The Bowery Boys: New York City History
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
Next week is the 100th birthday of the opening of the Woolworth Building. The classic skyscraper designed by Cass Gilbert changed everything about perceptions of tall buildings in Manhattan — for good and ill. Suddenly, towers could be as graceful and important as monuments, and as playful and enigmatic as castles. New Yorkers were anxious… Read More
The exaltation of fat, plucky babies via beauty contests stems from a rather grim origin — American infant mortality rates of the 19th century. During the 1880s, as swelling immigrants and overcrowding in New York created harbors for disease and malnourishment, over one in five infants would die in America, with higher occurrence among poor… Read More
A press photo from Hair, the hottest show in town in early 1968, photographer Kenn DuncanWARNING 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… Read More
So how do you follow two journalists around the world, in opposite directions and from the vantage of almost 125 years in the future? I asked Matthew Goodman, the author of “Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World,” this month’s Bowery Boys Book of the Month, about the two competitors… Read More
Greetings from Columbo, Ceylon, one of the many glamorous destinations you’ll visit in Matthew Goodman’s new book.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… Read More
Inside Ebbets Field, 1913, Library of Congress The first-ever regular season baseball game at Ebbets Field was played 100 years ago today. The legendary field, once located in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, was home to the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1913 until the team left for Los Angeles in 1958. Here are ten interesting facts… Read More
Reaction to the Bowery Boys podcast on the Consolidation of 1898 has been tremendous! But I do have one clarification, and provided by a very excellent source. The accurate placing of the boundary line between Queens and the newly created Nassau County was a source of frustration for a great many months after consolidation. I recounted… Read More
Drinks with the Drapers: we may see the end of 1967 in the opening episode. (courtesy AMC)‘Mad Men’ Season 6 begins this Sunday 9EST. If you’re a fan of late ’60s New York and American pop culture from that period, follow along with me on Twitter at @boweryboys. As I do with ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and… Read More
All pictures courtesy New York Public Library, except number three, courtesy the Museum of the City of New York
This Monday, April 1st, in support of Lit Crawl NYC, I’ll be appearing at the literature event ‘Geek Love‘ at The powerHouse Arena in DUMBO, Brooklyn. I’ve done a reading with Lit Crawl NYC in the past, and it’s a terrific (and intense) way to enjoy local literary stars under the guise of visiting a… Read More