Notes from the podcast (#120): NYC early film history

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

Brooklyn invents the movie magazine, a century ago

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

Spicy Bit, My Own Brucie and other odd Best In Show dog names

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

The explosion of a Brooklyn hat factory, February 1860

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

Auf Wiedersehen to a well-travelled World’s Fair original

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

Troubled times: Dr. King and Abe Lincoln visit New York

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

Categories
Know Your Mayors

Where are New York’s mayors buried? An (almost) complete list

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

A very stylish girl: Fashion Week 2011 starts Thursday

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

Podcast Rewind: the New York Stock Exchange

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

You’ve come a long way, baby! But now it’s over. Extinguishing 102 years of women’s public smoking rights

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

Books and beer! A library gets ready for its birthday

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

McKim, Mead & White, no marble stone left unturned

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

Try getting this catchy tune out of your head!

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

Scenes from a snowstorm: Clearing streets in old New York

Above: The slow, bitterly aggravating work of clearing the streets of New York during the blizzard of 1888.The second largest snow-filled month in New York City history! The snowiest January ever! The eighth biggest snowstorm ever! These are some of the records being thrown out this morning after last night’s wild thunder-filled snow apocalypse. Most… Read More

The original Farmville; or putting the ‘green’ in Greenpoint

Frozen farm: The Eagle Street Rooftop Farm waits out the weather for a better day. (Courtesy Scott Nyerges) NAME THAT NEIGHBORHOOD Some New York neighborhoods are simply named for their location on a map (East Village, Midtown). Others are given prefabricated designations (SoHo, DUMBO). But a few retain names that link them intimately with their… Read More