The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Photo-mechanical postcards were popular during the Gilded Age because they were photographs printed on thick card stock and enhanced with colored inks, turning reality into a Technicolor dreamscape well before the invention of color film. This also describes the film style of Baz Luhrmann, the Australian director known his flamboyant, indulgent visual technique, seen in Strictly… Read More
NOTE: This discussion of the film ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’ includes minor location spoilers but no specific plot spoilers that not already in the movie trailer. Florence Foster Jenkins, a New York music philanthropist and society maven of exceeding generosity, was actually a rather fine musician. Unfortunately, her ability to play the instrument in which she excelled… Read More
PODCAST REWIND Prospect Park, Brooklyn’s biggest public space and home to the borough’s only natural forest, was a sequel for Olmsted and Vaux after their revolutionary creation Central Park. But can these two landscape architects still work together or will their egos get in the way? And what happens to their dream when McKim, Mead… Read More
This Tuesday, August 16,  join us at the Skyscraper Museum in Battery Park City. We’ll be doing a reading and book signing on promotion of our book Adventures In Old New York, in particular chatting out some of the more unusual skyscraper architecture of downtown New York. Here are more details about that event. It’s a free show… Read More
A string of New York City history related shows is hitting the stage this summer and fall, bringing interesting new interpretations to well-known historical events or revitalizing forgotten old shows in curious ways.  I’ve had so many recommended to me in the past couple weeks that I thought I’d share the list for those of you… Read More
PODCAST The history of video games and arcades in New York City. New York has an interesting, complex and downright weird relationship with the video game, from the digital sewers below Manhattan to the neon-lit arcades of Times Square. It’s not all nostalgia and nerviness; video games in the Big Apple have helped create communities… Read More
ARCADE CLASSICS, the latest show at the Museum of the Moving Image, pulling from the museum’s regular collection of video arcade games, is indeed an all-star line-up of classics. But without the fussiness of an actual arcade. (For one, the experience is at pleasant decibels.) The machines will mostly be familiar to anybody who identifies as Generation… Read More
OUR LATEST LIVE APPEARANCEÂ — We’ll be doing a reading and book signing on promotion of our book Adventures In Old New York on Tuesday, August 16 at the Skyscraper Museum in Battery Park City. Here are more details about that event. It’s a free show but you have to RSVP and it’ll fill up fast!… Read More
PODCAST REWIND We turn the clock back to the very beginnings of New York history — to the European discovery of Mannahatta and the voyages of Henry Hudson. Originally looking for a passage to Asia, Hudson fell upon New York Harbor and the Lenape inhabitants of lands that would later make up New York City.… Read More
PODCAST The surprisingly complex history of one of the world’s most famous hotels. You might think you know this tale, but do we have some surprises for you. The Waldorf-Astoria — or the Waldorf=Astoria or even the Waldorf Astoria — has been a premier name in hotel accommodations since the opening of the very first… Read More
Monday afternoon at 3pm, join us on the Curbed Facebook page for a live chat! It’s in the similar format as a Reddit AMA conversation but on video. We’ll be on there answering questions from our viewers about the podcast and New York City in general. We’re also featured in a new post over at Curbed written by… Read More
Here’s the announcement of our latest live event — at historic Fraunces Tavern. If you’re reading this and interested in attending, you may want to consider getting your tickets now as space will be limited. Here are the details: Fraunces Tavern Museum presents TRIVIA NIGHT Hosted by the Bowery Boys Tuesday, July 26, 2016 Doors… Read More
PODCAST REWINDÂ Originally a quiet island of orchards and stone quarries, the place we call Roosevelt Island today was once New York’s ‘city of asylums’, the place where it sent its infirm, its incarcerated, its insane. Today it has the peculiar air of a small town with one of the best views in the world. Find… Read More
The Bowery Boys Obsessive Guides look very, very closely at a classic movie filmed in New York City, finding buried history, additional context and a few secrets within various scenes and plot points. Filled with film spoilers so read this after you’ve seen the movie — or use it to follow along as you watch… Read More
The Bowery Boys Obsessive Guides look very, very closely at a classic movie filmed in New York City, finding buried history, additional context and a few secrets within various scenes and plot points. Filled with film spoilers so read this after you’ve seen the movie — or use it to follow along as you watch… Read More