McGown’s Pass: the original tavern on the green

McGown’s Pass Tavern (date unknown, but possibly around 1913 We’re finally moving on from Central Park, but not before observing perhaps its most historically significant area — McGown’s Pass and the Block House. Located on the northern portion of the park, next to the charming Harlem Meer, are a collection of hills and bluffs left… Read More

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Parks and Recreation Podcasts

PODCAST: The Evolution of Central Park

When last we left the Park, it was the embodiment of Olmstead and Vaux’s naturalistic Greensward Plan. Then the skyscrapers came. Also, how did all those playgrounds, a swanky nightclub, a theater troupe and all those hippies get here? Listen to it for free on iTunes or other podcasting services. Or you can download or… Read More

Naumburg’s Bandshell: a gift that won’t go away

Don’t accept a gift unless you’re pretty sure you’re going to use it. That’s the lesson the city learned after the fiasco involving the jazz-age Naumburg bandshell, which sits proud and empty overlooking the Central Park mall thanks to some tenacious descendants of the man who donated it, Elkan Naumburg. Proper sorts of concerts were… Read More

Jones Woods: ghosts, graves and an ‘amusement park’

Over 15,000 Irish Americans gathered in Jones Wood in 1856, to greet countryman James Stephen Once upon a time, back when Fifth Avenue was a dirt path and Bloomingdale was literally a blooming dale, there stood a haunted and most mysterious forest located on bluffs overlooking the East River, far east of the area today… Read More

A ride around New York’s remaining merry-go-rounds

Carousels aren’t really for kids anymore. Sure, you won’t see many adults truly captivated by the process of mounting a wooden animal and twirling in a circle. But well-preserved models of the famous amusements are nostalgia goldmines; tinkling calliope music and a few flashing light bulbs can sometimes capture a by-gone era more than a… Read More

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Podcasts

PODCAST: The Creation of Central Park

Above: Central Park’s first recreation was ice skating, almost as soon as the lake was completed in 1858. The Dakota Apartments look like a ski resort. Come with us to the beginnings of New York’s most popular and most ambitious park — from the inkling of an idea to the arduous construction. Learn who got… Read More

Who is the Queen of Central Park?

Above: the grotesque face of Mother Goose in Central Park. What did she ever do to deserve her own statue? While mulling over the list of famous people great and small depicted in Central Park sculpture — Ludwig van Beethoven! Duke Ellington! Alexander Hamilton! — I was reminded of one curious and well-known fact: Not… Read More

Central Park’s obscure sculpture celebrities

Hallack reclines under the leafy Central Park mall Frederick Law Olmsted would have preferred Central Park have no sculptures, yet almost from the moment the park opened, monuments to the great men of the day began sprouting up. Yet for every William Shakespeare and Christopher Columbus, there are an equal number of completely forgotten individuals,… Read More

Strange and Beautiful

No regular post today, just a shot I took of the East River a couple weeks ago when it was strangely overcast at around 3pm, and the suns reflection on the water turned it green, giving it an unnatural feel and the Brooklyn Bridge a toyish quality. (Click to make bigger)

The sexy secret underneath ‘Little Flatiron’

Some of the most interesting buildings in New Yorks are the triangular ones, those that sit at the intersection of diagonal streets that cut through the grid system. The Silas C. Herring Lock and Safe Company Building, more affectionately known as the L’il Flatiron Building or simply the Triangle Building, is probably the ‘cutest’ example… Read More

Cabaret license be damned: NYC’s politics of dancing

Above: Marilyn and Truman maintain their composure at the Peppermint Lounge, an early 60s dance hole that frequently scoffed at fire codes Time Out’s cover story last week features places and events where a New Yorker can still go and dance. Very nice try. Dancing in a public place can be akin to performing an… Read More

The Roaring Twenties: a boozy old Hollywood bio

BOWERY BOYS RECOMMEND is an occasional feature where we find an unusual movie or TV show that — whether by accident or design — uniquely captures an era of New York City better than any reference or history book. Other entrants in this particular film festival can be found HERE. New York during the Prohibition… Read More

July 4th: Independence Day (except for New York)

America declared its independence from Britain in 1776, only for New York City to become a British stronghold for years. New York’s true independence day is November 25, 1783, the day the Brits sailed out of New York harbor. In fact, on July 4, 1776, tensions were at their highest, but a major assault on… Read More

Coney Island’s famous assault on the stomach returns!

If human beings doing harm to their bodies by shoveling bread and meat down their throats disturb you, stay away from Coney Island and don’t turn on ESPN at noon on July 4th. Because the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eat Contest is back for its 93rd year. Ninety-three years. Most human beings don’t live that long… Read More

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Summer Reading: Old New York style

There are dozens of classics written about the contemporary New York of their creation, including The Great Gatsby and Catcher In The Rye. And thousands of trashy Manhattan stories chronicling gossip girls, magazine editors and cosmopolitan swilling divorcees. But the New York historical novel has only really flourished in the past forty years or so… Read More