Alfred Corning Clark  Alfred Corning Clark I (November 14, 1844 – April 8, 1896) was an American philanthropist and patron of the arts. He was the son of Edward Cabot Clark (1811–1882) and Caroline (née Jordan) Clark (1815–1874). His father made a fortune as the partner of Isaac Singer in the Singer Sewing Machine Company, invested it in Manhattan, New York City real estate, and left a $25,000,000 (approximately $ today) estate at his death. His maternal grandfather was Ambrose L. Jordan, a New York State Senator who served as the New York State Attorney General. On October 20, 1869, Clark married Elizabeth Scriven (1848–1909), the daughter of George Scriven and Ellen Rattan Scriven of Brooklyn, New York. Her parents had emigrated from Great Britain, and the wedding took place at "Withecombe" in Manor of Raleigh, Pilton, Devon, England. Alfred and Elizabeth Clark were the parents of four sons:   Clark maintained three residences in Manhattan: a city house at 7 West 22nd Street for his family, a nearby flat at 64 West 22nd Street for guests, and a large apartment in The Dakota overlooking Central Park for entertaining. Clark's father built The Dakota (1880–84), but died during its construction. Edward Cabot Clark skipped a generation and bequeathed the building to his 12-year-old grandson and namesake, Edward Severin Clark. Clark died of pneumonia on April 8, 1896, in Manhattan, New York City. Six years after his death, his widow became the second wife of Henry Codman Potter, the Episcopal bishop of New York, in 1902. In 1866, Clark met Norwegian tenor Lorentz Severin Skougaard (1837–1885) in Paris, where the singer was studying. In 1869, the same year that he married Elizabeth Scriven, Clark began making annual summer visits to Norway, eventually building a house on an island near Skougaard's family home. He gave his son Edward, born 1870, the middle name Severin. When in New York City, Skougaard occupied Clark's flat at 64 West 22nd Street. During an 1885 visit, Skougaard was stricken with typhoid and died. Clark eulogized him in a privately published biographical sketch, and created a $64,000 endowment in his memory for Manhattan's Norwegian Hospital, 4th Avenue & 46th Street.