The Bowery Boys: New York City History
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
Sarah Bernhardt may be the most famous and most mysterious actress who ever lived and certainly “the greatest celebrity of her era.” Working mostly in the days before recorded medium (there are exceptions), Bernhardt crafted a legend matched by outrageous behavior and provocative stage performance. Naturally, she brought both with her when she came to… Read More
The Statue of Liberty, circa 1930, with its lawn decorated in some rather unusual symbols. Have you got your tickets to visit Lady Liberty’s crown yet?
So make it one for my baby, And one more for the road FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER To get you in the mood for the weekend, every other Friday 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… Read More
And they’re off: Belmont racetrack in 1913(Photo by Shorpy) Two separate horses, almost sixty years apart. Today in New York history, two different horses won the Belmont Stakes out on the Belmont Racetrack, and became triple crown winners (i.e. victors of the Belmont, the Preakness and the Kentucky Derby). The first, Sir Barton, won all… Read More
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 Daniel F. Tiemann In office: 1858-1859 Once upon a time there was a village called Manhattanville, a small, originally Quaker community… Read More
Cue the organ: Prospect Park can be a lonely place at times As I was doing my research for this week’s podcast, I happen to come across a alarming number of news articles reporting grim and often grisly suicides that occurred in Prospect Park during the late 19th century. What about Prospect Park made it… Read More
One curious fact we mentioned in our Prospect Park podcast is that classic film actor Montgomery Clift is actually buried here, in a quiet Quaker cemetery near the southwest entrance of the park. As far as I’m aware, entrance to the tombstones is locked, and its so cloistered away in the woods that it’s difficult… Read More
Prospect Park, Brooklyn’s biggest public space and home to the borough’s only natural forest, was a sequel for Olmsted and Vaux after their revolutionary creation Central Park. But can these two landscape architects still work together or will their egos get in the way? And what happens to their dream when McKim, Mead and White… Read More