Sport: Death of Hastings

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As it must to all men, Death came last week to Thomas Hastings, architect, of the firm of Carrere & Hastings, in Manhattan. In. a crowded memorial chapel, his coffin stood covered by autumn leaves overlaid with roses. Beside it, the Cross of the Legion of Honor lay on a plush cushion. Around it stood Architects Cass Gilbert, William Adams Delano, Chester Holmes Aldrich; Banker Thomas William Lament, Sculptor John Flanagan, many another notable, friend, relation. They sang "Rock of Ages," composed 100 years ago by Architect Hastings' grandfather. Someone recited Shelley's "Ode to a Skylark."

Architect Hastings was born in Manhattan in 1860 of an old Dutch-English family, in America since 1634. He studied for a while at Columbia University and went to Paris in 1880, entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts where he studied architecture in the atelier of Jules André. In Paris he became imbued with the great French tradition but, never an academician, he returned to the U. S. with an open mind bent upon adapting his learning to U. S. limitations. In the firm of McKim, Mead & White, where he spent his apprenticeship, he shared a draughting board with John Merven Carrère. They quit McKim, Mead & White and hung out their own shingle. Soon they had a commission from Henry M. Flagler, pioneer Florida exploiter, to build two hotels in St. Augustine, the Ponce de Leon and the Alcazar. Wide was the comment aroused by their romantic, freely adapted Spanish style. More commissions came and the rirm was established.

In 1897, Carrère & Hastings won the prize in the countrywide competition for the New York Public Library. In 1911 when the building was opened to the public John Carrère was killed in a street accident. In his will, Architect Hastings has left $250,000 to remodel the library's facade, with which he was never quite satisfied.