The Bowery Boys: New York City History
The last remaining unrenovated tracks of the West Side Elevated Railway: Seen better days, but haven’t we all? (Click onto pictures for a larger view) This past weekend, Open House New York, in association with the clothing company Uniqlo, opened up the remaining portion of the West Side Elevated Railway — aka the High Line.… Read More
This weekend is the tenth annual Open House New York, with dozens of landmarks and cultural attractions throwing open their doors to the public, in all five boroughs. It’s probably the best weekend of the year to experience places in New York you would have never thought accessible and a great opportunity to finally go… Read More
The Eero Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center at JFK International Airport, pictured above under construction in 1961, is Thursday’s Archtober Building of the Day! Argh! There is so much to do in the month of October. Tomorrow, I’ll elaborate at length on this weekend’s big tenth anniversary Open House New York. But don’t let that and… Read More
Party at Pompadou’s Bordello: Cocktails and carousing on ‘Copper’ Courtesy BBC America My first ever column for the Huffington Post is available to read on their site. I look at the different ways that three Sunday night ‘prestige’ shows — BBC America’s Copper, AMC’s Mad Men, and HBO’s Boardwalk Empire — approach the task of… Read More
In the spirit of P.T. Barnum, Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday announced plans to build the world’s largest Ferris wheel next to the ferry terminal on Staten Island. The amusement, called the New York Wheel, will stand 84 feet higher than a similar Ferris wheel in Singapore and also nods towards the London Eye, a ride… Read More
Above: The Croton Reservoir in 1850, in what would soon become Central Park. (NYPL)PODCAST One of the great challenges faced by a growing, 19th-century New York City was the need for a viable, clean water supply. We take water for granted today. But before the 1830s, citizens relied on cisterns to collect rainwater, a series… Read More
The Fortress of Fifth Avenue: the Murray Hill Reservoir We share a lot of the same needs as New Yorkers of the past, but we’ve just gotten better at hiding the unpleasant ones. There are a great many mental institutions and specialized medical facilities in the city; they just aren’t in creepy, old Gothic buildings… Read More
Charles Tiffany, the son of a Connecticut mill owner, borrowed one thousand dollars from his father one day and set out with his old classmate John Young to open ‘a fancy goods and stationary store’ at 259 Broadway (around the northern section of City Hall). On September 18, 1837, their little store Tiffany & Young… Read More
When I was a teenager, one of many life missions was to one day write for the Weekly World News, the black-and-white supermarket tabloid which specialized in uncovering mutant, fantastical, and mostly unbelievable events being ignored by the mainstream media. It began in 1979 with far less embellished intentions, focusing on celebrity gossip and sensational… Read More
Hoe Avenue in the Bronx has nothing to do with farming, although it once indeed ran through a grand 19th century farm estate. The avenue’s namesake, Richard March Hoe, born 200 years ago today, brought about a revolution in the world of printing. Without his innovations, the phrase ‘hot off the press’ might never have… Read More
Two beautiful and unique 1971 photographs by Life Magazine’s Henry Groskinsky showing the nearly completed World Trade Center. These are fascinating not only for the appearance of the towers as they prepare to lord over the ’70s skyline, but also to note what’s notably not there yet — the entire Battery Park City area. At this point… Read More
Hunter and gadabout Paul Rainey: An accidental matinee idol Catching a movie this weekend? Many New Yorkers had the same plan one hundred years ago, but the experience was vastly different. Motion pictures in 1912 were shorter, without sound and in black-and-white, of course, but they were sometimes presented as part of a set of… Read More
Many of you may remember New York’s sole Republican National Convention, held in 2004 at Madison Square Garden, celebrating the re-election bid of George W. Bush. Some may recall any one of New York’s three recent Democratic National Conventions — two (1976, 1980) for Jimmy Carter, and a rather memorable one in 1992 that placed… Read More
A Welcome Debut: Our podcast this week was on the history of New York University, an institution which spent decades in the Bronx neighborhood today called University Heights. When they returned downtown to Greenwich Village, the campus passed into the hands of Bronx Community College, a part of the City University of New York system.… Read More
Hogwarts of Washington Square: The beautiful and supremely ostentatious University Hall at the northeast corner of the park, circa 1850. [NYPL] PODCAST They once called it the University of the City of New York, an innovative, non-denominational school located in a intellectual castle on the northeast corner of the Washington military parade ground. Today it’s… Read More