The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Abandoned railroad tracks dart along the cobblestones of the Brooklyn waterfront. Walker Evans 1960 (Courtesy LIFE images) Mad Men starts on Sunday, speeding the story up to Thanksgiving 1964. What was going on in the city then? [City Room] You think it’s hot down in the subway today? Imagine what it was like several decades… Read More
ABOVE: Looking south along a newly opened section of the East River Park promenade, which the city debuted over the July 4th holiday. It now extends down underneath the Williamsburg Bridge and continues slightly south. This section along the water has been closed for what seems like eternity, but the city projects the entire promenade… Read More
Above: Willowbrook State School in central Staten Island. Looks innocent enough…. BOWERY BOYS RECOMMEND is an occasional feature where we find an unusual movie or TV show that — whether by accident or design — uniquely captures an era of New York City as well as any reference or history book. Other entries in this… Read More
You know it’s a good night at Xenon when you’re drunk on the dance floor, and all of a sudden, the actress Valerie Perrine and the Village People appear (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… Read More
A Grand Central-centric Rand McNally map of transporation options in 1918, “the subway, elevated and surface lines” available for residents of Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn. (Sorry, Queens. Your borough would not be extensively served by New York’s centralized train system for years.) For a much clearer view, click into the picture or click here… Read More
Above: a freaky face hanging from the former mansion of Sinclair Oil tycoon Harry F. Sinclair (today, the Ukrainian Institute at 2 East 79th St.)Here’s a great little diversion for your day — the photo website Gargoyles of New York, cataloguing all the grotesque grace adorning the nooks and corners of city skyscrapers, cathedrals and… Read More
Pic Courtesy NYPL Benjamin Franklin is, of course, awesome for many reasons. An often overlooked quality about Franklin in his early years was his ambition and fearlessness at solo traveling among the major cities along the eastern seaboard — from Boston to New York, then, in 1723, to Philadelphia. It can’t have been very easy;… Read More
Above: George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin And another from the former New York Yankees owner, who died of a heart attack today: “As I’ve always said, the way New Yorkers back us we have to produce for them.” Photo courtesy AP
Above: The Third Avenue Line as it looked running along the Bowery, changing the nature of New York street life, even as its innovations helped expand the city. PODCAST Before there were subways, New York City transported travelers up and down the length of Manhattan by elevated railroad, an almost unreal spectacle to consider today.… Read More
Imagine seeing this monstrosity coast up and down Broadway — an elevated railway with cars carried both above and below the track. By the early 1850s, steam engines had revolutionized how people traveled. However, in the heart of densely populated New York, it would have been unfeasible for trains to just pull into town down… Read More
New Yorkers flock to a public water fountain on a hot day. Taken between 1908 and 1915 I originally ran this story back in July 2007, but it seems pretty apt today, given the circumstances: Its gonna get hot this summer in New York City. Pretty obviously July is the worst month for those in… Read More
Yesterday was Phineas Taylor Barnum‘s 200th birthday. Hopefully you did something outrageous to celebrate it. On top of renovating a railroad shed at Madison Square for one of his circuses (helping create the future Madison Square Garden), Barnum is most familiar to New Yorkers in the 19th century for his outrageous, moralistic, politically incorrect American… Read More
Pic courtesy LOC The caption for the above 1894 illustration, looking back to headier days, reads: “Have we improved upon our manner of celebrating the Fourth? looking south on Broadway from corner of Cortlandt Street, 1834.” Here’s that view today; simply replace those buildings with Liberty Plaza. The proper classes agonized over New York’s Fourth… Read More
Photo by Sean Nowicke/Buzzstew Click pic for larger view Since I’m in a transportation history mindset this summer, I’ll be making it a personal mission to visit a lot of glorious New York ruins with that theme. Staten Island boat graveyard, here I come! But my first stop was a couple weekends ago, exploring the… Read More
Manhattan waterfront property, from Thomas Edison, circa May 1903: an uninterrupted swell of piers, tugs and steamships jutting into the water, the skyline obscured at camera angle by towers of masts. This short film starts immediately north of the Battery Maritime Building (next to the Whitehall Ferry Terminal) and scans the entire waterfront up to… Read More