The Bowery Boys: New York City History
In this weekend’s New York Times Travel section, I chat with Emily Brennan about three places outside the borough of Manhattan that would make ideal destinations for tourists if the lines get too long at the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. You can read the interview here, but the places I discuss… Read More
A genuine survivor: The building to the right was once the Strangers Hospital in the 1870s. This picture, by Berenice Abbott, was taken many decades later, in 1937. And the building is still around today! (Picture NYPL) New York used to lump the sick, the poor and the homeless into one mass of needy unwanted.… Read More
Liberace is the embodiment of a certain California flamboyance, but New Yorkers were as susceptible to his allure as anyone. In fact, for this brightly-painted musical showman, Radio City Music Hall was a second home. He continued to smash box office records here year after year as late as the 1980s, well past his prime… Read More
Above: The New York Nationals and the New Bedford Whalers play the Polo Grounds, circa 1928 (Courtesy NYPL) The announcement on Tuesday of a second Major League Soccer team for New York — sponsored by Manchester City FC and the New York Yankees — has sent me down a rabbit hole of soccer history, courtesy this… Read More
Mary Help of Christian Church pictured in the 1920s (Courtesy NYPL) Hail Mary: There’s a rally tomorrow evening at 6pm to save Mary Help of Christian Church in the East Village. This unique building from 1917, once serving the area’s Italian immigrant population, has been bought by a developer and is slated for demolition. The… Read More
A barber shop at the Hotel de Gink on the Bowery, circa 1910-15 [LOC] The fight for worker’s rights swept through a variety of occupations over a century ago as New York City laborers rebelled against unfair corporate practices and unsafe working conditions. Garment workers marched the avenues in protest following the tragic Triangle Factory… Read More
Green-Wood Cemetery celebrates its 175th year as Brooklyn’s oldest greenspace, populated with deceased politicians, writers and actors. It’s the final resting place for some of New York’s most famous and notorious characters — Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Greeley, DeWitt Clinton and Boss Tweed among them. The Museum of the City of New York debuts its… Read More
“Five Points” by George Catlin, painted in 1827, when it was Paradise Square and not yet the ramshackle slum of yore. The Bowery Boys are excited to be embarking on an exciting new project that will bring New York City history closer to you than ever before — with our “Five Points Weekend” newsletter. What’s… Read More
Ah, take in the horrid reality of the Corona marshes with their ashes, manure and garbage! (Courtesy CUNY) Outside of probably Hell, there is no literary landscape as forlorn and soul-crushing as the ash dumps of Corona, Queens. “This is the valley of ashes,” writes Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat… Read More
Ah, take in the horrid reality of the Corona marshes with their ashes, manure and garbage! (Courtesy CUNY) Outside of probably Hell, there is no literary landscape as forlorn and soul-crushing as the ash dumps of Corona, Queens. “This is the valley of ashes,” writes Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, “a fantastic farm where ashes… Read More
BOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH Each month I’ll pick a book — either brand new or old, fiction or non-fiction — that offers an intriguing take on New York City history, something that uses history in a way that’s uniquely unconventional or exposes a previously unseen corner of our city’s complicated past. Then over the… Read More
BOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald I re-read The Great Gatsby a few weeks ago on purpose, not because I had a school assignment. Unlike my first experience with Gatsby at age 14, I actually read it, without the signposts of a Cliff’s Notes to tell me what… Read More
Above: The Church of the Holy Communion — and once the quite infamous nightclub Limelight — as the less lauded follow-up, called Avalon. Within a couple years, the club would be transformed again — into a high-end retail experience. Below: Michael Alig, one of its more notorious nightly residents. (source)PODCAST If you had told… Read More
If you see large clusters of people walking around historic neighborhoods this weekend, drop what you’re doing and join them. The Municipal Art Society celebrates the May 4th birthday of urban planner Jane Jacobs with dozens of free walking tours this weekend, led by volunteers through a great many corners of New York City. … Read More
May 1st used to be the day that yearly apartment leases ended, resulting in a fury of chaotic furniture relocation known as Moving Day. The April 25, 1897 New York Tribune insert below gently lampoons the event. This was really the worst traffic day in New York each year, as thousands of people shuffled around… Read More