The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Aging beauty: The entrance of Penn Station, photographed by James Burke in 1957 for Life Magazine. — Tonight on PBS’s American Experience: The Rise and Fall of Penn Station, the story of McKim, Mead and White’s Midtown masterpiece and how its tragic demolition in the 1960s forced New Yorkers to consider the importance of historic… Read More
One of the few photos ever taken of any New York street gang was this image shot in 1887 by Jacob Riis of the Short Tails  under a pier in Corlears Hook. The Short Tails were a particularly nasty gang of criminals who terrorized the Lower East Side and the docks of Corlears Hook roughly… Read More
The distinguished members of New York’s various volunteer fire brigades, posing for the photographer Matthew Brady in 1858PODCAST The New York City Fire Department (or FDNY) protects the five boroughs from a host of disasters and mishaps — five-alarm blazes, a kitchen fire run amok, rescue operations and even those dastardly midtown elevators, always… Read More
The approach to the Kosciuszko Bridge, photographed in 1939 by the Wurts Brothers. Photo courtesy the Museum of the City of New York“That sound that crashes in the tyrant’s ear – Kosciuszko!” — Lord Byron Byron was talking about Polish hero Tadeusz KoÅ›ciuszko, who was (most likely) born on this date in 1746. Hopefully, within… Read More
Above: While Sherlock Holmes made his film debut in 1900, he hit the stage a bit earlier. William Gillette was the most acclaimed Sherlock of the day, touring the United States in a play he co-wrote with the detective’s creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. After a tryout in Buffalo, the play made its debut at… Read More
Pete Seeger with Woody Guthrie, performing at the Music Inn in Lenox, Massachusetts, 1950 (Photo courtesy NPR) “I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody.” — Pete SeegerPete Seeger with the Weavers — Washington Square Blues … Read More
Presented without commentary, from the front page of  the New York Sun, January 24, 1914: “Policeman James Kenny, trudging along James Street at 10 o’clock last night, heard horrendous sounds coming from the market of Brighton Beef Company at No. 72.  A hundred drunken burglars couldn’t have made more noise. Kenny, remembering that a bomb… Read More
The halls of Pennsylvania Station, conjuring the grandeur of a Roman temple, would have created an otherworldly echo at rush hour on January 22, 1914. Thousands of commuters hurrying across the marble floors of McKim, Mead and White’s steel-latticed terminal, rushing to arriving trains pulling into the sunken boarding area from deep tunnels beneath Manhattan… Read More
During one particular winter in the early 1910s, Central Park was invaded by an army of young sledders, tearing over the snow-covered terrain without thought to temperatures or bodily injury. Believe it or not, the city encouraged children to use the city parks for sledding, especially given that the alternatives were slicked-up city streets. In… Read More
An engraving featured in Solomon Northup’s narrative Twelve Years A Slave, published in 1853. The New York farmer and musician Solomon Northup was sold into slavery in 1841, tricked by two supposed members of a circus troupe, promising Northrup work in their traveling show. Instead, Northrup awoke in bondage, eventually smuggled to New Orleans where… Read More
Here’s a recap of all the Bowery Boys podcasts from 2013 — from the most shocking art show of all time to the weirdest mayoral election in history, from the corridors of New York’s scariest psychiatric ward to the altar of the city’s most transformed church. From colonial America to Sesame Street, through several feet… Read More
On Wednesday, January 1, 2014, Bill de Blasio will be inaugurated at City Hall to become the 109th Mayor of New York City, sworn in by President Bill Clinton. Mayoral inaugurations are never very exciting, but they’re often reflected upon later as setting the tone for an administration, a clue to a possible style of… Read More
I’m not sure if the Madison Square annual Christmas tree was really the biggest in the entire world — as the 1913 Evening World at right suggests — but it was most certainly the largest in New York City. Its closest competitor in size would have been the City Hall Christmas tree. This unique tradition… Read More
The Hotel Chelsea, August 1936, photograph by Berenice Abbott (NYPL) Inside the Dream Palace The Life and Times of New York’s Legendary Chelsea Hotel by Sherill Tippins Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Few places in New York exist with so many ghosts as the Chelsea Hotel. Oh, I don’t know if it’s really haunted, but the historical… Read More
One hundred and twenty-five years ago today, Robert Moses was unleashed upon the world, born in New Haven, Connecticut, on Dwight Street. He remains today one of the most powerful civic figures in American history, and obviously one of the most controversial. Because of Moses, we have the modern New York City. Many of its… Read More