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Bowery Boys Bookshelf

Solomon Northup’s ominous journey to New York City, 1841

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

Categories
Bridges

Traffic on the George Washington Bridge (in 1949)

Traffic on the George Washington Bridge, approaching the bridge, and leaving the bridge.  Note the unpaved exit street in the last photo, and the reflections of clouds in the polished vehicles below. Photos by Cornell Capa, 1949 (Courtesy Life Google Images)

Categories
Those Were The Days

History in the Making: New York’s Best Bull Dog Edition

“Photo shows Marion Simpson with her French bull dog, possibly at the French Bull Dog Club of America Show at the Hotel Astor, New York City, April 1914.” (Source: Flickr Commons project, 2010 and New York Times, April 19, 1914) Click photo for a better, cuter look. — Do you like Downton Abbey?  I’ve started… Read More

Categories
True Crime

PBS’s ‘The Poisoner’s Handbook’: Jazz Age murder mysteries and the beleaguered forensics team who solved them

Charles Norris and the toxicology laboratory at Bellevue Hospital [source]The Poisoner’s HandbookPBS: American ExperiencePremieres January 7, 20148pm EST / 7pm CST“In 1922 101 New Yorkers hanged themselves.  Four hundred forty-four died in car accidents.  Twenty were crushed in elevators.  There were 237 fatal shootings and 34 stabbings.  And that year, nine hundred and ninety-seven New Yorkers died… Read More

Categories
Museums

Start 2014 by seeing three of the best exhibitions of 2013 — Armory Show, Lewis Hine, the ABCs of children’s books

Did you make a New Year’s resolution this year to go to more museums?  To be more cultured? To know, generally speaking, what’s going on in this great big city in 2014?  Then start with these three terrific history-related exhibitions — some of best shows from last year — either at their half-way points or… Read More

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It's Showtime Podcasts

Another Podcast Extra from our Broadway Musical show, plus an interactive treat for theater fans

Frequent collaborators PG Wodehouse, Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern (Pic courtesy Broadway Scene) — Here’s another ‘deleted scene’ from our last podcast, Episode #159 The Broadway Musical: Setting the Stage.  In this excerpt, I’m talking about the unique challenge that was faced by young songwriter Jerome Kern when he began working at the Princess Theatre… Read More

Categories
Bowery Boys

The Bowery Boys Year In Review: Our 2013 podcasts

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

Categories
Know Your Mayors

The mayoral inauguration 100 years ago was quite a headache — “the Most Cheerless Day Ever Known at City Hall”

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

Categories
Christmas Neighborhoods Uncategorized

The lights of Madison Square: A Christmas tree at night

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

Categories
Landmarks

The wonder of the Chelsea Hotel: ‘Inside the Dream Palace’ — an interview with author Sherill Tippins

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

Categories
Robert Moses

Robert Moses was born 125 years ago today. Here’s ten ways to celebrate/mourn his magnificent, controversial legacy

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

Categories
It's Showtime

Podcast Extra! The Hippodrome and its famous ice ballet

Our show on the Broadway musical was quite epic, and we ended up cutting out some interesting stories to make the show a reasonable length.  However I’ll leak out a couple of these ‘deleted scenes’ over the next couple weeks. For instance, here’s a segment about another great Broadway theater. In fact, one of the… Read More

Categories
Christmas

Premiering this Friday: Our epic holiday podcast

And let’s just say, it should be a real show-stopper! Above: The cast of Shuffle Along, 1921 (Courtesy NYPL)

Categories
Health and Living

The world in glasses: Theodore Roosevelt, fictional athletes, glamorous secretaries, even the Bowery Boys!

If glasses are fashionable today, you can thank President Theodore Roosevelt, whose stylish C-bridge pince-nez diminished the reputation as mere apparel for the weak. — The Bowery Boys are featured this week on the official blog of Warby Parker, the fashionable eyewear company specialize in vintage-style prescription frames and sunglasses.  Thanks to Dixie Roberts for… Read More

Categories
Pop Culture

Inside ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’, a gauzy, surreal homage to 1960s New York bohemian life

Out in the cold: Llewyn Davis gets no respect. Pic courtesy CBS FilmsNOTE: This article contains minor spoilers for the film Inside Llewyn Davis, so proceed with caution if you have not yet seen the movie! The latest movie by Joel and Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis, meanders through a coolly tinted rendition of New… Read More