The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Above: Liz with Sammy Davis Jr., with her husband Richard Burton kissing (!) another woman*. I’m not sure where this is taken, but as it’s from the LIFE collection by photographer Leonard Mccombe, it’s probably from the evening of October 20, 1964, after the opening of Davis’ hit musical ‘Golden Boy’. Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011), who… Read More
Courtesy Flickr/Harry J. Bizzarro A slight correction:I inferred in this week’s show that the very first Supreme Court — with Chief Justice John Jay — met in Federal Hall. They actually first convened on February 2, 1790, in a building very close by to Fraunces — the Royal Exchange Building. Also called the Merchant Exchange,… Read More
The harbor in 1730, with a view of New York’s Fort George by the engraver John CarwithamIt was 270 years ago this week that a truly foul period in New York history began, starting with a host of fires sprouting up throughout lower Manhattan and ending with several black residents of the city hanged and… Read More
Taking a weekend break from history to offer congratulations to our close friend Nancy Schwartzman who has also occasionally done some research for a few Bowery Boys podcasts in the past. Nancy is a documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, and she is piecing together her second short film now, called xoxosms. And she just successfully… Read More
The Blue Bell Tavern, a rustic pit stop along Bloomingdale Road, witness to the changing fortunes of war. (Courtesy NYPL) FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER To get you in the mood for the weekend, on occasional Fridays we’ll be featuring an old New York nightlife haunt, from the dance halls of 19th Century Bowery, to the massive… Read More
Above: Fonthill Castle in the neighborhood of Riverdale in the Bronx, built in 1852 as the personal kingdom (if only briefly) of one of the world’s great Shakespearean actors, Edwin Forrest. The actor was born today, 205 years ago. The lavish home has long since been a part of the campus of the College of… Read More
Bergen Street is lovely trek through the borough’s most historic sites and neighborhoods — from its western end through Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill, dipping near Park Slope and up through Prospect Heights, and past old Grant Square and the Weeksville Heritage Center, the remnants of an early 19th century free black community. Indirectly, the… Read More
Trout by Currier & Ives, 1872. Sadly there are no extant images of Mrs. Trout. I could not let this week pass without mentioning a sadness that fell over lower Manhattan 150 years ago today. A lament over the number of Southern states seceding from the union? The grief of Democrats over the inauguration that… Read More
That Gotham glow: The powerful Sperry searchlight drapes the dark city in light. The Woolworth Building is lit up like a candle. A thin, bright streak of light brushes across the sky and dances off the clouds above. With few buildings over fifteen stories and the city’s electrical lights at a fraction of the intensity… Read More
This is not a land of hobbits. Despite looking like an illustration from a J.R.R. Tolkien novel, the map above is actual drawing made of early New Amsterdam as it looked to one cartographer in 1661. It’s most likely an alternate image of New Amsterdam by the city’s surveyor Jacques Cortelyou who provides us with… Read More
Mourners filled the streets of New York on April 5th, 1911 , in honor of the victims of the Triangle Factory Fire. This March, modern New Yorkers will get their turn to commemorate the tragedy. Next month is the 100th anniversary of one of the most horrific tragedies in New York City history — the… Read More
Audrey, off Columbus Circle: Hepburn sits in nervous anticipation at the New Century Theatre, moments before she wins for Best Actress. Despite the Academy Awards being a celebration of all things Hollywood, New York has actually hosted the Oscar ceremony on more than one occasion. Or rather, they co-hosted the event — from 1953 to… Read More
San Francisco burns — in New York The first American newsreel debuted just over one hundred years ago, representing the first real attempt to contextualize the moving images of actual events into a stream of information that could emulate a newspaper. The French film company Pathe and the New York-based Vitagraph both debuted edited silent… Read More
Fashion weak: Mary Pickford finds millinery mischief in the 1912 feature ‘The New York Hat’, a Biograph film by D.W. Griffith. This was an especially unusual show to arrange and represents a closely cultivated tour through New York City’s early film history. But early movie studios spread beyond New York’s borders. Most notably, Fort Lee,… Read More
The Motion Picture Story Magazine, the first American magazine devoted exclusively to motion pictures, released its first issue one hundred years ago this month. The deluge of movie periodicals that would debut afterwards would help define Hollywood movie stars, foster their fan bases, promote studio films and sculpt the mythology of film history. And it… Read More