NEW YORK (AP) – “What surroundings, Mrs. Russell. We could be at Tsarskoye Selo,” exclaims Nathan Lane’s snooty Ward McAllister at his first glance of her opulent Fifth Avenue mansion on The Gilded Age. The social arbiter’s reference to an 18th-century palace outside St. Petersburg, Russia, is lost on the new-money Bertha, but the point was made: The HBO Max series has brought alive America’s post-Civil War renaissance and New York City’s cultural awakening in all its Beaux Arts glory.