Bowery Boys Podcast Collection
Latest Episode
In our modern world, people are turning to all sorts of unusual beliefs and fringe disciplines just outside the bounds of medical science and psychology, all in search of a better understanding of the human…
Listen to this episode →More from this collection
18 episodes
Once upon a time New York City oysters were not only plentiful and healthy in the harbor, they were an everyday, common food source. The original fast food! For that reason, the oyster could be…
Enter the magical world of New York by gaslight, the city illuminated by the soft, revolutionary glow of lamps powered by gas, an innovative utility which transformed urban life in the 19th century. Before…
The story of New York’s most prominent abortionist of the 19th century and the unique environment of morality and secrecy which accommodated her rise on the fringes of society. Ann Lohman aka Madame Restell was…
The Renwick Ruin, resembling an ancient castle lost to time, appears along the East River as a crumbling, medieval-like apparition, something not quite believable. Sitting between two new additions on Roosevelt Island — the campus…
PODCAST The following podcast may look like the history of New York City cemeteries — from the early churchyards of the Colonial era to the monument-filled rural cemeteries of Brooklyn and Queens. But it’s much…
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…
We released the following show on the history of vaccines back in early April 2020 when the idea of a COVID 19 vaccine seemed little more than distant fantasy. Just this past Monday, on December…
PODCAST An account of a mysterious typhoid fever outbreak and the woman — Mary Mallon, the so-called Typhoid Mary — at the center of the strange epidemic. The tale of Typhoid Mary is a harrowing…
EPISODE 329 Did you know that the first modern urban ambulance — the ‘mobile hospital’ — was invented in New York City? On June 4, 1869, America’s first ambulance service went into operation from Bellevue…
EPISODE 325 In 1858, during two terrible nights of violence, the needs of the few outweighed the needs of the many when a community, endangered for decades and ignored by the state, finally reached its…
EPISODE 324 At last! The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast looks at one of the strangest traditions in this city’s long history — that curious custom known as Moving Day. Every May 1st,…
PODCAST: A history of all things trash in New York City. Picture New York City under mountains of filth, heaving from clogged gutters and overflowing from trash cans. Imagine the unbearable smell rotting food and…
This is a podcast about kindness and care. About the bold Progressive Era pioneers who saved the lives of thousands of people in need — from the Lower East Side to Washington Heights, from Hell’s Kitchen…
PODCAST Fifth Avenue’s role in the ‘revolution’ of beauty, as led by Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein, New York’s boldest businesswomen of the Jazz Age. The Midtown Manhattan stretch of Fifth Avenue, once known for…
The story of New York World reporter Nellie Bly as she poses as a mental patient to report on the abuses of Blackwell’s Island’s Lunatic Asylum. PODCAST Nellie Bly was a determined and fearless journalist…
Bellevue from the waterfront, 1879. Â Proximity to the shoreline — which once gave the original mansion here that ‘belle vue’ — was key in the early years of Bellevue, as sometimes it was the fastest…
The Stuyvesant Apartments in 1934, already being dwarfed with a newer structure on the right. Please note the ornate entrance to the Third Avenue elevated train to the left of the picture, as well as the…
The simplicity of the New York grid system, seen overhead in a 1939 classic photo by Margaret Bourke-White. PODCAST The Commissioners Plan of 1811 How did Manhattan get its orderly rows of numbered streets and…
Browse More Collections