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Podcasts Roaring 20s

The Straw Hat Riots of 1922: The bad kind of New York fashion week

For the next several weeks, the Bowery Boys Podcast will be going live two times a week — every Tuesday and Friday. Read our announcement here. EPISODE 313 “No man likes to have his hat snatched from his head by somebody he has not yet been introduced to.” During the month of September 1922, as… Read More

Categories
Adventures In Old New York

EXTRA! The Bowery Boys Podcast will now be heard twice a week

During this period of social isolation and the perpetual concerns of health and economic well-being that you might be feeling now, we here at the Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast want to make sure that we are doing our part in providing you with the distraction and camaraderie you might be looking for.… Read More

Categories
Mysterious Stories Podcasts

Has Jack the Ripper come to New York? A Gilded Age hysteria

PODCAST It’s time for a Gilded Age murder mystery, true-crime podcast style! The Whitechapel Murders of 1888 — perpetrated by the killer known as Jack the Ripper — inspired one of the greatest cultural hysterias of the Victorian era. The crimes were so publicized in newspapers around the world that many believed that the Ripper… Read More

Categories
Health and Living Podcasts

A History of Getting Well: Podcasts on Typhoid Mary, Bellevue Hospital and more

The COVID-19 outbreak has gotten many people to look back at the handling of past outbreaks in the United States — most notably the 1918 Spanish Flu. Epidemics have actually shaped New York City history as well. While we don’t have a podcast episode on the Spanish Flu crisis, we do have several shows that… Read More

Categories
Mysterious Stories Podcasts

Escape into podcasts! Check out these mysterious tales from our past shows

Looking for a little personal retreat in these troubled times? So are we. We have hundreds of hours of podcasts to immerse yourself in! And if you’re looking for some true escapism, we’ve got you covered too. We thought we’d compile a list of our favorite mystery and true crime shows from our back catalog… Read More

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Bowery Boys Bookshelf

Book Round-Up: Spies, Newsboys and ‘America’s First Freedom Rider’

Looking for a good book? Here are a few recent releases I’ve enjoyed reading over the past few weeks. All are currently available at your local book retailer: SPY SITES OF NEW YORK CITYH. Keith Melton and Robert WallaceGeorgetown University Press In what is easily the coolest New York City guide book of recent memory,… Read More

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Health and Living

The Turtle Cure: In New York, a German doctor offers an unusual remedy for tuberculosis

“I am here to show what the serum will do,” said the visiting doctor from Berlin. “That is my only answer to those who have natural doubts before they have made observations.” Dr. Friedrich Franz Friedmann had come to New York in February 1913 to tackle one of the city’s most persistent scourges upon its… Read More

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Health and Living

Quarantine on the Lower East Side: A frightening tale from 1892

The neighborhood converging at the intersections of Essex Street, Rutgers Street, Canal Street and East Broadway on the Lower East Side — officially called Straus Square** — somehow seems exactly as it might have looked 125 years ago. Anchored by Seward Park and its beautiful Carnegie library, it retains some of its turn-of-the-century character, while… Read More

Categories
Events

St. Patrick’s Day Trivia Night with the Bowery Boys (March 17, 2020)

Join Greg Young of the Bowery Boys for a very special New York City trivia competition this St. Patrick’s Day! Get together a small team (no more than 4 players) and compete for fabulous prizes as you make your way through a series of New York City-themed trivia questions. This special night of trivia will… Read More

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Bowery Boys

The Bowery Boys Podcast partners with the New-York Historical Society in 2020

We are pleased to announce a new partnership in 2020 with the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library, the city’s oldest museum and one of its most important cultural institutions. Throughout the year, we will be hosting several live events at the New-York Historical, bringing together our podcast subjects with the latest exhibitions at the… Read More

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Planes Trains and Automobiles Podcasts

The First Subway: Alfred Ely Beach’s Marvelous Pneumatic Transit

Beach’s pneumatic subway — the first in the United States — opened 150 years ago today. To celebrate this anniversary, we are re-representing our 2016 show on the history of Alfred Ely Beach and his shortlived (but truly marvelous) invention. PODCAST The unbelievable story of Alfred Ely Beach’s Pneumatic Transit, a curious solution from 1870… Read More

Categories
Podcasts

1918: The Story of the Harlem Hellfighters

PODCAST (EPISODE 310): New York’s 369th Infantry Regiment was America’s first black regiment engaged in World War I.  The world knew them as the Harlem Hellfighters. On February 17, 1919, the Hellfighters – who had spent much of the year 1918 on the frontline – marched up Fifth Avenue to an unbelievable show of support… Read More

Categories
Revolutionary History

Love in the Revolutionary War: Washington’s unexpected visitors at the Blue Bell Tavern

Before it closed in 2011, the Coliseum Cinema in Washington Heights proclaimed itself to be the ‘New York City’s oldest operating movie theater’. When it was first constructed in 1920, its stage would have hosted vaudeville acts as well as silent motion pictures. But few films that ever premiered at the Coliseum would depict events… Read More

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Bowery Boys Bookshelf

The Bridge: Join the Bowery Boys for a special book club event at the Van Alen Institute

Love graphic novels? Love the Brooklyn Bridge? Join Greg Young from the Bowery Boys podcast as he moderates this month’s Van Alen Book Club — hosted by the Van Alen Institute, on Friday, February 28. The book we’re discussing is The Bridge: How the Roeblings Connected Brooklyn to New York by Peter J. Tomasi, illustrated… Read More

Categories
Bowery Boys Movie Club

The Warriors: The Bowery Boys Movie Club takes the late-night subway to revisit this 1979 cult classic

The new episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club explores the film The Warriors and its rich historical details. An exclusive podcast for those who support us on Patreon. The new episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club explores the film The Warriors and its rich historical details. An exclusive podcast for those who support… Read More