I was just reading about the Academy of Music in a novel I’m reading set in the time of the robber barons. Apparently the Met in NYC was founded because none of the “new money” folks like Morgan and Rockefeller were allowed into the Academy of Music, as all the seats had been sold to old money New York Society and they wouldn’t let any new members in. So all the industrialists got together and founded their own opera house, and that was the Met.
I think G.T. Strong was a was a member of the Academy of Music. He was a prosperous attorney, but certainly not in the top tier. Maybe he inherited the seat from his father, who preceded George as a prosperous NYC attorney.