The Bowery Boys: New York City History
New York City, 1953, the setting for Kevin Baker’s The Big Crowd. Photo by Eliot Elisofen, courtesy Life/Google imagesBOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH Each month I’ll pick a book — either brand new or old, fiction or non-fiction — that offers an intriguing take on New York City history, something that uses history in… Read More
The used bookstores of Book Row, the above shot from Fourth Avenue and 10th Street, 1938 (courtesy NYPL)BOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH Each month I’ll pick a book — either brand new or old, fiction or non-fiction — that offers an intriguing take on New York City history, something that uses history in a… Read More
A sizzling 52nd Street in July 1948 (courtesy LOC)BOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH Each month I’ll pick a book — either brand new or old, fiction or non-fiction — that offers an intriguing take on New York City history, something that uses history in a way that’s uniquely unconventional or exposes a previously unseen… Read More
BOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH Each month I’ll pick a book — either brand new or old, fiction or non-fiction — that offers an intriguing take on New York City history, something that uses history in a way that’s uniquely unconventional or exposes a previously unseen corner of our city’s complicated past. Then over the… Read More
BOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald I re-read The Great Gatsby a few weeks ago on purpose, not because I had a school assignment. Unlike my first experience with Gatsby at age 14, I actually read it, without the signposts of a Cliff’s Notes to tell me what… Read More
So how do you follow two journalists around the world, in opposite directions and from the vantage of almost 125 years in the future? I asked Matthew Goodman, the author of “Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World,” this month’s Bowery Boys Book of the Month, about the two competitors… Read More
Greetings from Columbo, Ceylon, one of the many glamorous destinations you’ll visit in Matthew Goodman’s new book.BOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH Each month I’ll pick a book — either brand new or old, fiction or non-fiction — that offers an intriguing take on New York City history, something that uses history in a way… Read More
BOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH Each month I’ll pick a book — either brand new or old, fiction or non-fiction — that offers an intriguing take on New York City history, something that uses history in a way that’s unconventional and different or exposes a previously unseen corner of our city’s complicated past. Then… Read More
A passenger steamer passes along the Hudson, early 1900s. (Courtesy LOC)As a kick-off to the Bowery Boys Book of the Month section, I thought I’d ask Mark Siegel, the author of “Sailor Twain or The Mermaid in the Hudson,” a few questions on his inspiration for the graphic novel. I was especially interested in the… Read More
We’re trying out a new feature here on the blog by debuting our very first ever Bowery Boys Book of the Month selection! Each month I’ll pick a book — either brand new or old, fiction or non-fiction — that offers an intriguing take on New York City history, something that uses history in a… Read More
The Irish Way: Becoming American in the Multi-Ethnic Citypart of the Penguin History of American Life seriesBy James R. BarrettPenguin Group The Irish were the first to immigrate to this country en masse in the 1840s, only to find themselves near the bottom of almost every aspect of American life. In James R. Burnett‘s tidy and studied… Read More
Reason to love New York No. 12,306: A museum honoring the city’s history has a hit on its hands with an elaborate show about surveying and real estate. ‘The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan 1811-2011‘, the smash-hit exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York, is the most fully realized and in-depth… Read More
Dapper gentlemen: At a 1924 celebration in Langston’s honor, at the home of Regina Andrews on 580 St. Nicholas Avenue. The author is to the far left, followed by future sociologists Charles S. Johnson and E. Franklin Frazier; novelist and future doctor Rudolph Fisher; and Hubert T. Delany, who would become a New York justice… Read More