The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Above: Mark Twain at Delmonico’s Restaurant One hundred years ago today, Mark Twain died of a heart attack in Connecticut, famously the day after Hailey’s Comet whisked by the earth. Although obviously more known for his reminiscences of Missouri and his later life in Hartford, Conn., New York City figured significantly in his career. Twain… Read More
The villain du jour of the latest financial scandal is investment firm Goldman Sachs, accused of fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading investors on the shady details of certain ‘exotic’ mortgage-backed securities. The magnitude of Goldman Sachs’ ambitions over the past 140 years — its seismic up and downs, through booms and… Read More
Postcard of the elephant house, now the central Zoo Center — and home today to a baby rhino below. (Courtesy NYPL) PODCAST New York City’s most exotic residents inhabit hundreds of leafy acres in the Bronx at the once-named New York Zoological Park. Sculpted out of the former DeLancey family estate and tucked next to… Read More
Here’s a sampling of female entertainers from the last one hundred years, focusing on one particular venue that figures into shaping that person’s professional career. Obviously, most of these women performed in dozens of places throughout the city. I’m just focusing on location pivotal to their beginnings. Billie Holiday in a jam session, 1943 (Gjon… Read More
Sonny and Cher in New York City (picture courtesy Getty Images) June 1, 1970: Sonny and Cher begin a two-week stint at the Empire Room at the Waldorf-Astoria. The Empire was one of the swankiest hotel lounges in Manhattan, usually the site of stars slightly past their prime, pop and jazz musicians of the prior… Read More
March 30, 1974: The Ramones, the pride of Forest Hills, Queens, play their first public concert together at Performance Studio, a small space on East 20th Street* managed by future member Tommy Erdelyi (later Tommy Ramone). For their debut set, there were just three of them, and Dee Dee Ramone sang lead How did it… Read More
Above: the mangled remains of a flimsy fire escape which sent many Triangle Factory workers to their death A tragic marker in New York City history: the devastating fire that swept through the upper floors of the Asch Building in 1911, through the sweatshops of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, killing 146 people. Today, March 25th,… Read More
Photo above: Robert Moses, October 1952 by Alfred Eisensteadt (Courtesy Google Life) PODCAST: EPISODE 100 We obviously had to spend our anniversary show with the Power Broker himself, everybody’s favorite Parks Commissioner — Robert Moses. A healthy debate about Moses will divide your friends, and we provide the resources to make your case for both… Read More
THE FINAL PART UPDATED BELOW – THE FUTURE CITYSee map below for all the locations mentioned in this story I’m splitting the second half of this series off into a separate posting for easier navigation. Please see the post below this one for the introduction and entries 1 through 50. ————————————————————————-PART SIX: SUBWAY CITY 51… Read More
PART FIVE UPDATED BELOW – CONSOLIDATED CITYSee map below for all the locations mentioned in this story One of the truly great podcast pleasures of the past two months has been the BBC’s A History of the World In 100 Objects, a daily chronological journey through human history via carefully selected items from the British… Read More
FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER To get you in the mood for the weekend, on occasional Fridays we’ll be featuring an old New York nightlife haunt, from the dance halls of 19th Century Bowery, to the massive warehouse clubs of the mid-1990s. Past entries can be found here. LOCATION Reisenweber’s Cafe Columbus Circle, 58th Street and 8th… Read More
Above: An unemployment line in November 1933. The O’Brien administration offers no relief to the city. KNOW YOUR MAYORS Our modest little series about some of the greatest, notorious, most important, even most useless, mayors of New York City. Other entrants in our mayoral survey can be found here.Mayor John Patrick O’BrienIn office: 1933 There’s… Read More
A packed house at MSGBowl on June 21, 1932, turning out for a prizefight between Max Schmeling and Jack Sharkey Picture courtesy Awesome Stories There was so much to speak about during the Madison Square Garden podcast that we didn’t have time to mention that, for a brief time, the borough of Queens once had… Read More
Augustus Saint-Gauden’s Diana twirling overhead on the second and arguably greatest version of Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden is certainly the recognizable name in arena entertaining, hosting Rangers and Knicks games, concerts, even political conventions. But it inherited that reputation from three other buildings which also called themselves ‘Madison Square Garden’. The first, inspired… Read More
STARS OF MADISON SQUARE GARDEN: Elton John and John Lennon LOCATION: MSG IV John Lennon’s last stage performance ever took place on 1974 at Madison Square Garden, and he only did it because he lost a bet. Elton John, an up and coming young star fresh from the successes of his album Goodbye Yellow… Read More