The Bowery Boys: New York City History
PODCAST The story of a brutal murder in a New York brothel and the prime suspect’s controversial trial which captivated Americans in the 1830s. In the spring of 1836, a young woman named Helen Jewett was brutally murdered with a hatchet in a townhouse brothel on Thomas Street, just a few blocks northwest from New… Read More
Today let’s give a little love to New York original mermaid queen — the hideous Fiji (Fejee) Mermaid! This sickening Frankenstein monster — comprising a monkey’s head sewn onto a fish torso — was displayed in  PT Barnum’s American Museum off and on for almost twenty years.  Believe it or not, Barnum actually leased… Read More
St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery is the oldest standing structure in the East Village. Upon seeing it, you’re almost forced to reevaluate where you are. It’s intriguing even to those who pass by it everyday. It’s mysterious even to those who work and worship here. Built in 1799 by the Stuyvesant family, St. Mark’s chapel and cemetery… Read More
PODCAST It’s the ninth annual Bowery Boys ghost stories podcast, our seasonal twist on history, focusing on famous tales of the weird and the disturbing at some of New York’s most recognizable locations. Don’t be frightened! We’re here to guide you through the back alleys … OF TERROR! In this installment, we take a look at… Read More
Here is the complete collection of Bowery Boys Halloween specials. Creep yourself out while listening to these spooky legends of New York City. From the haunted woods of Van Cortlandt Park to spirits haunting Captain Kidd’s treasure on Liberty Island. Psychics at Carnegie Hall, unsettling spirits in Cobble Hill, undead party animals at Grand Central! Download… Read More
A thousand unsolved mysteries live within a newspaper’s archives, little forgotten events that have faded into history. Sometimes you can search deeper, and the answers to those mysteries may emerge. This is what happened in a series of three articles I found the other day while doing some research on North Brother Island (the fruits… Read More
A flyer for one of the author’s many Carnegie Hall lectures. (Courtesy Carnegie Hall archives) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made a startling announcement in April 1922. Known for his beliefs in communicating with the afterlife, the famed creator of Sherlock Holmes announced an extraordinary discovery — the existence of ectoplasm, the ghostly goo that emits… Read More
Dark skies over the Brooklyn Bridge, from a 1905 postcard (courtesy MCNY) PODCAST Brooklyn is the setting for this quartet of classic ghost stories, all set before the independent city was an official borough of New York City. This is a Brooklyn of old stately mansions and farms, with railroad tracks laid through forests and… Read More
Above is an illustrated bird’s eye view of College Point, Queens, from a 1917 guidebook “Illustrated Flushing and vicinity.” As that book goes on to describe, “COLLEGE POINT is essentially a manufacturing town—the industrial center of the Flushing District. It is an old settlement like Flushing and Whitestone, both of which it immediately adjoins on… Read More
Above: The cover of the New York edition of Brown’s optical illusion book One of the hottest books in New York City in the fall of 1864 was an optical illusion collection that conjured ghosts through a simple trick of the eye. Spectropia, or surprising spectral illusions showing ghosts everywhere and of any colour was… Read More
Anybody watching the Houdini mini-series on the History Channel? It’s, um, interesting, I guess. It breezes over any actual character development — eschews all forms of subtlety — and lingers upon vast areas of speculation in his biography. This would be totally unacceptable if it were anybody else but Harry Houdini, who routinely blended fact… Read More
Does this woman look like a murderer to you? This is Florence Carman, the wife of Dr. Edwin Carman, one of the most respected men in Freeport, on Long Island’s south shore. Mrs. Carman would be at the center of a murder trial that captivated New Yorkers 100 years ago. Dr. Carman received a visitor… Read More
Above: Famed spiritualists gather in Chicago, 1906. The names weren’t listed, but perhaps Mme. La Viesta is pictured here? (Courtesy Chicago Daily News/Library of Congress) The Gilded Age brought us human beings of impossibly vast wealth. It also brought us a mainstream appreciation of spiritualism, an exploration of magic and the afterlife as a way… Read More
The halls of Pennsylvania Station, conjuring the grandeur of a Roman temple, would have created an otherworldly echo at rush hour on January 22, 1914. Thousands of commuters hurrying across the marble floors of McKim, Mead and White’s steel-latticed terminal, rushing to arriving trains pulling into the sunken boarding area from deep tunnels beneath Manhattan… Read More
The Van Cortlandt House, 1906PODCAST This is the Bowery Boys 7th annual Halloween podcast, with four new scary stories to chill your bones and keep you up at night, generously doused with strange and fascinating facts about New York City. For this episode, we’ve decided to go truly old-school, reaching back to old legends… Read More