America’s first holiday Nutcracker, before Balanchine

Ballerinas in their first flight of The Nutcracker: the Ballet Russe at the 51st Street Theater, 1940 (Picture courtesy the New York Times) Few ballet productions of the last century had more influence on American culture than George Balanchine’s 1954 edition of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, as performed by the New York City Ballet. Although not… Read More

A Christmas Tree for the ages in Madison Square Park

The misty Madison Square Garden greets a stranger to the park: America’s first community Christmas tree. (Courtesy LOC)HOW NEW YORK SAVED CHRISTMAS Throughout the week I’ll spotlight a few more events in New York history that actually helped establish the standard Christmas traditions many Americans celebrate today. Not just New York-centric events like the Rockefeller… Read More

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Podcasts

Times Square: History in stages, chronicled in lights

The canyon, as seen from the Empire State Building. (Photography by the Wurts Brothers, courtesy NYPL) PODCAST: Times Square is the centerpiece of New York for most visitors and a place that sharply divides city residents. Nothing about it sits still. Even its oldest buildings are severely transformed and slathered with electronic imagery. In 1900,… Read More

A trip to Times Square 1969: A world of colorful decline

(Postcard picture courtesy the marvelous Vintage Chromes blog)Sixty-five years after the birth of Times Square, it was apparent that things were taking a rather bizarre left turn. The old Times Building, a building so critical to the neighborhood that its address was now One Times Square, had been stripped of its architectural finery and encased… Read More

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A trip to Times Square 1904: The Hotel Astor arrives

The Hotel Astor in its opening year, 1904. The Astor was a Waldorf; the Knickerbocker was an Astor. Makes sense? (Photo courtesy NYPL) Longacre Square didn’t become Times Square without the Astor family making a lot of money. Much of the area had been farmland that had been purchased by John Jacob Astor in the… Read More

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A trip to Times Square 1904: Lights and old whiskey

From atop the Times Tower, in 1904, another world lights up below. The year that turned a ragged, uptown intersection into the place known as Times Square also brought an important work of advertising to the area, for a product that has been all but forgotten. Oscar J. Gude was already a master of outdoor… Read More

A trip to Times Square 1904: Packard Motor Cars

In 1904, the first year that Longacre Square tried on its new name Times Square, it was still populated with horse-related services like carriage shops and stables. But it seems the horse-less carriages were represented too. In the photograph above, the white building with the triangular roof, once a stable, was now home to the… Read More

Taking the H out of Christmas: Cards on 14th Street

I found this interesting old photo in the Library of Congress digital collection, no date, with the caption “Christmas Card vendor, New York.” — His spelling of Cristmas and New Yeaps is a little, shall we say, unorthodox.— If we use the ‘Emergency Baggage Repair’ shop for orientation, it appears the vendor is standing across… Read More

Santa Claus: a Broadway concert saloon from the 1850s

A Broadway saloon in 1859 during a ‘Sunday sacred concert’, as in, not very sacred at all. The Santa Claus probably looked like this on a good night. [Courtesy NYPL] I’m doing some research on a couple upcoming entries for the How New York Saved Christmas feature which I started last year and came across… Read More

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American History

Where were you when John Lennon was killed?

Originally posted 2010 — Today is the 30th anniversary of the death of John Lennon. Although he was murdered by Mark David Chapman on December 8th, it occurred at 10:50pm EST, and thus most heard about it the following day. On the evening of December 9th, thousands of people turned out for memorials throughout the… Read More

Buried treasure: The beauty of ‘Past Objects’, underfoot

Much of our fair city is built on a foundation of yesterday’s trash. Studying an early map of Manhattan and comparing it to the island’s current shape reveals the city’s growth by landfill, a staggering — albeit slow and piecemeal — project as great as any superior monument or skyscraper. (From this view, you can… Read More

So, do we call it St. Patrick’s Old Basilica now?

New York’s original St. Patrick’s Cathedral located in Little Italy — or NoLIta, if you must– just got a serious upgrade yesterday, when the Pope deemed the old, revered Catholic church an officially sanctioned basilica. A Catholic basilica is a church with ‘certain privileges’, an elite designation where various religious rituals can take place. This… Read More

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Gilded Age New York Podcasts

Mark Twain in New York, or His Adventures on Fifth Avenue

Photo courtesy LOCPODCAST You hear the name Mark Twain and think of his classic characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, his locales along the Mississippi River and his folksy wit. But he was equal parts New York as well, and the city helped shape his sharp, flamboyant character. Follow his course, from his first visit… Read More

Three photographers, and three views of the Flatiron

Edward Steichen, The Blue-Green Flatiron (courtesy the Met) The Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s new exhibit on three masters of early 20th Century photography “Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand” says as much about New York as it does the three subjects themselves. And many pictures have nothing to do with the city. Alfred Stieglitz became the maestro of… Read More

A meteorite’s biggest enemy? Crazy boys with jackknives.

Rock of ages: The meteorite is lifted off its wagon for removal into the American Museum of Natural History. I wonder if those ragamuffins to the right in the photograph have their jackknives ready? (Pic courtesy JFGryphon/Flickr)As mentioned in last week’s podcast, one of the great treasures of the American Museum of Natural History is… Read More