The Bowery Boys: New York City History
The Film Forum is in the midst of their five week NYC Noir screening series, featuring some of the best thrillers, mysteries and action films set on the streets of the city. In this blog every Thursday of the series, we’ll feature a bit about one of the films, and encourage you to go check… Read More
Here’s some pictures illustrating a few ideas from our podcast this week. The lovely cluster of residences along Washington Square’s north side called ‘The Row’ (they always look better with snow on them): Early Washington Square was a military parade ground. The unveiling of the Washington Arch in 1888 was so successful that a permanent… Read More
Something’s afoot in Washington Square Park. Join the Bowery Boys this week on an expedition through one of New York’s quirkiest (and most beloved) parks — from Hangman’s Elm to Bob Dylan. You’ll be moved… fifteen feet! Listen to it for free on iTunes or other podcasting services. Or you can download or listen to… Read More
Our weekly tribute to a severely off-the-beaten-path museum or landmark that you may not know about. Instead of Moma, why not try out one of these places? Past entries in this series can be found here. President residences arent what you call ‘unusual’ by any stretch of the imagination. But the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace Historic… Read More
New York City is a terrible place for horses, or for that matter, any animal bigger than a rat. However, the animal has been instrumental to New York’s history. Today you can see them trotting through Central Park, looking lobotomized, carting around tourists in frilly carts. Already a rather demeaning usage, the horses are also… Read More
To get you in the mood for the weekend, every 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 of the mid-90s. Past entries can be found here For our second entry, we’d be amiss if we… Read More
Ever wonder why the official colors of New York are orange and blue? They show up in the uniforms of our two favorite teams, the Knicks and the Mets: And the colors clearly show up on the official New York state flag: Our flag is so hued as an homage to the flag of the… Read More
Almost as if they had asked us to help them program their schedule, the Film Forum begins their five week NYC Noir screening series, featuring some of the best thrillers, mysteries and action films set on the streets of the city. In this blog every Thursday of the series, we’ll feature a bit about one… Read More
Some tidbits we forgot to throw into our podcast on Governors Island…. Governors Island holds a special place in aviation history. When Wilbur Wright, he of the famous duo, lifted his small aircraft from the airfield at Governor’s Island to circle the Statue of Liberty and return, in Sept 1909 it was the first time… Read More
New York’s most underappreciated treasure gets the Bowery Boys treatment. Its Governors Island: a fort, a small town, a prison and a Burger King … all bought for one dollar. Listen to it for free on iTunes or other podcasting services. Or you can download or listen to it HERE
In one of my entries below regarding the Mudd Club, a reader asked why I referred to Cortlandt Alley as ‘mysterious’. The tiny little alley — one of New York’s last — is between Canal and Franklin and, while partially my own projection upon it as a rough reminder of old New York, the dark… Read More
A bit of strange New York archaelogical news surfaced on the networks last night. A mostly demolished building at 211 Pearl Street was spared complete eradication when strange triangular marks were discovered on one of the remaining walls. While this may seem like a rather odd story to be making headlines, I believe its a… Read More
In our last podcast, we referred to the New York city prison not-so-affectionately nicknamed ‘the Tombs’ as being ‘beneath City Hall’. In fact its a couple blocks away from current City Hall. Today its officially called Manhattan House of Detention. It was monickered the The Bernard B. Kerik Complex before being stripped of that name… Read More
We think of the Lower East Side now as being a tolerant mix of different cultures — Jewish, Chinese, Hispanic, many others, including that ever popular pseudo distinction ‘the hipster’ — but a current photographic exhibition at the South Street Seaport Museum proves that things were even more vastly divergent and varied. Rebecca Lepkoff was… Read More
To get you in the mood for the weekend, every 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 of the mid-90s. First on the list is the Mudd Club, often viewed as the mirror image of… Read More