The Bowery Boys: New York City History
PODCAST Frederick Law Olmsted, America’s preeminent landscape architect of the 19th century, designed dozens of parks, parkways and college campuses across the country. With Calvert Vaux, he created two of New York City’s greatest parks — Central Park and Prospect Park. Yet before Central Park, he had never worked on any significant landscape project and… Read More
Benjamin Franklin helped to create the modern world. His legacy is all around you — from the electricity which powers and illuminates our homes to the ideas that form our system of government. For the past three episodes of The First: Stories of Inventions and their Consequences (the Bowery Boys spin-off podcast from 2016-2018), Greg… Read More
On November 19, 1895, Calvert Vaux went for a morning walk from his son’s home in Brooklyn. He never returned. The 70 year old architect had helped to create the greatest parks in the cities of New York and Brooklyn. His landscape collaborations with Frederick Law Olmsted had given Manhattan its Central Park and Brooklyn… Read More
When park designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux regrouped after the success of Central Park to design another great park for Brooklyn — encompassing Prospect Hill and the Revolutionary War site Battle Pass — they preserved a greater amount of natural topography than they had in Manhattan. But that doesn’t mean that Prospect Park… Read More
Pictured above is a remarkable structure that once dominated the scenery on the northern side of Central Park. This was the Academy of Saint Vincent on a hill that bore its name. Located on the northern portion of the park, next to the charming Harlem Meer (and nearest 103rd Street), the Academy sat nestled amid a collection… Read More
Theodore Roosevelt Park (77th and 81st Streets, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue), which contains the beloved American Museum of Natural History, is the oldest developed section of the Upper West Side, purchased by the city in 1839 as a possible strolling park to be called Manhattan Square. Central Park was but a gleam in the eye back in… Read More
A tantalizing stretch of New York nightlife history lies in the shadows, illegally operated, often fueled by police bribes — the opium dens of Chinatown and the speakeasies of the Village and midtown. There were also hundreds of illicit gambling rackets, called ‘poolrooms’, throughout the city in the late 19th century, usually alongside the seediest… Read More
If you’re missing The Gilded Age TV show already, how about taking a look at the life of Alva Vanderbilt (who Carrie Coon’s character Bertha Russell is most certainly based)? She’s the subject of this week’s episode of The Gilded Gentleman podcast. The fight for social dominance and acceptance was a battle fought by many Gilded… Read More
“Such is the world, or, rather, one infinitesimal portion of the cosmos, in the year 2015, according to the ancient calendar, or 90 since the Terror.” From the original illustrations of The Doomsman: a look up Park Row in 2015, a decrepit row of deteriorating structures. You can clearly see the ruins of old Post… Read More
Temple Emanu-El, home to New York’s first Reform Jewish congregation and the largest synagogue in the city, sits on the spot of Mrs. Caroline Astor‘s former Gilded Age mansion. Out with the old, in with the new. The synagogue shimmers with Jazz Age style from vibrant stained-glass windows to its Art Deco tiles and mosaics.… Read More
In the 1850s, New York City had become the third largest German-speaking capital in the world, topped only by Berlin and Vienna. In just thirty years — since the first significant influx of immigrants in the 1820s — Germans had helped to transform the city’s cultural life. But today, even as we celebrate a tapestry… Read More
In some ways the idea of freeform radio has been distilled into many aspects of American life — and I don’t mean by Spotify algorithms. There was a time when the radio waves were given over to captivating personalities: entertaining therapists, counter-culture jesters, opinionated loose cannons. With few exceptions, those roles today have been taken… Read More
This classic episode of the Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast (originally released in December of 2021) is featured in this week’s episode of the History Channel podcast HISTORY This Week. Since 2011 the Bowery Boys Podcast has revisited a few of the themes featured in this show. After listening to this episode, give… Read More
The New York restaurant Delmonico’s became famous for bringing elegant, luxurious dining and sophisticated French dishes to American tables. The culinary genius behind these dramatic dishes was Delmonico’s celebrity chef — the Frenchman Charles Ranhofer — who guided their kitchens from 1862 to 1896. Ranhofer left us with his extraordinary cookbook published at the height of the Gilded Age in the 1890’s, called The Epicurean,… Read More
Any new film which features an interview with the always hilarious and candid comedy legend Mel Brooks should be seen and celebrated. Now add interviews with Carl Reiner, Colin Powell and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, three individuals who have since died since participating in said new film. What could possibly bring all of these fascinating people… Read More