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Bowery Boys Bookshelf Museums

Edgar Allan Poe: Terror of the Soul at the Morgan Library: Genius from a dark place, his strange torment on display

An illustration by Eduardo Manet from a 1875 French reprinting of “The Raven” We are all too comfortable with Edgar Allan Poe in the abstract.  His fingerprints seem to be on everything these days.  His morbid tastes and the flowering dark genres he helped create appear just underneath much of American pop culture in the… Read More

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Those Were The Days

Turkey raffles were 19th century versions of bar trivia nights

Hopefully this young lady acquired this turkey by legitimate means. In this week’s podcast, I feign shock at the wild party held at the old home of famed actress Charlotte Melmoth, a former school for etiquette-turned-booze hall.  To quote historian Henry Reed Stiles directly: “After [Charlotte’s] disease, the house was converted into a tavern, which… Read More

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Neighborhoods

A short history of a short street named Raisin Street

A 1932 photo of 34-36 Barrow Street by Charles Von Urban, courtesy the Museum of the City of New York. Click here to see what this section of the street looks like today In this week’s Ghost Stories of Old New York podcast, Tom speaks of the ghosts at romantic restaurant One If By Land,… Read More

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Mysterious Stories Podcasts

Ghost Stories of Old New York: Tales from the Revolution, restless Indians, haunted forts and a drunk, headless actor

  The Van Cortlandt House, 1906PODCAST This is the Bowery Boys 7th annual Halloween podcast, with four new scary stories to chill your bones and keep you up at night, generously doused with strange and fascinating facts about New York City. For this episode, we’ve decided to go truly old-school, reaching back to old legends… Read More

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Friday Night Fever

Remnants of the Bull’s Head Tavern: Could this be the greatest New York archaeological find of the year?

The former Atlantic Gardens, revealed during a demolition. Underneath it lies evidence of an even greater historical discovery. Courtesy Adam Woodward/Lower East Side History Project Big news on the urban archaeological front — remnants of the Colonial-era Bulls Head Tavern may have been discovered during an excavation for a new hotel.  The Bull’s Head was… Read More

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Mysterious Stories Podcasts

This Friday: Bowery Boys 7th Annual Ghost Stories Podcast

Above: The Doppelgänger, a creepy wood engraving from Harper’s Magazine, 1871 (Courtesy NYPL) It’s our favorite time of year — time for the annual Bowery Boys New York ghost stories podcast! The new show — featuring four more frightening tales — will be available this Friday. Catch up on the tradition by listening in to… Read More

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Current Events

MetroCard adventure: The 10 best free Open House NY events that don’t need a reservation

The Edgar Allen Poe Cottage — with horse and buggy! — photographed between 1910-1915. You can visit it as part of Open House New York and even go visit their new visitors center. (Courtesy LOC) Open House New York is the absolute best time of the year to wander the city and visit dozens of… Read More

Categories
Amusements and Thrills

Meet the Mastodon Hog, the biggest star at a 14th Street museum

Worth’s Museum of Living Curiosities, one of New York’s most popular dime museums, paired cheap ‘curios’ with vaudeville performances on the main stage.  On December 29th, 1889, the star of the show was a massive hog named I-Am. “The Biggest Porker in existence. Guess his weight. If you do you will get a prize. Every… Read More

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Bowery Boys

History on television: new Boardwalk Empire, Copper petition, PLUS: Bowery Boys improvements on the way!

Frank and Al Capone, with Nelson Van Alden (played by Michael Shannon), at Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works in Cicero, although I suspect this was actually filmed at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. (Courtesy HBO)BOARDWALK EMPIRE: I’ve been up to my regular Sunday Tweet-alongs with historical-based television shows, this time around following the newest season of Boardwalk… Read More

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Museums

The New York Public Library’s old-timey 3D magic maker

Stop what you’re doing and go play around with the New York Public Library‘s addictive Stereograminator, which gives you their collection of stereograph photography and the ability to animate them, emulating the ‘3D effect’ audiences who first viewed them would have experienced. Go here for the fun. The originals are below:

Categories
Bowery Boys

The 2013 Podcast Awards nominations are open!

Street life at Oak Street and New Chambers Street, 1935. This is in today’s neighborhood of Two Bridges.  Neither of these streets exist today, swept away by grand housing projects.  Sepiatown has the approximate location of where this photograph was taken. (Pic by Berenice Abbott, courtesy NYPL) The nominations for the 2013 Podcast Awards are… Read More

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Museums Uncategorized

A message from the Library of Congress

Due to the temporary shutdown of the federal government,the Library of Congress is closed to the public and researchers beginning October 1, 2013 until further notice. [site] The Library of Congress is my number one source of information for the Bowery Boys, through their newspaper archive and their amazing collection of photographs.  Due to the… Read More

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Neighborhoods Those Were The Days

When the Bowery Ballroom was a shoe store and other scenes from Delancey Street in the 1930s

The Tree-Mark Shoe Store at 6-8 Delancey Street. You may know this building today as the Bowery Ballroom, a music venue since 1997. (Wurts Brothers, date unknown, both courtesy NYPL) The interior of the shoe store, 1930 (Pic courtesy MCNY) This building has had a rocky history, according to historian Matthew Postal.  Using remnants of an old theater… Read More

Categories
Brooklyn History

This weekend: Explore an abandoned factory in DUMBO

For several decades, Ben Forman & Sons occupied the three-story, brick-constructed factory at 201 Water Street in today’s neighborhood of DUMBO, an industrial metal plant which produced “ornamental dies, lamp parts, brass sheets, chopsticks, domestic cutlery sets, butter spreaders, flatware sets, domestic serving utensils” and a myriad of other metal objects for the home. [source]… Read More

Categories
Those Were The Days

How well can you do on this New York history trivia quiz — from 1914? Prepare to be a little frustrated.

No amount of studying will prepare you for some of these odd questions.  (A girl at Seward Library, photographed by Lewis Hine.)Trivia quizzes are very popular today in bars and pubs throughout the city, but in the past, they’ve had more elitist purposes.  In November 1914, a group of possibly insecure ex-New Yorkers in Chicago… Read More