The Bowery Boys: New York City History
At the New York World’s Fair 1939-40: Australia makes a stylish, woolen debut, thanks to renown designer Douglas Annand. (Photo by Robert Coates, courtesy the Powerhouse Museum. You can check out other images of this curious pavilion here.) After many years as a mere podcast, The Bowery Boys: New York City History will be making… Read More
Manhattan grid illuminated, taken from the Metropolitan Life Tower in Madison Square, looking downtown. I’m not sure when this photo was taken, but a reasonable guess might be the late 1910s. The caption says ‘New York Edison Company, Photographic Bureau.’ (Photo courtesy NYPL)FOR MORE INFORMATION: We just scratched the surface on the ‘war of… Read More
A new podcast will be ready for download later this evening! The film ‘Edison, The Man‘ was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, which is appropriate because most of the movie is entirely fictional, including this re-imagining of Edison’s Pearl Street Station and the first blocks cast in the glow of incandescent lights. In truth, the ‘switch’ was flipped from… Read More
Not sure why this took me forever to set up, but you can finally read our blog on your mobile devices without any awkward scrolling or squinting your eyes. Just visit www.boweryboyspodcast.com (www.theboweryboys.blogspot.com) on your phones to check it out! I’m also in the planning stages of creating an actual mobile app, but until that… Read More
I interrupt this blog to insert an endorsement for one of my favorite New York City resources. We got our start here at The Bowery Boys: NYC History over five years ago, and the folks over at Forgotten New York were the first to provide links to our website and podcasts. We are continually grateful for their support. Hopefully, if… Read More
We were nominated this year for Best Travel Podcast in the 2011 People’s Choice Podcast Awards. Thanks to everybody who submitted our show for consideration! The voting for the awards begins today. You can visit once a day between now and next Friday, October 21. Just visit their website and click on the Bowery Boys at… Read More
NEWSIES: The Disney film ‘Newsies’ is notable almost exclusively for giving us a singin’, dancin’ Christian Bale. But the glowing reviews for the new musical version, which debuted this Sunday at the Papermill Playhouse in Milburn NJ, suggest this version has more to shout about. Suggested Listening: The original story is based on events which occurred on… Read More
Manhattan’s Playboy Club, at 5 East 59th Street NBC’s saucy new series ‘The Playboy Club’ starts this Monday. I believe it’s set in Chicago, however I thought this was a fine time to revise and reprint an article I wrote last year on the Manhattan branch of the Hugh Hefner club, which was featured in an… Read More
Thanks to everybody who came out on Saturday for our reading at Swift Hibernian Lounge, as part of the 4th Annual Lit Crawl. Swift makes for a incredibly atmospheric place to spin tales of New York history. Or possibly preach the gospel. Or hold an occult ritual. (Above: That’s me behind the massive podium.) And it… Read More
Come join The Bowery Boys this Saturday, Sept. 10, at Swift Hibernian Lounge (34 East 4th St.) as part of this weekend’s fourth annual Lit Crawl, a combination literary festival/pub crawl taking place throughout the East Village and the Lower East Side. The Lit Crawl is a free event featuring almost two dozen readings throughout… Read More
Above: A Moving Day calamity in 1831!I’m moving into a new apartment starting tomorrow morning, and the whole process should take a few days. But on a brighter note, tomorrow will be my first day as a resident of Brooklyn! As a result the blog will be a little quiet until Friday afternoon, when I’ll have some notes on this week’s… Read More
Coming this weekend: a podcast in the lap of New York luxury in 1864, including the Fifth Avenue Hotel, pictured above (at far right) in the 1900s. But wait, is that something burning? This has been a pretty insane week, especially as I’m moving to a new apartment this Tuesday and Tom’s recently back from his… Read More
Seems like forever since we’ve had a new podcast right? Well, Tom is back from vacation this week, and we’ll begin work on the new show. Episode #128 will be ready for download on Friday, August 26. Then we should be back to our regular monthly schedule — with one or two surprises in between… Read More
This Saturday the city begins its annual Summer Streets program, closing a corridor of avenues from the Brooklyn Bridge to 72st Street and transforming them into pedestrian havens. From 7am until 1pm on August 6, 13, and 20th, you can walk, bike, skateboard or generally meander in any way you please for miles. You can… Read More
I’m at the end of the painful process of finding a new apartment and haven’t had a chance to write a new blog posting this week. So I’ll end the week with a song by the Brooklyn-based My Cousin, The Emperor. Tom and I were invited by the band to attend their performance last night at the Gramercy… Read More