The Bowery Boys: New York City History
All aboard the train to Coney Island, Ulmer Park and Bath Beach Above pic courtesy NYPL Next weekend on Coney Island is the annual Siren Festival, sponsored by the Village Voice. Are you going? Believe it or not, over a 100 years ago, there was once a time you could get your beer, music and… Read More
Public hangings were a rare but grisly part of 19th Century New York life. The one illustrated above is from 1862. Another would famously haunt the area near an East Village intersection. I pass through the intersection of 13th Street and 2nd Avenue fairly frequently on my way home from work. The plain intersection is… Read More
The summer exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art have gone blatantly carnal, from the churning, desolate voids of gore featured in the Francis Bacon retrospective to the pristine glamour of female flesh in the “Model As Muse: Embodying Fashion.” But you’ll have to swing down to the American wing for a bit of New… Read More
(Click for greater detail) The city of New York unfurled its patriotism in a lavish celebration of America’s 100th birthday. The illustration above pictures a great rally at Union Square. Later revelers would gather at City Hall for an elaborate fireworks display with “volumes of sulphurous vaper wreath[ing] the City Hall until it seemed some… Read More
Hail to the thief: an imposing man with money on his mind ___________________________________ You cannot understand New York without understanding its most corrupt politician — William ‘Boss’ Tweed, a larger than life personality with lofty ambitions to steal millions of dollars from the city. With the help of his ‘Tweed Ring’, the former chair-maker had… Read More
An early portrait of A. Oakey Hall as photographed by Matthew Brady KNOW YOUR MAYORS Our modest little series about some of the greatest, notorious, most important, even most useless, mayors of New York City. Other entrants in our mayoral survey can be found here. Mayor A. Oakey Hall In office: 1869-1872 Few leaders of… Read More
ABOVE: Children young and quite old gather around this Hudson Park storyteller. Can’t quite place where Hudson Park is? Check here. Tom and I are hard at work on this week’s podcast. I’ll be updating the blog later in the day on Wednesday!
From a pamphlet celebrating the Brooklyn Bridge’s 50th anniversary in 1933. (Click photo for larger view.)
Michael Jackson 1984: The singer relaxes at a New York hotel, preparing to visit the Museum of Natural History. Not to buy any ancient bones, but to be honored for two entries in the Guinness Book of World Records — for selling the most popular album in history (Thriller) and then winning the most Grammy… Read More
There are few streets in Manhattan as beautiful as Gay Street, that preciously bent path in the West Village that’s been the home to speakeasies and scandals, linking Waverly Place to Christopher Street. Due to its proximity to Christopher, the original heart of New York’s gay and lesbian culture, it also happens to have one… Read More
Above: Macdougal Alley in 1936. The plantation home of New Amsterdam director-general Wouter van Twiller would have been situated very close to where this picture was taken. (Find the alley here.) NAME THAT NEIGHBORHOOD Some New York neighborhoods are simply named for their location on a map (East Village, Midtown). Others are given prefabricated designations… Read More
New nurses on Roosevelt Island, circa 1938 (courtesy Life Magazine)
Girls will be girls: lesbians in the 1920s For the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the New York Blade asked me to do a brief article on the history of New York’s gay and lesbian scene in the years before the riots. You can read the article, entitled STONEWALL 40: Our History Before Pride… Read More
What started in a tiny East Village basement grew to become one of New York’s most enduring summer traditions, Shakespeare in the Park, featuring world class actors performing the greatest dramas of the age. But another drama was brewing just as things were getting started. It’s Robert Moses vs. Shakespeare! Joseph Papp vs. the city!… Read More
I’ve always been a little fascinated by that small ampitheatre that’s located in Manhattan’s East River Park (near Corlear’s Hook). For years it just seemed so hopelessly abandoned. In the past few years though it’s been making a comeback, featuring the occasional live concert and offering a unique, leafy respite for joggers. The East River… Read More