The Bowery Boys: New York City History
What 19th century American engineering landmark invites you through nature, past historic sites and into people’s backyards? Where can you experience the grandeur of the Hudson Valley in (mostly) secluded peace and tranquility — while learning something about Old New York? Welcome to the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail, 26.5 miles of dusty pathway through some… Read More
Westchester County contains some of the most interesting and historic sites in New York State — from Glen Island and Rye Playland along the Long Island Sound to the charming belt of villages nestled along the banks of the Hudson River. Until the late 19th century, Westchester was most often defined by its rural charms,… Read More
People have schemed to put a bridge over the Hudson River for well over two hundred years. That task would prove most difficult to those in Manhattan, given the distance between its shores and those of New Jersey. After several failed proposals, the two were linked with the Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels (1910), the Holland Tunnel… Read More
Load up the cooler and crank up the tunes, because the Bowery Boys Podcast is heading back on the road! Presenting a NEW three part podcast series, exploring three historic places outside of New York City. Last year we hit the expressway to visit three spots on Long Island — the Gold Coast, Jones Beach… Read More
Over fifteen hundred people died the night the Titanic sank, April 14-15, 1912. The early reports from the New York newspapers, of course, spent their time mourning the city’s most connected figures to society. Even from some of the most obsessive sources on the Titanic, the details on the lives of dozens of men and… Read More
THE GILDED GENTLEMAN PODCAST As writer Edith Wharton began to spend more and more time in Paris during the early years of the 1900s, she made the acquaintance of the American journalist Morton Fullerton. Their meeting grew into a passionate and complicated love affair combining joy and emotional pain. Still, the affair led Wharton to some of… Read More
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