The Bowery Boys: New York City History
ABOVE: A detail from an illustration of the northern points of the New Amsterdam colony, 1640. The year 1642 saw the very first regular ferry service in New York Harbor, between the two small villages of Breuckelen and New Amsterdam. The populations of both areas numbered less than 1,000 at most, combined, and most were… Read More
PODCAST The Staten Island Ferry is one of the last remaining vestiges of an entire ferry system in New York, taking people between Manhattan and its future boroughs long before any bridges were built. In Staten Island, the northern shores were spiked in piers, competing ferry operators braving the busy waters of New York harbor.… Read More
Wheels converge: Motor buggies, horse drawn carriages and other conveyances glide and to and from the railroad terminal ferry station at West 23rd Street (i.e. Chelsea Piers) Pic courtesy NYPL Tomorrow we begin our first official summer blockbuster: a set of several podcasts in a row, themed BOWERY BOYS ON THE GO. Every two weeks,… Read More
Edith Shain, the Kissing Nurse, Dies at 91 Photo Life Magazine
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 series can be found here. Rarely do documentaries on New York… Read More
Above: 15 Park Row, today the home of J&R Electronics (between Ann Street and Beekman Street), photography by the Wurts Brothers (NYPL) Slawson & Hobbs was a prosperous New York real estate firm. You can read about their new offices at W. 72nd Street here. That office building is still around — there’s a Cold… Read More
Above: Karyl Norman welcomes you to the Pansy Club!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 19th Century Bowery, to the massive warehouse clubs of the mid-1990s. Past entries can be found here. LOCATION:… Read More
Photo courtesy the Hitchcock Papers Fifty years ago today, a movie by a British director that was mostly filmed in Los Angeles made its New York City debut. That film, Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’, would change the medium forever, from its unrelenting suspense and terrifying soundtrack to that famous shower scene. The movie was first shown… Read More
The morning of June 15 — The steamboat smolders off of North Brother Island Today is the anniversary of undoubtedly one of New York’s most tragic events, a disaster that famously eradicated a neighborhood and became the city’s single largest loss of life in the 20th century — the explosion of the steamboat General Slocum.… Read More
Two wee newspersons prepare to disturb the air with their shrill, violent cries of commerce. Photo by Alice Austen[NYPL] Those newsboys — always causing trouble! Over 150 years ago in Brooklyn, it wasn’t a strike that caused consternation with readers of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle; it was the mere sound of their harsh little voices.… Read More
Are you tough enough to mess with them? PODCAST Extra! Extra! Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst vs. the newsboys! Pandemonium in the streets! One hot summer in July 1899, thousands of corner newsboys went on strike against the New York Journal and the New York World. Throngs filled the streets of downtown Manhattan for… Read More
A very different Puerto Rican Day parade, in 1966 The Puerto Rican Day Parade returns to Manhattan boulevards this Sunday, so I thought I would reprint my old article from 2008 to celebrate: Manhattan’s largest parade happens this Sunday, June 13th: the annual National Puerto Rican Day Parade, an event that yearly brings national pride,… Read More
Journalists Harold Ross and Jane Grant founded the New Yorker magazine in 1925, but another weekly journal with that same name debuted on the streets of the city over 90 years earlier. It was a short-lived publication, existing not more than a few years, but it helped sharpen the talents of its young publisher, Horace… Read More
Today marks a big literary milestone of sorts. Serialized Harlequin romances, comic books, cheap paperbacks and pulp magazines filled with tales of gangsters and spies all trace themselves to the ‘dime novel’, a cheaply produced, cheaply bought publication of the mid and late 19th century, introducing breezy, far-flung tales to readers of lower classes. Although… Read More
The Museum of the City of New York building, circa 1940s, photography by Wurts Brothers (courtesy NYPL)Free art: The institutions along Museum Mile are free today at 6 pm. Go early: the crowds are notoriously insane. Definitely check out the Museum of the City of New York, including its exhibit on the quirky art stylings… Read More