The Bowery Boys: New York City History
For the hundreds of thousands of people employed by New Deal programs during the Great Depression, it was always infrastructure week. Even for those employed by the WPA’s Federal Writers’ Project, aimed at giving paychecks to unemployed writers by creating meaningful employment that benefited the public good. But their objectives weren’t to build new infrastructure;… Read More
William Poole, born 200 years ago today in New Jersey, was one of the most infamous villains in New York City history. As a young man, he operated as a butcher at Washington Market (in the area of today’s Tribeca neighborhood) and that legitimate occupation lent him his nickname earned by his more disreputable activities… Read More
New York City on ice — a tribute to the forgotten industry which kept the city cool in the age before refrigeration and air conditioning. Believe it or not, ice used to be big business. In 1806 a Boston entrepreneur named Frederic Tudor cut blocks of ice from a pond on his family farm and… Read More
These days of low-to-mid 90s F, high humidity temperatures got you down? Why that’s nothing! The hottest day in New York City history was eighty-five years ago last week — on July 9, 1936, when temperatures reached an agonizing 106 degrees, measured from the Central Park weather observatory. This broke the record set on August… Read More
PODCAST There are two mysterious islands in the East River with a human population of zero. North Brother Island and the smaller South Brother Island sit near the tidal strait known as Hell Gate, a once-dangerous whirlpool which wrecked hundreds of ships and often deposited the wreckage on the island’s quiet shore. In the 1880s… Read More
This article is an excerpt of an entire mini-podcast on the history of South Brother Island, available to those who support the Bowery Boys Podcast on Patreon (at the Five Points level and above). Join us on Patreon to listen today! This week’s latest podcast explores the dark and dramatic history of North Brother Island,… Read More
We’re sliding into summer AT LAST — ready for great music, hot dancing and breaking into fire hydrants — and so we’ve just released an epic summertime episode of Bowery Boys Movie Club to the general Bowery Boys podcast audience, exploring the 1989 Spike Lee masterpiece Do The Right Thing. And sticking to the theme of summertime New… Read More
The new episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club explores the new musical film In The Heights and the fascinating historical neighborhood at its center. An exclusive podcast for those who support us on Patreon. Lin Manuel Miranda‘s first Broadway musical In The Heights was a critical and box office smash and won four Tony Awards — including Best Musical. And yet… Read More
Robert Allerton lived without a care thanks to his family’s Gilded Age fortune, built from the stockyards of Chicago’s meat processing district. As a young man, Allerton used his inherited wealth to maintain the family estate near Monticello, Illinois, cultivating a garden escape where he could be left to his own devices. And then, in… Read More
We’ve now reached the end of our Road Trip To Long Island mini-series but not the end of Long Island history on our podcast. Let’s just say, we were on something of a test drive to gauge listeners’ interest in the Bowery Boys Podcast expanding beyond the borders of the city. We are now anticipating… Read More
How did one particular summer settlement on Fire Island become a ‘safe haven’ for gay men and lesbians almost ninety years ago, decades before the uprising at Stonewall Inn? This is the third and final part of the Bowery Boys Road Trip to Long Island. (Check out the first part on Gatsby and the Gold… Read More
The Bowery Boys Podcast’s new mini-series Road Trip to Long Island featuring tales of historic sites outside of New York City. In the next leg of our journey, we visit Jones Beach State Park, the popular beach paradise created by Robert Moses on Long Island’s South Shore. Well before he transformed New York City with… Read More
PODCAST Relive a little Jazz Age luxury by escaping into the colossal castles, manors and chateaus on Long Island’s North Shore, the setting for one of America’s most famous novels. This is the first part of our new mini-series Road Trip to Long Island featuring tales of historic sites outside of New York City. Many… Read More
The Bowery Boys podcast is going on a road trip. Presenting a new three part podcast series, exploring three historic places outside of New York City. It’s a Bowery Boys Road Trip to Long Island! Listen to the trailer here: Greg Young · Long Island Trailer We’re headed to the lands beyond Brooklyn and Queens… Read More
PODCAST Nature and history intertwine in all five boroughs — from the Bronx River to the shores of Staten Island — in this special episode about New York City’s many gardens. A botanical garden is more than just a pretty place; it’s a collection of plant life for the purposes of preservation, education and study.… Read More