The Bowery Boys: New York City History
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
WARNING The article contains a couple light spoilers about last night’s ‘Mad Men’ on AMC. If you’re a fan of the show, come back once you’re watched the episode. But these posts are about a specific element of New York history from the 1960s and can be read even by those who don’t watch the… Read More
The dramatic Woolworth mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery With completion of the Woolworth Building in 1913, the leader of the five-and-dime retail craze Frank W. Woolworth had his grand declaration of success in New York, widely feted and proclaimed. His hundreds of stores would go on to define the shopping experience around the world over the… Read More
From this angle, you can see two of Cass Gilbert’s creation, the West Street Building and the Woolworth under construction. View of his Broadway-Chambers Building is obscured by the building to the left. (LOC)It’s Woolworth Building week here in New York City! The lights of Frank Woolworth‘s treasured office tower were turned on in an… Read More