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Brooklyn History Mysterious Stories

A Brooklyn ghost story: A famous actress, a rowdy tavern, Cobble Hill’s ‘ghost-haunted spot’ and a fool named Boerum

Above: While this is the old Brooklyn Schermerhorn house, it’s of a similar type to one that Ms. Melmoth may have owned, quickly becoming a tavern after her death. Less than two hundred years ago, in the area approximate to the neighborhood of Carroll Gardens today, there was a very, very rowdy tavern. It was… Read More

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Planes Trains and Automobiles

The Dual Contracts: The New York City subway system gets a serious upgrade 100 years ago today

A subway map from 1924, illustrating the system created as a result of the Dual Contracts agreement. After years of negotiations, false starts and lengthy arguments played out in the press, a group of greatly relieved businessmen entered the large hearing room of the New York Tribune Building (at Nassau and Spruce, where Pace University… Read More

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Brooklyn History

History in the making: Hopscotch in Brooklyn edition

Children while away the days in front of 43-49 Willow Place in Brooklyn Heights, 1936. These buildings, known as Colonnade Row, were built over a hundred years before this picture was taken. And they still look pretty much the same today! Photo by Berenice Abbot. (courtesy NYPL) Carded: The evolution of the New York driver’s license,… Read More

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Holidays Uncategorized

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! A tribute to the 69th Regiment

The 69th Regiment — aka the Fighting Irish — have always led New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade and have been the heart and soul of New York’s Irish community since the early 19th century.  During the Civil War, they were the first to be called, fighting at the battle of Bull Run. The image… Read More

Categories
Amusements and Thrills

The legend of Freedomland USA: Theme park memories from the kids who played there

America, as depicted by Freedomland USA pre-opening map — courtesy Viewliner Ltd. WOW. The response to our profile on NPR Morning Edition has been truly overwhelming. It’s been a very wild and exciting couple days. Thanks to everybody who has written us via email, Facebook and Twitter and welcome to our new listeners! One amusing… Read More

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Bowery Boys

The Bowery Boys on NPR: Morning Edition!

The Bowery Boys were featured in a profile this morning on NPR’s Morning Edition!  You can give the segment a listen here.  You can also download the segment from that site. Our sincere thanks to NPR and to Caitlin Dickerson for featuring us on the show. If you’re interested in any of the particular episodes… Read More

Categories
Newspapers and Newsies Podcasts

The Cosby Show: A despotic governor in colonial New York and the sensational trial of John Peter Zenger

PODCAST A long, long time ago in New York — in the 1730s, back when the city was a holding of the British, with a little over 10,000 inhabitants — a German printer named John Peter Zenger decided to print a four-page newspaper called the New York Weekly Journal.  This is pretty remarkable in itself,… Read More

Categories
Parks and Recreation

Marks of the grid: A remarkable find in Central Park

So this random little bolt in a rock may not look like much, but it could be the last remaining on-site evidence of the creation of New York City’s grid plan. Inspired by Marguerite Holloway’s book ‘The Measure of Manhattan‘, I went looking for this unusual object hidden in Central Park, discovered by geographers several… Read More

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Bowery Boys Bookshelf

‘The Measure of Manhattan’: The grid plan of New York comes to life, as does its eccentric creator

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 unconventional and different or exposes a previously unseen corner of our city’s complicated past.  Then… Read More

Categories
Those Were The Days

Fun money: The Buffalo nickel, 100 years old this month, makes Wall Street messenger boys rich (for a couple hours)

The U.S. Sub Treasury Building — today’s Federal Hall — as it appeared in a colorized postcard in the 1900s (courtesy NYPL)“Hey! Getcha buffalo nickels here. Only 15 cents!” On March 1, 1913, the usual bustle of Wall Street was enlivened with the voices of young men — mostly messenger boys, bank runners and peddlers,… Read More

Categories
Brooklyn History

I’ve been out on jury duty yesterday so I haven’t had time to write anything for the blog. However, emerging from the courtroom on the 21st floor of the Kings County courtroom on Jay Street, I was able to take a few pictures of the clouds rolling over Manhattan. It occurs to me how few… Read More

Categories
Pop Culture

The Broadway Melody: New York’s first Oscar victory and an ironic success for the Astor Theatre in Times Square

The second film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture was hardly a movie at all. ‘The Broadway Melody’, a frothy Hollywood revue about the mounting of an frothy Broadway revue, was a total celebration of every strength and weakness of the early Broadway stage, and a hopeful sign that the New York… Read More

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Brooklyn History Pop Culture

The curious tale behind the first film ever made in Brooklyn

Millions and millions of hours of television and film have been made within the five boroughs since the invention of the camera.  But have you ever wondered where the very first roll of film was ever shot? That distinction most likely goes to a nondescript rooftop studio built atop a building at 1729 St. Marks Avenue… Read More

Categories
Pop Culture

A film milestone in New York, 1913, but sadly out of sync

 The future (almost): Edison’s kinetophone system On February 17, 1913, on the day that the Armory Show was preparing to reinvent American art, Thomas Edison was attempting a revolution of his own for the young moving pictures industry. On that date, he debuted a new projection system called the kinetophone in four vaudeville houses in New… Read More

Categories
Those Were The Days

Six ways to celebrate 100th anniversary of the Armory Show this weekend

A study in madness:  a view inside one room of the 1913 Armory Show This Sunday marks the 100th anniversary of the opening of the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art — aka, the Armory Show of 1913 — which stunned New Yorkers and revolutionized the direction of American art in the 20th century. So… Read More