The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Seven years ago this evening, Tom and I recorded the first Bowery Boys podcast. The topic was Canal Street and Collect Pond, a subject we re-recorded for our 50th episode. Maybe, one day, we’ll let you all hear that original show! It was very bad, but it does linger on a laptop somewhere, and there… Read More
Looking up to the Gimbels traverse overhead on 32nd Street (Flickr/Docking Bay 93) One of our podcast listeners Alexander Rea sent over the following photographs of a tucked-away place in one of the busiest areas of New York City — the Gimbels traverse on W. 32nd Street, in the Herald Square shopping district. No doubt you’ve… Read More
Above: The Grand Republic steamship. As you can see from its paddlewheel, it was a twin to the General Slocum [source] This could not have made New Yorkers feel very safe about even the briefest of river excursions. Days after the General Slocum excursion steamer caught fire and sank in the East River, killing over 1,000 people,… Read More
PODCAST On June 15, 1904, hundreds of residents of Kleindeutschland, the Lower East Side’s thriving German community, boarded the General Slocum excursion steamer to enjoy a day trip outside the city. Most of them would never return home. The General Slocum disaster is, simply put, one of the greatest tragedies in American history. Before September… Read More
Coney Island gets a brand new star attraction this week — the 2,000-feet Thunderbolt roller-coaster in Luna Park. It’s “narrower than most apartments” (according to Gizmodo), a bright orange ribbon ride that squiggles, rises and plummets within a disturbingly wonky silhouette. It also takes its name from one of Coney Island’s most famous roller-coasters, designed by… Read More
Picture courtesy Steve Welsh/Flickr One of the most striking sights in Brooklyn is the old Kentile Floors sign in Gowanus, a pleasant sight to those who pass it daily and one of the last vestiges of non-franchise billboard art in the city. The current owners of the location are preparing to tear it down, but… Read More
Arnold, Constable and Co’s new Fifth Avenue store. Today it house the lending library for the New York Public Library. When did Ladies Mile — New York’s elegant Gilded Age shopping district — finally become un-fashionable? Unlike the slow demise of so many neighborhoods in the city’s past, the end of Ladies Mile was closely… Read More
The opening of Siegel-Cooper department store, 1896, created one of the great mob scenes of the Gilded Age. Today, TJ Maxx and Bed Bath and Beyond occupy this once-great commercial palace. PODCAST Ladies’ Mile — the most famous New York shopping district in the 19th century and the “heart of the Gilded Age,” a district… Read More
Hershey’s employees cut and pack chewing gum at Sixth Avenue and 21st Street. For five glorious years in the early 1920s, Hershey’s Chocolate operated a candy plant at Sixth Avenue, in the neighborhood of Chelsea. While chocolate bars and chocolate coating for other candies were produced here, the Chelsea plant primarily focused on a new… Read More
A photo from her nightclub and theater years, G. Paul Bishop Jr. photographer ““I never agreed with Thomas Wolfe,†she remarked quietly. “I never thought you can’t go home again. I’ve been coming home to Harlem for 50 years.‗ from a terrific story in the New York Times from 2007 about her ornately colorful Harlem… Read More
The Bowery Boys are now on the photo-sharing service Instagram, traipsing through the city streets in search of quirky places and historic oddities. Follow up as we wander through all five boroughs this spring and summer, looking for surprising and stunning details hidden among the city’s avenues, parks and coastlines. If you have an account, just… Read More
The next time you read an X-Men comic book or see one of their blockbuster films, remember that the whole thing is taking place in Westchester County, just 50 miles north of New York City. The address of Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters (aka mutant teenagers) is 1407 Graymalkin Lane, a fictional street near… Read More
It’s Fleet Week! The streets of New York are filled with hundreds of Marines and sailors who arrived yesterday in New York Harbor. I’m pretty sure, however, that none of them hit the streets handcuffed to a bicycle. That distinction goes to the enigmatic Tony Pizzo who, in 1919, rode his bicycle from Los Angeles… Read More
The entrance to the Johnstown Flood presentation (Cleaned-up photo courtesy Shorpy) On May 31, 1889, a dam near the town of Johnstown, PA, collapsed after a brutal day of torrential rain, flooding the valley with 20 million tons of water and destroying everything in its path. There was virtually no escape, and 2,209 people died… Read More
Washington Square North, looking west, 1950, photo by Walter Sanders, Life Magazine The entire back catalog of the Village Voice, New York’s original alternative weekly, is available online through Google News. The early issues are especially full of character, a scrappy counter-culture organ which provides an interesting window into downtown Manhattan. Here are some highlights… Read More