The Bowery Boys: New York City History
See these lovely lasses? This is a photograph that ran on the HD photo website Shorpy last week, featuring some chorines from a 1921 Broadway show. “The Broadway Whirl,” a lively revue knockoff, played the Times Square Theatre, a ‘legitimate’ stage at 217 West 42nd Street that was closed in the 1980s. If you’re trying… Read More
Who do you think picked up the tab: Paul Morrissey, Andy Warhol, Janis Joplin or Tim Buckley? To get you in the mood for the weekend, every other Friday we’ll be celebrating ‘FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER’, featuring an old New York nightlife haunt, from the dance halls of 19th Century Bowery, to the massive warehouse spaces… Read More
Today is an unsung day in American history. Two hundred and twenty years ago today, concept became reality, as the very first assembled United States Congress, as stipulated in the newly ratified Constitution, met at Federal Hall in downtown Manhattan. The illustration above (from 1789) looks west on Wall Street, past the hall to Trinity… Read More
ABOVE: Park Avenue — before the cars came I’ve posted the extraordinary picture above of pre-1920s Park Avenue a couple times in the past, but I wanted to do so again in light of Michael Bloomberg’s recent proposal to turn Times Square and Herald Square into partial traffic-free plazas. His plan calls for “traffic lanes… Read More
Longacre Square — the future Times Square — after the Blizzard A March blizzard like the one today is discouraging as we’re so close to ridding ourselves of winter forever. But putting it all in perspective, it’ll never top the absolute worst March snowstorm of all time, a snowy catastrophe that completely shut down the… Read More
What is Freedomland U.S.A.? An unusual theme park in the Bronx, only in existence for less than five years, Freedomland has become the object of fascination for New York nostalgia lovers everywhere. Created by an outcast of Walt Disney’s inner circle, Freedomland practically defines 60s kitsch, with dozens of rides and amusements related to saccharine… Read More
It’s raining men at Starlight Park in the Bronx, circa 1921 (photo cleaned up and courtesy of Shorpy) For residents of the west Bronx, getting to Coney Island might have been quite a chore in 1918. So they decided to bring Coney Island to them. I believe Starlight Park can be called the Bronx’s first… Read More
Some New York neighborhoods are simply named for their location on a map (East Village, Midtown). Others are given prefabricated designations (SoHo, DUMBO). But a few retain names that link them intimately with their pasts. Other entries in this series can be found here. What is a Throgs Neck? And why isn’t it a Throggs… Read More
How amazing it would have been to see this odd vehicle pull up into your town. To service those areas of the Bronx without permanent libraries, the Bronx Traveling Library took to the roads. The first picture above is from 1936, the one below from 1928. Click pictures for a more detailed view. Pics courtesy,… Read More
Tucked up on the second floor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard” gives those colorful rectangular tourist tools their due. Evans, known mostly for his defining photography of the Great Depression, was an avid postcard collector, and the Met fills its walls with his collection. You’ll be straining your… Read More
More views of the Singer Building, the tallest New York building in 1908 and my favorite pre-Woolworth skyscraper mentioned on this week’s podcast: The Singer Building was replaced on the New York skyline with the grim, black monolith known as One Liberty Plaza.
It takes lots of creativity — and a really full Metrocard — but you can conceivably visit places and important artifacts representing or associated with most of the presidents between George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in your personal celebration of Presidents Day. Just check the following places off your list (and if you have any… Read More
When this classic photo was taken in 1928, the Woolworth Building was still the tallest in New York F.W. Woolworth was the self-made king of retail’s newfangled ‘five and dime’ store and his pockets were overflowing with cash. Meanwhile, in New York, the contest to build the tallest building was well underway. The two combine… Read More
Coney Island of the future: do robots dream of Nathan’s hot dogs? For almost as long as Coney Island has existed, people have had visions to transform it. Initially a sleepy getaway resort town for artists and writers, Coney Island became the haven of greedy speculators like John McKane, selling up the land for cheap… Read More
One hundred and nine years ago, this could have been your bedroom. Members of the New York City Tenement House Department have the unfortunate task of inspecting this tenement living room. The Tenement House Department was created in 1900 by the state to monitor tenement construction and ostensibly improve living conditions in the most squallid… Read More