The Bowery Boys: New York City History
For those of you looking for the old Bowery Boys — not the podcasters, not the rock band, not the gallery show from last month, not the 19th century gang (the real Bowery Boys) — but the comic movie stars from the 1930s and 40s — Turner Classics Movies now shows their films every Saturday… Read More
A new podcast is on the way and will hopefully be ready by Friday (still navigating through some of our technical difficulties at the moment). In the meantime, check this out! One of our fans on Facebook, Moses Pounds, created a Google map marking all the locations we’ve spoken about in prior podcasts. Much appreciation… Read More
Park Slope, snow and Volkswagen, January 1978, photo by Dinandi Nooney (courtesy Google Life images) Why was Park Slope named the best neighborhood in New York City? Being one of the city’s largest landmarked districts probably helps. [New York Daily News] Say it’s 1900, you’re injured and you happen to be at the Brooklyn Navy… Read More
The 310 Fifth Avenue storefront of International Business Machines (IBM), back in 1927 when they sold weight scales and coffee and meat grinders. [Courtesy IBM] The original company, the Computing Tabulating Recording (CTR) Corporation, was actually based in New York City when they changed their name to the present IBM in 1924.My computer officially died… Read More
“A view of a boy hanging out in a tenement and shabby residential street sections.” From a classic Paul Schutzer photo series on high school dropouts, taken April 1960. Check out the whole series of images here here. And if you want to venture into the artice itself, part two can be found here. High… Read More
Here’s a sampling of female entertainers from the last one hundred years, focusing on one particular venue that figures into shaping that person’s professional career. Obviously, most of these women performed in dozens of places throughout the city. I’m just focusing on location pivotal to their beginnings. Billie Holiday in a jam session, 1943 (Gjon… Read More
Sonny and Cher in New York City (picture courtesy Getty Images) June 1, 1970: Sonny and Cher begin a two-week stint at the Empire Room at the Waldorf-Astoria. The Empire was one of the swankiest hotel lounges in Manhattan, usually the site of stars slightly past their prime, pop and jazz musicians of the prior… Read More
March 30, 1974: The Ramones, the pride of Forest Hills, Queens, play their first public concert together at Performance Studio, a small space on East 20th Street* managed by future member Tommy Erdelyi (later Tommy Ramone). For their debut set, there were just three of them, and Dee Dee Ramone sang lead How did it… Read More
September 9-10, 1963: Future member of the Velvet Underground John Cale, as well as a dozen other pianists of varying talents, took to the stage at the Pocket Theatre at 100 Third Avenue, to perform the 1893 piece Vexations by the French composer Erik Satie. Allegedly, according to Satie’s own wishes, the short piece was… Read More
Some great images from the Library of Congress, a wonderful resource for historical explorers. The links to the original photographs are under the individual photographs: February 1912 With the dark shadows of the Third Avenue elevated train to her right, a girl fights the wind to return home with a bundle of coats. These are… Read More
Above: the mangled remains of a flimsy fire escape which sent many Triangle Factory workers to their death A tragic marker in New York City history: the devastating fire that swept through the upper floors of the Asch Building in 1911, through the sweatshops of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, killing 146 people. Today, March 25th,… Read More
The very first headquarters for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, at 23rd Street and Madison Avenue, was built in 1893, facing into the southeast corner of Madison Square Park. Within a few years, the insurance company would expand out — to fill the entire block, wiping away that darkened church to its right — then… Read More
High, high above Randall’s Island and the Triborough Bridge, 1949, photographer Yale Joel, courtesy Google Life Images“You can draw any kind of pictures you like on a clean slate and indulge your every whim in the wilderness in laying out a New Delhi, Canberra and Brasilia, but when you operate in an overbuilt metropolis you… Read More
Photo above: Robert Moses, October 1952 by Alfred Eisensteadt (Courtesy Google Life) PODCAST: EPISODE 100 We obviously had to spend our anniversary show with the Power Broker himself, everybody’s favorite Parks Commissioner — Robert Moses. A healthy debate about Moses will divide your friends, and we provide the resources to make your case for both… Read More
THE FINAL PART UPDATED BELOW – THE FUTURE CITYSee map below for all the locations mentioned in this story I’m splitting the second half of this series off into a separate posting for easier navigation. Please see the post below this one for the introduction and entries 1 through 50. ————————————————————————-PART SIX: SUBWAY CITY 51… Read More