William Jay Gaynor

William Jay Gaynor 1849-1913, U.S. political leader, mayor of New York City, b. Oneida co., N.Y. He rose to prominence as a civic reformer in Brooklyn and, as justice of the New York supreme court (1893-1909), continued to oppose municipal graft. Tammany named him candidate; he won the 1909 election but soon lost Tammany support by his reform program, which was not highly successful. His strong and unconventional personality made him a spectacular figure of his time.

Jay, William (c.1793–1837). English architect. His Albion Chapel, Moorfields, London (1815–16—demolished) was admired by none other than James Elmes. Jay, however, emigrated to Savannah, GA, USA, in 1817, where he designed some of the earliest houses there in the Greek Revival style (e.g. Owen Thomas House Museum, Telfair House, and Scarborough House (1818, 1820) ). He returned to England in 1822, and probably designed houses in Columbia Place, Winchcombe Street, Cheltenham, Glos. He was responsible for Watermoor House, Cirencester, Glos. (1825–7), and two of the houses in Pittville Parade (now Evesham Road), Cheltenham, were by him. He went bankrupt, and obtained an official post in Mauritius, where he died.

Bibliography

Colvin (1995);
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, xxii/4, (Dec. 1963), 225–7

McInerney, Jay (1955– ),novelist. Born in Connecticut and educated at Williams College, McInerney went to New York City as a fact‐checker for The New Yorker magazine. His first novel, Bright Lights, Big City (1984), about a young man's experience of existential furor in the city, won critical praise. A comic novel is Ransom (1985), set in Japan. The Story of My Life (1988) is another novel. Brightness Falls (1992) is a satiric novel about the excesses of city people in the 1980s. Model Behavior (1998) collects comic short stories and a novel. The Last of the Savages (1998) charts three decades of the American experience, beginning in the mid 1960s, as its two main characters move from youth to middle age.