The Bowery Boys: New York City History
The well from which the San Gennaro Festival draws its zany carnival energy is surprisingly the church which sits its center, the birthplace of the first U.S. San Gennaro feast, at the Church of the Most Precious Blood, between Baxter and Mulberry in Little Italy. The ‘Most Precious Blood’ in this case refers not only… Read More
Every year for the past 80 years, Mulberry Street in Little Italy becomes a wacky religious carnival. Why the San Gennaro Festival — with its mixture of saintly reliquary, frozen daquaris, freak shows and clowns — isn’t considered profane and condemned by the Catholic Church is a mystery to me. All I know is that… Read More
As often happens in the blogosphere, seemingly unimportant events get parceled about with declarations that don’t really mean much. For instance, the announcement yesterday that a new bowling alley was opening in Brooklyn — the first to open there in nearly 50 years! — disguises the fact that there are already a few bowling alleys… Read More
I wasn’t sure what kind of entry to post today, so I figured it might be interesting for some of you to read an excerpt from the letter I wrote my family and friends back home on Sept 15, 2001. (The day I got back my Internet service, which had been knocked out.) I lived… Read More
The world has turned its eyes to Flushing Meadows, Queens, for almost 30 years now thanks to the U.S Open, held as the sports complex called the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. It’s named after the tennis icon who won four women’s Open singles titles, three mixed doubles titles, and two women’s doubles… Read More
While winding through the financial district in lower Manhattan on Sunday (Sept 2), I made my way down Stone Street (one of the city’s oldest paths) and found this scene outside of Ulysses bar: About 40 people, in various Colonial and period garments, were carousing in character and loudly carrying on like Revolutionary War heroes.… Read More
Another colorful New Yorker died earlier this week, the Cruella Deville of real estate, Leona Helmsley, the Queen of Mean. With her passes a dynasty of wealth and power derived from her husband Herman, whose properties included the Empire State Building, the Flatiron building and more than 30 hotels. Brooke Astor, elder survivor of the… Read More
Our tribute to an off-the-beaten-path museum or landmark that you may not know about. Instead of MoMa, why not try out one of these places? Past entries in this series can be found here. Okay, I know I’m stretching when I call the NYC Transit Museum ‘off the beaten path’. Its advertised in every available… Read More
In this week’s podcast, we briefly touched on a pivotal moment in the history of the Ancient Order of the Hibernians. They assisted in the defense of St Patrick’s Old Cathedral during a raid by anti-Catholic, anti-Irish rioters. The Ancient Order of the Hibernians are essentially the Irish-Catholic version of the Freemasons. The Pope had… Read More
To get you in the mood for the weekend, every Friday we’ll be celebrating ‘FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER’, featuring an old New York nightlife haunt, from the dance halls of 19th Century Bowery, to the massive warehouse spaces of the mid-90s. Past entries can be found here How can I continue to do this series without… Read More
New York City is a terrible place for horses, or for that matter, any animal bigger than a rat. However, the animal has been instrumental to New York’s history. Today you can see them trotting through Central Park, looking lobotomized, carting around tourists in frilly carts. Already a rather demeaning usage, the horses are also… Read More
New York’s robust and often scary gentrification drive into Condo Land, already ripping through neighborhoods like the Lower East Side, threatens another unusual city landmark – the Dominos Sugar factory, a cluster of important buildings just near the Williamsburg bridge on the Brooklyn side. While it might seem weird to get all angsty about a… Read More
In our first REAL episode, Greg and Tom explain their name and talk about the first Bowery Boys (not to mention the “Bowery Boys” of stage and screen). Also, a quick discussion of the origins of the names of all five boroughs. And a couple bad jokes.
It’s Independence Day and we’re spending it with our favorite New York Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton. The Bowery Boys visit his life, his hangouts, and his New York. Listen to it for free on iTunes or other podcasting services. Or you can download or listen to it HERE