The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Thank you for making 2023 another excellent year for the Bowery Boys podcast. This year our shows spanned hundreds of years of history — from the Dutch wall of New Amsterdam in the 1650s to the paparazzi woes of Greta Garbo in the 1950s — and looked at many forgotten aspects of city life like… Read More
On the morning of November 14th, 1943, Leonard Bernstein, the talented 25-year-old assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, got a phone call saying he would at last be leading the respected orchestral group — in six hours, that afternoon, with no time to rehearse. He later recalled, “I don’t remember a thing from that… Read More
Manhattan’s Grace Church sits at a unique bend on Broadway and East Tenth Street, making it seem that the historic house of worship is rising out of the street itself. But Grace is also at another important intersection — where religion and high society greeted one another during the Gilded Age. Grace is one of… Read More
This week we’re highlighting an especially festive episode of the Gilded Gentleman Podcast — the Bowery Boys spinoff podcast hosted by Carl Raymond — an episode with double the holiday fun, tracing the history of holiday celebrations over 19th-century New York City history. Licensed New York City tour guide and speaker Jeff Dobbins joins host Carl for… Read More
The Gilded Age is finally here! The HBO Julian Fellowes prestige television drama, that is, in the vein of his lavish signature series Downton Abbey. It’s been awhile since New York City history has been depicted on screen; The Alienist, The Deuce and The Knick themselves seem like ancient history. The Gilded Age depicts the… Read More
The Brooklyn Bridge, which was officially opened to New Yorkers 140 years ago this year, is not only a symbol of the American Gilded Age, it’s a monument to the genius, perseverance and oversight of one family. This episode is arranged as a series of three mini biographies of three family members — John Roebling,… Read More
For decades New Yorkers celebrated Evacuation Day every November 25, a holiday marking the 1783 departure of British forces from a city they had occupied for several years. The events of that departure — that evacuation — inspired annual celebrations of patriotism, unity and a bit of rowdiness. Evacuation Day was celebrated well until the… Read More
Lyndhurst Mansion may be familiar to viewers of the HBO series The Gilded Age since a number of this historic house’s rooms served as filming locations for the show. And its former owner was one of the most notorious figures of the Gilded Age — Jay Gould. He was known as the one of the era’s most ruthless robber barons. He tangled with the… Read More
Louis Sherry was one of New York’s great restauranteurs of the Gilded Age, repackaging the luxury dining experience in New York with supurb attention to detail and truly clever marketing. And one outrageous dinner party in 1903 showcased his sense of extravagance and absurdity. Carl Raymond from the Gilded Gentleman podcast explains it in his… Read More
When the Academy of Music opened in 1854, New York City was just about to become the richest, most powerful city in the nation. It was, in fact, almost there. With the construction of the Erie Canal (which opened in 1825), the port city at the mouth of the Hudson River benefited greatly from the… Read More
Garbo in New York! A story of independence, glamour and melancholy, set at the intersection of classic Hollywood and mid-century New York City. This is the biography of a legendary star who became the city’s most famous ‘celebrity sighting’ for many decades while out on her regular, meandering walks. Garbo had once been Hollywood’s biggest… Read More
NEW from The Gilded Gentleman podcast — some overlooked history of the 19th century, the story of black life and social class in New York City. Dr. Carla Peterson, author of Black Gotham: Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City, joins Carl to share her research and perspective on the growth and… Read More
PODCAST When it opened in 1919, the Hotel Pennsylvania was the largest hotel in the world. Over a hundred years later, its fate remains uncertain. Is it too big to save? (NOTE: Alas the hotel was torn down in 2023.) After the Pennsylvania Railroad completed its colossal Pennsylvania Station in 1910, the railroad quickly realized it would… Read More
The opening of the new Metropolitan Opera at the height of the Gilded Age had perhaps more drama going on in the audience than on the stage. Carl Raymond, host of The Gilded Gentleman history podcast, revisits one of America’s most famous opening nights. The original Metropolitan Opera House — nicknamed the Yellow Brick Brewery… Read More
So we don’t know if you’ve heard, but New York City is an expensive place to live these days. So we thought it might be time to revisit the tale of the city’s most famous district of luxury — Fifth Avenue. For about a hundred years, this avenue was mostly residential— but residences of the most… Read More