The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Renown jazz pianist Dave Brubeck died this morning, just a day before his 92nd birthday. The fourth entry in his ‘Jazz Impressions’ series, recorded in 1964, featured music evoking the ‘urbane personality’ of New York City. The recording also featured his well-known quartet line-up, including Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello. From that album,… Read More
Renown jazz pianist Dave Brubeck died this morning, just a day before his 92nd birthday. The fourth entry in his ‘Jazz Impressions’ series, recorded in 1964, featured music evoking the ‘urbane personality’ of New York City. The recording also featured his well-known quartet line-up, including Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello. From that album,… Read More
LOL Dogz: a photographic postcard from the Rotograph Co., from between 1904-1911. Rotograph was located at 684 Broadway, mass producing snappy photos, often heavily manipulated and painted. Their office building is still around; there’s an Au Bon Pain on the ground floor. [source] Here’s a collection of articles about the New York holiday season that I’ve… Read More
George Bellows: RetrospectiveMetropolitan Museum of ArtNovember 15, 2012-February 18, 2012 George Bellows was a member of the Ashcan School, the New York-centered realist art movement of the early 20th century. The so-called ‘Apostles of Ugliness’ — at least, according to critics — included John Sloan, Robert Henri and eventually Edward Hopper. Even the photography of Jacob… Read More
It’s a different world: Illustrating the difficulty of a New York TV show set in the 1880s, above is a picture of the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The Reservoir is off to the left, where the New York Public Library is today. More on this photo here. Ever since the announcement that… Read More
Did you see the spectacular debut of the Empire State Building‘s new LED lights last night, choreographed to the music of Alicia Keys, being simultaneously broadcast on four New York radio stations? The allure of the Empire State Building as a glamorous light spectacle has been around almost since the mast — originally designed,… Read More
The Williamsburg waterfront was a wall of industry over one hundred years ago and of a most combustible kind. Manhattan had waterfront industry as well, but it was leveraged with rising skyscrapers. For instance, from the Williamsburg Bridge — not a decade old in 1912 — one could see the nearly-completed Woolworth Building emerging from… Read More
I was going to run this picture alongside my post on bicycle history last week, but decided this needed a post all its own. This picture and the one below were taken by Gordon Parks for Life Magazine in June 1952.
Turkey anyone? Thanksgiving maskers, in New York, taken sometime between 1910-15. Whatever you do, don’t look the ‘lady’ directly in the eye! My new column for the Huffington Post is live, and the topic is a strange, forgotten holiday custom called Thanksgiving masking, popular among New York kids from the 1890s-1930s. Children dressed as exaggerated… Read More
While the Confederacy may be the enemy in Stephen Spielberg‘s new film ‘Lincoln‘, it is a defeated and toothless one, tattered and on the cusp of surrender. But as this is a legislative melodrama, not a war film, the real foes are the South-sympathizing, anti-war Democrats, opposed to passing Abraham Lincoln’s signature Thirteenth Amendment, which… Read More
Alice Austen’s iconic photograph of a telegram bike messenger in 1896, a year where many New Yorkers were wild about bikes. Austen even rode one around with her camera. PODCAST The bicycle has always seemed like a slightly awkward form of transportation in big cities, but in fact, it’s reliable, convenient, clean and —… Read More
The old Coney Island El Dorado bumper car ride, 2007 (courtesy Flickr/chris trudeau) Whistleblower: A heartfelt tribute to David Durk, the NYPD officer who exposed corruption in the force with the help of Frank Serpico (subject of the 1973 Al Pacino film ‘Serpico’). “Durk then went on to take a mad genius approach to enforcing… Read More
We sat down in Washington Square Park with the New York web series Bites of the Big Apple, hosted by Kirsten Alana and produced by Michaela Potter, to talk about the Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast and website. Visit their website for other videos in this series. As the video includes screenshots of… Read More
Contract No. 3. South tunnel, New York. taken December 1923 [NYPL] The Holland Tunnel, New York’s first automobile tunnel, linking downtown Manhattan with Jersey City, New Jersey, turns 85 years old today after a hard month for the city’s underground passages. The tunnel was closed for several days after Hurricane Sandy, reopening on November 7.… Read More
Today begins mandatory gas rationing in New York City due to shortages caused by Hurricane Sandy. There was limited gas rationing during the 1970s, but the longest a gas ration was ever sustained in New York City was 70 years ago, during World War II, officially becoming a nationwide policy in December 1942. It was… Read More