there, forelorn.

But there was one clear sign that something was amiss, that something was wrong with this place: the huge double-doors where Prince Andrew was seen poking his head out of and where lots of young women of various ages were seen going in and out -- was covered up by a big ugly wood plank. It was a decidedly weird thing (I assume that it was boarded up because the cops didn't want people breaking into the mansion but who knows). I thought about taking a picture of it and posting it on the blog but I didn't ... it just felt wrong and exploitative and voyeuristic of a tragic situation. So I let it be. 

But this story is far, far from over. 

Memo from NYC

I love history. Even though this is a blog about NYC, I'm obsessed with late 19th and early 20th century European history, the decades where the various rulers of the great empires in Europe made terrible decisions that led to war and revolution -- and shaped the world we live in today.

And in so many ways the lessons that can be learned from that time and place apply to our country and NYC today. 

"It was hard to be Tsar." So begins the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore's book about the Romanov dynasty that ruled Russia for 300 years. Ruling an empire, a country, a region or a city is hard work. Well, it's hard if you take the job seriously, if you strive to do it well, if you try not to make mistakes, and if you truly care about the welfare and progress of your people and your land.

But if you don't take it seriously, or handle it badly, catastrophe ensues. 

In the years leading up to World War I, three of Europe's biggest empires were ruled by people who were unfit to rule. In short, they were really bad at their jobs. They were incompetent, arrogant, delusional, prone to magical thinking, made huge mistakes, and it all ended in horror.

In Germany there was Kaiser Wilhelm II. An erratic, arrogant, narcissistic man-child, he engaged in building up a navy that Germany didn't need, just to piss of England (and his English relatives), tried to play different countries against each other, fired the best Chancellor that Germany ever had (Bismark), and finally plunged Germany into war in 1914 that forced it to fight on two fronts. Eventually Germany lost the war and Wilhelm fled the country -- leaving his country in ruin, eventually leading to the rise of the Nazis.

In Austria-Hungary, you had Emperor Franz Joseph, an amiable but unimaginable ruler who refused to give the 11 nationalities of his empire any real political sovereignty or respect. He was also vulnerable to demands of his army chiefs who yearned for war, any war, and eventually capitulated to their demands to attack Serbia -- that triggered World War I. Franz Joseph died in 1916, was succeeded by his very young nephew, and eventually Austria-Hungary lost the war, the empire broke up, and Franz Joseph's dynasty, the Habsburgs, lost power after 600 years.

And finally, in Russia, you had Tsar Nicholas II, the most staggeringly dumb man ever to rule a vast empire, who believed he'd be a great ruler because God wanted him to, who refused to make reforms until violence ensued, started wars (like the one with Japan) that Russia list in 1905, oversaw the massacre of Bloody Sunday, and finally plunged Russia into war in 1914 with an army that was totally unprepared to fight. This led to the fall of the Romanovs and the rise of Communism.

Disastrous rulers all -- and some of the people who worked for them were even more insane (like advisors who wanted wars or encouraged repression or ... Rasputin). It was rule by the unserious, rule by the mendacious, and it had very serious and cruel conseqences.

We see this in America today.

Today we are being ruled by reckless and unserious people who are dismantling our government, draining our country's power, condoning criminality and violence and repression, and destroying our nation's reputation. It's a horror show (unless you hate America, in which case it's a triumph). 

Closer to home we have Mayor Eric Adams, perhaps the worst and most unpopular mayor this city has ever had, a criminal and a narcissist, a disaster. And he sure doesn't take his job seriously -- Adams has even said that his job, being mayor of the country's biggest city, isn't hard! It's like when Donald Trump told Bob Woodward that he didn't think that the COVID crises was a leadership challenge!

Well, if you don't really care about your job or your city or your country or your people or the challenges facing them ... then leadership is easy. Then it's easy to be the Tsar, or the president, or the mayor, or the whatever. Like school. If you don't care about doing your homework or taking tests or getting good grades, then school is a cinch! But if you do care, well, it's a little harder.

If someone tells you that something that is intrinsically hard is in fact easy, then that is not a serious person -- and that person should never be in a position of power or responsibility. 

Last year I did a blog post about the kingdoms of NYC and I included links to a British mini-series from 1974 called Fall of Eagles. In 13 brilliant episodes it dramatizes the 70 years leading up to World War I and the fall of the German, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian empires in 1918. I can't praise this show enough -- it's massively entertaining and also shows how the warped personalities and priorities of these rulers and their minions created hell.

I strongly recommend you watch it and you can find all the episodes for free on YouTube here. The best episodes, in my opinion are: Episode 4 about the 1889 Mayerling tragedy; Episode 5 about the Nicholas II and Lenin (played by a very young Patrick Stewart); Episode 9 about the annexation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary; and Episode 10 about the start of World War I. 

These episodes most of all demonstrate the failures of people unfit to lead or who operate through delusion and lies. And it makes you look at the people leading America and NYC today and realize that what happened in the past sadly is happening again today here at home. 

Remembering Francis Ellen Work: Princess Diana's NYC Great-Grandma

There are, and have been, royal scandals galore -- Mrs Fitzherbert! Mayerling! Rasputin! Wallis Simpson! Epstein! Megxit! 

And, of course, Diana.

Her notoriously failed 1980s marriage to the then-Prince of Wales/now King Charles III has become the stuff of legend. 

The irony is that, while the marriage itself was a failure, as a royal union it was a huge success: Diana produced an heir and a spare, and they've now produced heirs and spares. The marriage of Charles and Diana may not have lasted but its legacy has kept the dynastic royal line for the House of Windsor secure for the rest of this century.

But did you know that the future Monarchs of the United Kingdom have not only American but also NYC blood?

See, Princess Diana's great-grandma was a New York-native named Frances Ellen Work. She was a classic "dollar bride", a rich new money American who married a broke English bloke with a title.

The marriage was as big a disaster as Frances Ellen's great-granddaughter's -- and Frances' father forced them to get divorced and bring her two sons back to America (much like Queen Elizabeth would force her son to divorce Diana and hand over their two sons). Frances Ellen's rich American father not only hated his British ex-son-in-law but gnerally hated the lust of Britain's nobility for American women and money. 

And here we get to a hinge of history.

Frances Ellen's father stipulated in his will that his sons must never go back to England. They must agree never to set foot in the UK or forfeit their $14 million inheritance. But, when the old man died, the sons appealed to their relatives -- who had also inherited money -- to see if they would agree to waive this clause and let them get their cash without the travel restriction. They agreed. And then one of the sons, Edmund, moved to the UK, married a woman named Ruth, and they had a daughter named Frances. This Frances then married Viscount Spencer and their daughter Diana would then go into history.

Imagine, for moment, if Edmund's relative's had so no. Imagine if they had enforced this clause. Edmund wouldn't have moved to the UK, married, and fathered Princess Diana's mother. And the course of British and world history would be very different.

But it's not. And one day the crown of the UK will be worn by someone with NYC lineage. 

Listen to this great podcast about the life and legacy of Frances Ellen Work. It's a story of booze, bucks, broads, gambling, divorce, and glittering crown.