The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Fran with Nick Rhodes from Duran Duran (Life Google images) Fran Lebowitz is such a wry, curmudgeonly treasure to so many people that it takes no less than Martin Scorsese to actually make a documentary about her. The film ‘Public Speaking’ debuts on HBO this Monday at 10pm, taking an adored look at the career… Read More
Illness and a crazy schedule this week have conspired to delaying this weeks podcast, but we promise to have it ready to download by Wednesday morning. In the meantime, you can check out our television debut on the Brian Lehrer Show, which was recorded on Wednesday. It’s running throughout the week on CUNY TV, Channel… Read More
The National Book Award for Non-Fiction was awarded last night to a book loaded with gritty New York History — ‘Just Kids’, the lovely memoir by Patti Smith about her friendship with Robert Maplethorpe. If you’re a fanatic of Manhattan in the ’70s, it’s simply a must-read, from meandering along St. Mark’s Place to hanging… Read More
This is beautiful because it’s not real: a cross-section of Paul Rudolph’s cross-Manhattan proposal, looking east towards the two approaches consuming the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges. This is your last week to catch the fascinating and strange drawings of Paul Rudolph at the Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Gallery in Cooper Union. Rudolph drafted proposals for… Read More
“Wanting too much. That’s why she went wrong. Bright lights and theatres and furs and nightclubs. That’s why she’s dead now. Dear God, why wasn’t she born ugly?” ‘The Naked City’, one of the very best films ever made in New York City, screens Tuesday night at the Museum of the City of New York,… Read More
An exotic tableau from the Ziegfeld Follies. The presentations by Burton in the mid-19th century would have been less ornate, but certainly more tantalizing. (photo source) 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… Read More
The picture above is not of actor James Franco. If captioning can be believed, this is the ‘youngest veteran’ of World War I, posing with other more appropriately aged and clothed veterans, next to some clearly satisfied women. (Notice what the lady in black is staring at.) Yes, he is handcuffed. These pictures were taken… Read More
In looking around for information on the blackout yesterday, I stumbled into one of my favorite sites Snopes, the debunking place for urban legend and Internet rumors. They have quite a selection of articles relating to New York City history, dispelling local myths and pointing out some of the city’s crazier moments. I put some… Read More
ABOVE: Liberty keeps her lights on during the blackout of November 9, 1965Photos courtesy Life Magazine, via the Blackout History Project Forty-five years ago, during the 5pm rush hour, the entire American Northeast and parts of Canada were attacked by Unidentified Flying Objects from outer space who used their intergalactic powers to cause an electrical… Read More
What lies beneath: “Site of the first church burying ground of New Harlem. Viewed from 127th Street and Willis Avenue Viaduct” (From the book New Harlem Past and Present, 1903 via NYT) Elmendorf Reformed Church, which traces its lineage to New Amsterdam and the earliest days of the village of Haarlem, currently makes its home… Read More
A small cemetery for African slaves and free black New Yorkers developed along the southern edge of Collect Pond. But when that filthy body of water was drained and filled, the burial ground disappeared underground with it. (Image courtesy Preserve America) PODCAST During the construction of a downtown federal administration building, an extraordinary find was… Read More
The first woman to run the Boston Marathon in 1967, Kathrine Switzer, meets well wishers during her 1974 run in the New York Marathon. Incidentally, she won the women’s division that year, with a time of just over three hours, the second longest winning time in the marathon’s history. In comparison, last year’s winner in… Read More
The Provincetown Playhouse, at 133 MacDougal Street, makes its debut in New York on November 3, 1916, with a series of plays that included Eugene O’Neills’s Bound East for Cardiff. In the picture above, O’Neill (on the ladder) and his troupe prepare the stage for opening night. The theater was ripped down by NYU to… Read More
Rowdy drunks on New Years eve? Angry protesters? No, just a jailcell full of “fraudulent voters in custody at the United States Circuit Court, New York. (1876)” [source] Ah, electioneering in the 1800s! You can smell the corruption in the air, the perfume of cigar smoke, the sweat of a street gang. Voting was easily… Read More
Many late 19th century New Yorkers were hypnotized by the the glamor of the spiritualist circuit, mediums, magicians and mind readers purporting communications with the ghostly world and conveniently in performance form with hefty ticket prices. One of the most popular was Harry Kellar, Kellar the Magician, whose technical slight of hands in such tricks… Read More