The Bowery Boys: New York City History
What was Times Square before the electric billboards, before the Broadway theaters and theme restaurants, before the thousands and thousands of tourists? What was Times Square before it was Times Square? Today it’s virtually impossible to find traces of the area’s 18th and 19th century past. But in this episode, Tom and Greg will peel away… Read More
Baseball, as American as apple pie, really is “the New York game.” While its precursors come from many places – from Jamestown to Prague – the rules of American baseball and the modern ways of enjoying it were born from the urban experience and, in particular, the 19th-century New York region. The sport (in the… Read More
Missing a good old-fashioned New York City snowfall? Well, then, take in this unusual view from 1902: What storm is this? The horrific blizzard that hit New York on February 17, 1902. It would be considered the worst snowstorm to hit the metropolitan area since the Great Blizzard of 1888. (Read all about it here.) I… Read More
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 introduction of gaslight in the 1820s, New York was a much darker and quieter place after sunset, its streets… Read More
Index cards. Levers and buttons. Wheels and wires and paper. Stone-gray mechanical boxes and intricate machines of gears and pulleys. It was these things — and probably a lot of coffee — that kept New York City operating before the advent of computers. From the subway to the Wall Street trading floor, life functioned in… Read More
Just a few months ago, most of the remaining phone booths were removed from the streets of New York City, oft neglected, a nostalgic victim of our increasing use of cellphones. For almost a century public phones have connected regular New Yorkers with the world. Who doesn’t have fond memories of using a payphone with… Read More
New York street cleaners and garbage workers (sometimes referred to as ‘ashcart men’) went on strike on November 8, 1911, over 2,000 men walking off their jobs in protest over staffing and work conditions. More importantly, that April, the city relegated garbage pickup to nighttime shifts only, and cleaners often worked solo. This may have… Read More
In an absolutely inhumane and totally unwise moment in New York City history, wild and exotic animals were once considered pets, roaming around the city streets with their owners. The wealthiest classes collected all sorts of unusual beasts for their amusement during the 19th century. So many in fact that the Central Park Zoo — or… 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
For almost 150 years, budding fashionistas have been prancing up and down Fifth Avenue on Easter Sunday, displaying elaborate bonnets, hairdos and colorful outfits. Given that modern holiday celebrations are often relatively new (for instance, trick-or-treating has only been a common activity on Halloween since the 1950s), this decorative practice located at this particular spot… Read More
Our latest podcast explores the early history of radio in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the first commercial radio station (KDKA in Pennsylvania) and its first broadcast — the announcement of presidential election results. (Harding wins!) Amateur radio operators at the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side, 1940. Courtesy the Milstein Archives… Read More
Pabst Brewing Company, the Milwaukee beer dynasty founded in 1844 by Jacob Best (and his son-in-law Frederick Pabst), became one of America’s best known beer beverage distributors in the 20th century. Part of their strategy for popularizing their brand was by cracking into a market well saturated with beer at the start of the century… Read More
An airplane crashing into Central Park? Believe it or not, in the early days of flight, these sorts of stories were somewhat frequent, although in this case, the pilot and passenger got out okay. Quote from newspaper coverage. From the New York Evening World, March 6, 1916: “Alexander H. Thaw, the millionaire aviator, and John… Read More
“In observing St. Valentine’s Day we conform to a heathen custom which obtained long before the martyr, St. Valentine, was born,” wrote the New  York Daily Tribune in February of 1908. Like Christmas, the celebration of Valentine’s Day became explicitly commercial in the late 19th century with the mass manufacture of cards and candy.  Massachusetts… Read More
There are a great many statues in New York City of the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, a rather controversial figure today who many consider to be a sadist and a bumbling idiot who destroyed indigenous cultures in the name of European glory.  He was obviously more celebrated at the end of the 19th century when colonization and violent conquest were still… Read More