The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Above: A fanciful painting of Captain Kidd in New York Harbor, by Jean-Leon Gerome Ferris, 1911. Notice Fort James (former Fort Amsterdam) and the adjoining windmill in the background In this week’s podcast, I refer to New Yorker and Trinity Church benefactor William Kidd as one of the most notorious pirates of the Atlantic Ocean.… Read More
Pic courtesy LOCSeventy-six years ago today, the Apollo Theater re-opened in Harlem. Before this date in 1934, the Apollo catered to an all-white crowd, left over from the theater’s early days as a burlesque venue. Reflecting Harlem’s rapid changes in the 1920s and 30s as the center of African-American life in New York, however, the… Read More
Three images for an unusually rainy January day in New York Crowds at Flushing Meadow for the 1939-40 World’s Fair [Courtesy here] James Dean in Times Square, Dennis Stock, 1955 [courtesy Chronologically Vintage]
Above: The seemingly unchanged Trinity in 1916, already dwarfed by skyscrapers PODCAST Trinity Church, with its distinctive spire staring down upon the west end of Wall Street, is more than just a house of worship. Over three different church buildings have sat at this site, and the current one by architect Richard Upjohn is one… Read More
George at his 85th birthday party in 1981 [Courtesy Life] Today is the birthday of Nathan “Nattie” Birnbaum, known to classic television audiences and “Oh God!” fanatics as George Burns. Born to Romanian immigrants, Nattie grew up on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side, first at 230 Rivington Street, then at 311 Rivington in… Read More
The blog will be a little slow this week as we work on this week’s podcast. I’ll try and put up some regular postings starting tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy this 1885 view of the corner of 42nd and 5th Avenue. The fenced-in area to the left would have been the reservoir (the New York… Read More
The above picture is from North Truro, Cape Cod, not New York City. But it’s dated exactly one hundred years ago to the day and depicts a poor train having a really, really bad day. Caption: Stalled! Snow Storm Jan 15, 1910 [source: Outer Cape Art] New full-length podcasts begin next week. Enjoy your weekend!… Read More
Photo by Louis Buhle (1915), courtesy of the BBG The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is celebrating its 100th anniversay this year. Like Flushing Meadow-Corona Park in Queens, the Garden was created out of an ash dump, landscaped by the Olmsted Brothers (later of Fort Tryon fame), “for the advancement and diffusion of a knowledge and love… Read More
Readers of the New York Times on January 19, 1910, were greeted with the following theatrical review: FAT PEOPLE MUST AVOID THIS FARCE;Unless They Want To Put On Extra Pounds To Prove An Old Adage If you’re confused, the lead of the review elaborates: “If to laugh is to grow fat, obesity patients had better… Read More
So, I’ve been doing all these stories for the new year on what life was like in New York one hundred years ago, 1910. Today we hear a tragic story about a man who was actually alive for all of it — Joe Rollino, a 104-year-old Brooklyn native and a former Coney Island strongman who… Read More
Up In The Air: Glenn Curtiss and his Hudson FlyerPicture courtesy glenncurtiss.com In 2010, there will be well over 100 million passengers coming and going from the New York metropolitan area’s three principal international airports. In 1910, you could count the number of passengers on your hand. And the pilot and passenger of the very… Read More
In 1910, DW Griffith made the first film ever made in Hollywood, CA, called In Old California. Before then, film production companies were scattered throughout the United States, with two of the most successful based here in New York City. The American Vitagraph Company, originally located at the Morse Building on 140 Nassau Street, made… Read More
This post will definitely require you to click on the picture below to give it a closer look, and it’s a fairly large picture. This is the Hammonds 1910 map of “New York City and vicinity.” Give it a close look and observe the things the mapmaker thought worthwhile to highlight. — It’s clear that… Read More
Pic by Coney Girl/Flickr 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 Bohemian HallOpened: 1910-still open!Astoria,… Read More
O. Henry in 1909. He may even be drunk here. New York City has a fine, macabre tradition of harboring famous artists, writers, musicians and actors on the cusp of an alcohol or drug-fueled demise. The city naturally attracts the creative, oddballs and innovators looking for like minds amid the flourishing artistic communities of the… Read More