Career
As an architect, Edelmann"s sole surviving monument is the former headquarters of the Decker Brothers Piano Company, the Decker Building (1893), at 33 Union Square West, New New York Louis Sullivan was influenced by his work with Edelmann and credits Edelmann"s concept of "suppressed function" with the inspiration for his maxim, "Form follows function," a watchword of Modernism. Before coming to New York, Edelmann had worked as a draughtsman for the Chicago architects William LeBaron Jenney and Dankmar Adler.
The late Professor
Donald Egbert of Princeton indicates that Edelmann came to New York in 1886 to work in the mayoral campaign of Henry George, the most influential proponent of the "Single Tax" on land, also known as the land value tax Edelmann worked in the offices of Alfred Zucker from 1891 to 1893. He was on hand to welcome the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin on his first lecture tour in America.
Kropotkin stayed in the Edelmann apartment on East 96th Street during his stay.
Edelmann had married Rachelle Krimont, an Eastern European immigrant whose family were radicals. These activities brought him into the circle of the eminent American anarchist and writer Emma Goldman.
Edelmann died during the deadly heat wave of July 1900.