The Bowery Boys: New York City History
For the Bowery Boys episode number 450, we’re looking at the glamour and mystery of Harlem during the 1920s, a decade when the predominantly black neighborhood, in the words of Langston Hughes, “was in vogue.” This year marks the 100th anniversary of Alain Locke’s classic essay “The New Negro” and the literary anthology featuring the… Read More
Lets start the new year with something beautiful shall we? The latest in the Bowery Boys podcast feed — join Carl Raymond, host of The Gilded Gentleman podcast, and Lindsy Parrott of the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass at the Queens Museum, as the luxury and elegant behind the name — Tiffany. Just the name… Read More
Need an escape from the world for just a little while? A place where you can be by yourself? We’ve got the keys. Carl Raymond of The Gilded Gentleman podcast and his guest Keith Taillon invite you into one of the most historically exclusive spaces in New York City — the romantic and peaceful escape known as Gramercy… Read More
Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence is a perfect novel to read in the spring — maybe it’s all the flowers — so we are presenting to Bowery Boys listeners this marvelous literary-themed episode from the Gilded Gentleman. The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s most famous novel, an enduring classic of Old New York… Read More
Emma Stebbins is most noted for her iconic bronze statue The Angel of the Waters which was placed on Central Park’s Bethesda Terrace in 1873. You may be aware of parts of the Stebbins’ biography. Her Angel was the first public statue in New York produced by a woman and her life included a domestic partnership with… Read More
PODCAST Your ticket to Truman Capote’s celebrity-filled party at the Plaza. This month FX is debuting a new series created by Ryan Murphy — called Feud: Capote and the Swans — regarding writer Truman Capote‘s relationship with several famed New York society women. And it’s such a New York story that listeners have asked if we’re going… Read More
This week we’re highlighting an especially festive episode of the Gilded Gentleman Podcast — the Bowery Boys spinoff podcast hosted by Carl Raymond — an episode with double the holiday fun, tracing the history of holiday celebrations over 19th-century New York City history. Licensed New York City tour guide and speaker Jeff Dobbins joins host Carl for… Read More
PODCAST The rebirth of the East Village in the late 1970s and the flowering of a new and original New York subculture — what Edmund White called “the Downtown Scene” — arose from the shadow of urban devastation and was anchored by a community that reclaimed its own deteriorating neighborhood. In the last episode (Creating… Read More
In 1882, Oscar Wilde took break from his lecture tour of North America to meet his childhood idol, the aging poet Walt Whitman, who lived in Camden, New Jersey. Their afternoon together is the stuff of literary legend. Wilde later recounted, “The kiss of Walt Whitman is still on my lips.” On these special two… Read More
Richard Morris Hunt was one of the most important architects in American history. His talent and vision brought respect to his profession in the mid 19th century and helped to craft the seductive style of the Gilded Age. So why are there so few examples of his extraordinary work still standing in New York City… Read More
The enigmatic smile of the Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, at its longtime home of the Louvre in Paris, has captured the attention of the public for centuries. Few people realize however that on a warm summer morning in Paris in the year 1911, the painting was stolen — and remained missing for over two years. Press… Read More
Within the New York City of Edward Hopper‘s imagination, the skyscrapers have vanished, the sidewalks are mysteriously wide and all the diners and Chop Suey restaurants are sparsely populated with well-dressed lonely people. In this art-filled episode of the Bowery Boys, Tom and Greg look at Hopper’s life, influence and specific fascination with the city,… Read More
Crosswords, jigsaws, mazes, rebuses, Rubik’s cubes, Myst, Words With Friends — and now Wordle? Not only have people loved puzzles for centuries, they’ve actually gone wild for them. Every few years, a new puzzle comes along to captivate the nation. But each of these little games has an extraordinary history and for this special show,… Read More
Early one spring day in 1922, while dutifully posing at the Art Students League on West 57th Street, Santa Claus had a fatal heart attack in front of a classroom of students. Above — He knows when you’ve been bad or good: A Christmas issue of Judge Magazine from 1919 by Guy Lowy, who studied at the… Read More
In 1890 the Danish-American journalist Jacob Riis turned his eye-opening reporting and lecture series into a ground-breaking book called How The Other Half Lives, a best seller which awoke Americans to the plight of the poor and laid the groundwork for the Progressive Era. Riis exposed more than a humanitarian crisis. He laid bare the… Read More