The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Above: The slow, bitterly aggravating work of clearing the streets of New York during the blizzard of 1888.The second largest snow-filled month in New York City history! The snowiest January ever! The eighth biggest snowstorm ever! These are some of the records being thrown out this morning after last night’s wild thunder-filled snow apocalypse. Most… Read More
Frozen farm: The Eagle Street Rooftop Farm waits out the weather for a better day. (Courtesy Scott Nyerges) NAME THAT NEIGHBORHOOD Some New York neighborhoods are simply named for their location on a map (East Village, Midtown). Others are given prefabricated designations (SoHo, DUMBO). But a few retain names that link them intimately with their… Read More
With Fort Wadsworth to its side, the last of Othmar Ammann’s New York bridges jets out over the Narrows. PODCAST The longest suspension bridge in the United States, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was one of Robert Moses’ most ambitious projects, a commanding structure that would finally link Staten Island with Brooklyn. Today it soars above New… Read More
The newly built High Bridge over the Harlem River, as it looked in 1849. (NYPL) Here’s a handy primer to ten of the most strangely named bridges in the New York City metropolitan area. Most of these names are probably familiar to you, and you probably pass over many of these bridges without giving a… Read More
We’re putting together the first new podcast of the year right now, involving a major traumatic event in south Brooklyn history. As I’m getting that together, enjoy this blog posting from summer 2009 about one of southern Brooklyn’s long forgotten pleasure destinations, Ulmer Park. You can find the original article here. Over a 100 years… Read More
A beat in Times Square: Ben Carruthers drifts through the city in ‘Shadows’ BOWERY BOYS RECOMMEND is an occasional feature where we find an unusual movie or TV show that — whether by accident or design — uniquely captures an era of New York City better than any reference or history book. Other entrants in… Read More
A rather startling title card from ‘Birth of a Nation’ [courtesy the Liberty Lamp]The question posed in the headline is a fascinating urban legend I’ve been obsessed with proving (or disproving) for about a year. It pops up occasionally during discussions about New York film history. And I think I’ve come up with an answer.… Read More
In honor of the grand re-opening of the Museum of the Moving Image this Saturday, we’re going all New York film and media here on the blog, posting some new stuff and re-printing some older ones pertinent to the city’s filmmaking history. Above, you can watch ‘Father Gets In The Game’, a cheeky short from… Read More
Federal Hall, home to the first House of Representatives 1789 [NYPL] This week the United States got a new Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, and its first female ex-Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. This changing of the guard got me to wondering how many politicians representing New York had ever held this powerful job.… Read More
Daredevils trespassing the ice between New York and Brooklyn in 1871. I spent much of New York’s Christmas blizzard nightmare in various airports throughout the country, unable to get back to La Guardia Airport, where it appears I would have just been stranded anyway. With all the transportation fiascoes, the unplowed streets and the mounting… Read More
Here’s the whole menu of our 2010 podcasts. As always, you can download them all for free from iTunes and or your favorite podcast aggregator. The original blog page for each is listed below, along with a link to download directly from our satellite site. See you in 2011! TRINITY CHURCHBlog page / Trinity Church:… Read More
Once upon a time, in December 1900, there was a toy store on 67 Cortlandt Street with very, very sad display windows. The store’s owner, Robert Ingersoll, was best known for his ‘dollar watches’ and, on the success of those, had branched out to include other items for sale, including a great variety of toys… Read More
Ballerinas in their first flight of The Nutcracker: the Ballet Russe at the 51st Street Theater, 1940 (Picture courtesy the New York Times) Few ballet productions of the last century had more influence on American culture than George Balanchine’s 1954 edition of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, as performed by the New York City Ballet. Although not… Read More
The misty Madison Square Garden greets a stranger to the park: America’s first community Christmas tree. (Courtesy LOC)HOW NEW YORK SAVED CHRISTMAS Throughout the week I’ll spotlight a few more events in New York history that actually helped establish the standard Christmas traditions many Americans celebrate today. Not just New York-centric events like the Rockefeller… Read More
The canyon, as seen from the Empire State Building. (Photography by the Wurts Brothers, courtesy NYPL) PODCAST: Times Square is the centerpiece of New York for most visitors and a place that sharply divides city residents. Nothing about it sits still. Even its oldest buildings are severely transformed and slathered with electronic imagery. In 1900,… Read More