The Bowery Boys: New York City History
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
The piping hot uniforms of the Brooklyn Tip-Tops, worn by baby-faced manager Lee Magee For a brief shining moment between 1914 and 1915, Brooklyn had two major league baseball teams — the legendary Brooklyn Dodgers and the not-so-legendary Brooklyn Tip-Tops. Baseball has long been a sport of two parallel sports leagues — the National League… Read More
South Beach, Staten Island, 1973, photographed by Arthur Tress As a resort and amusement mecca, the time of Staten Island’s South Beach has come and gone. The waterfront community south of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge still has a classic old boardwalk, built in 1935 as New Deal project and appropriately called the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Boardwalk.… Read More
A view of Midtown Manhattan, looking southeast, by the Wurts Brothers (NYPL)Supreme CityHow Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern Americaby Donald L. MillerSimon & Schuster Supreme City, by Donald L. Miller, certainly one of the most entertaining books on New York City history I’ve read in the past couple years, is also one of… Read More
Looking up Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, 1910. This is the corner with the gigantic glass H&M Store on it today. (Cleaned up photograph courtesy Shorpy) Over the past couple months, Tom and I have been guests on other people’s podcasts, talking a lot about what it takes to build a podcast (and talking a… Read More
We don’t have large, parade-like funeral processions marching up the avenues as they once did during the Gilded Age and in the early years of the 20th century. These events were times of public mourning and a bit of festivity. Â Most often they involved the passing of a well-connected political leader or a popular entertainers.… Read More
Above: look west on Wall Street 1883 (Courtesy Cornell) No need to walk around New York City this weekend completely devoid of purpose and context! The Municipal Art Society will be providing dozens of dozens of free walking tours this weekend as part of their annual Jane’s Walk NYC. It’s going to be sunny and… Read More
One hundred years ago today, the Abraham & Straus department store on Fulton Street (today’s Brooklyn Macy’s location) kicks off the borough’s deep affection for record albums with newly designed listening stations, touted in this Brooklyn Daily Eagle advertisement as the best in the city (and it probably was). As the advertisement proclaims: “With the… Read More
Above: A dramatic depiction of a fire which took place 160 years ago today. W. T. Jennings was a fine gentleman’s clothing store located at 231 Broadway, on the site of today’s Woolworth Building. A tremendous fire took the building on the evening of April 25, 1854, causing thousands of dollars in damage and destroying the… Read More