The Bowery Boys: New York City History
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
Yes, they are: from a book by noted New York graphic designer and dog breeder John Vassos. [source] Hickory, the winner of last night’s Westminster Kennel Club dog show, might seem to embody a refreshing return to normalcy when it comes to dog names. In fact, the deerhound’s full name is a bit more exotic… Read More
A long time ago, 151 years ago this month to be exact, a hat factory exploded in Brooklyn. Hats being far more prevalent in the social fashion then than they are today, New York and the surrounding area were, pardon the pun, brimming with them. The city of Brooklyn had to make due with one… Read More
In 1965, at the completion of the World’s Fair in Flushing-Meadows, many components like fountains, sculptures, lighting features and even whole pavilions were moved to other areas of the world. Most famously, the ‘It’s A Small World’ collection of animatronics made their way west to Disneyland. The Spanish pavilion moved to St. Louis and became… Read More
February 1961: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is presented with an award by the Americans for Democratic Action. On either side of him is former New York governor Herbert H. Lehman and former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Fifty years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visited New York University and spoke to the campus… Read More
Koch’s tombstone, bearing the inscription: “‘My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.’ (Daniel Pearl, 2002, just before he was beheaded by a Muslim terrorist.)” Ed Koch likes to get a jump on things. The former mayor, who served as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, went ahead a… Read More
Saks Fifth Avenue fashion show 1970, photographer John Dominis, courtesy LIFE/Google images Bergdorf Goodman 1973, photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, courtesy LIFE/Google images Ohrbach’s 1962, photographer Ralph Morse, courtesy LIFE/Google images A World’s Fair fashion show, Flushing Meadows, 1939-40, photographer unknown, courtesy NYPL Fashion forward in Central Park, 1920, photographer unknown, courtesy Retrografix The world of shirt… Read More
Pandemonium on Wall Street during the stock market crash of 1929A special illustrated version of our podcast on the New York Stock Exchange(Episode #63) is now available on our NYC History Archive feed. Just hit play and images of the things we’re talking about appear on any compatible media player. We look at the early… Read More
Write that man a ticket! This rebel might have had a different cause had he been at yesterday’s New York city council meeting. The big news in the city yesterday was the massive smoking ban passed by the City Council that prohibits smoking in public places like Times Square and Central Park, a total of… Read More
Getting ready for its 100th birthday on May 23, the main branch of the New York Public Library — I guess we’re calling it the Stephen A Schwarzman Building now — has been free of most of its oppressive scaffolding for a couple weeks. This was the scene in the morning fog yesterday:And what the… Read More
The Villard Houses, a Madison Avenue masterpiece by the firm McKim, Mead and White, was mostly the inspiration of their associate Joseph Wells, according to the author. [courtesy NYPL] Triumvirate: McKim Mead & WhiteArt, Architecture, Scandal, and Class In America’s Gilded Ageby Mosette BroderickAlfred A. Knopf, New York, PublisherBOOK REVIEW I’ve been going back and… Read More
And a little something silly for Friday: The Hotel Seville was a brilliant Beaux-Arts jewel exemplar of the glory days of Madison Avenue, opening in 1904 — just days before the New York subway — and designed by Harry Allen Jacobs. The architect was a master of the ebullient Beaux-Arts style, applying it to apartment… Read More