The Bowery Boys: New York City History
The Metropolitan Opera’s soprano sensation Geraldine Ferrar, photo taken April 1913. I guess fur was never out of season a century ago! “When You Done Your Christmas Furs — It will be an added pleasure to know they came from Gimbels — the house with the time-honored experience in Furs — for surely it requires… Read More
Above: A Thomas Nast illustration from Harper’s Weekly, November 1863, clearly putting the event in the context of war and hardship. In practice, Thanksgiving celebrates the supposed feast between the Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors in Massachusetts. But meals of ‘thanksgiving’ have been part of the Western world customs for hundreds of years, and… Read More
“Photograph shows a boy and a girl dancing while an Edison Home Phonograph plays in a house in Broad Channel, Queens, New York City.” — taken between 1910-1915 Here’s something many people thought they’d never see again in New York City — the opening of a new record store. Rough Trade, known for their famous… Read More
A ton of people on-stage at the Harlem Opera House in 1907. During this period, it was owned by vaudeville impresario Keith Proctor and called Proctor’s Harlem Opera House. Pictures courtesy the Museum of the City of New York The Hotel Theresa, subject of this week’s podcast, had a rather unusual neighbor in its early… Read More
New York has seen its share of bizarre entertainments, especially back in the days of vaudeville, when people would pay for almost anything that amused or titillated. A few months ago, I wrote about the novelty star Don the Talking Dog, who allegedly spoke a handful of English and German words. But another vocally talented… Read More
Armistice Day 1918: An impromptu gathering of New Yorkers gathered in front of City Hall. (NYPL) Today is Veterans Day in the United States, a holiday devoted to the memory and service of those in the American armed forces. While this is a commemoration of all men and woman who have served — during war… Read More
These unbearably cute orphans seen above were lined up to go to the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden which began on November 15, 1913. These are of course the days of the Garden down at the northeast corner of Madison Square, the glorious McKim, Mead and White structure topped with a glittering statue… Read More
Was this photograph taken yesterday on the set of Steven Soderbergh’s new mini-series The Knick, or was it taken back in the 1910s? The answer is at the bottom of this blog post! This week, a little stage magic is manifesting in the Lower East Side. The Broome Street of 2013 has been turned briefly into… Read More
Bryant Park in 1907, with construction on the library well underway. This was the site of one of the final official potter’s fields in Manhattan before they were moved to the islands of the East River. (Picture courtesy New York Public Library) Happy Halloween! To put you in the spirit of the season, take a… Read More
An illustration by Eduardo Manet from a 1875 French reprinting of “The Raven” We are all too comfortable with Edgar Allan Poe in the abstract. His fingerprints seem to be on everything these days. His morbid tastes and the flowering dark genres he helped create appear just underneath much of American pop culture in the… Read More
Hopefully this young lady acquired this turkey by legitimate means. In this week’s podcast, I feign shock at the wild party held at the old home of famed actress Charlotte Melmoth, a former school for etiquette-turned-booze hall. To quote historian Henry Reed Stiles directly: “After [Charlotte’s] disease, the house was converted into a tavern, which… Read More
A 1932 photo of 34-36 Barrow Street by Charles Von Urban, courtesy the Museum of the City of New York. Click here to see what this section of the street looks like today In this week’s Ghost Stories of Old New York podcast, Tom speaks of the ghosts at romantic restaurant One If By Land,… Read More
The Van Cortlandt House, 1906PODCAST This is the Bowery Boys 7th annual Halloween podcast, with four new scary stories to chill your bones and keep you up at night, generously doused with strange and fascinating facts about New York City. For this episode, we’ve decided to go truly old-school, reaching back to old legends… Read More
The former Atlantic Gardens, revealed during a demolition. Underneath it lies evidence of an even greater historical discovery. Courtesy Adam Woodward/Lower East Side History Project Big news on the urban archaeological front — remnants of the Colonial-era Bulls Head Tavern may have been discovered during an excavation for a new hotel. The Bull’s Head was… Read More
Worth’s Museum of Living Curiosities, one of New York’s most popular dime museums, paired cheap ‘curios’ with vaudeville performances on the main stage. On December 29th, 1889, the star of the show was a massive hog named I-Am. “The Biggest Porker in existence. Guess his weight. If you do you will get a prize. Every… Read More