The Bowery Boys: New York City History
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. Former New York mayors are all around you. No, Ed Koch is not hiding in your closet — maybe not today — but you can… Read More
Lunchtime down on Wall Street today is chaotic mess of brokers and bankers on cell phones, tour groups, messengers on bikes, police, construction workers, people delivering lunch and the stray old lady walking her dog. Eighty-eight years ago, in 1920, it would have practically been the same, sans the cell phones. So it’s particularly disturbing… Read More
We steal this week’s topic straight for today’s headlines! We look at the early days of New York finance and the creation of the New York Stock Exchange, beginning with Alexander Hamilton, some pushy auctioneers, a coffee house and a sycamore tree. And find how this seminal financial institution ended up in its latest home… Read More
Who knew a produce exchange could look so elegant? One of New York’s most important architects was George B. Post, but you would barely know it today. Only a handful of his most important buildings — the New York Stock Exchange being the most famous — still stand, the victim of a rapidly changing city… Read More
A simplistic but colorful view of “Man Mados” or “New Amsterdam” in 1664 (click in to inspect the detail) One of the first facts you learn as a student of New York City history is that Wall Street, that canyon of tall buildings and center of the American financial world, is named for an actual… Read More
Back in March, we speculated on the fate of Thurman Munson’s locker, which had been preserved at Yankees Stadium since the untimely death of the popular Yankees catcher in 1979. Well, Shea Stadium has a far more irreverent but equally treasured fixture that many have been wondering about — the Mets Apple. Will the frail… Read More
The Mets are movin’ out to Citi Field, but we can’t overlook the great stories contained in their old home, Shea Stadium, a Robert Moses project took years to get off the ground and has been populated with world class ball players, crazed Beatles fans, and one very mysterious black cat. William Shea, who essentially… Read More
Above: Quite a fancy looking team of baseball players! Note the pavilion in the background. Picture courtesy Brooklyn Ball Parks I love finding out where very basic, everyday, take-for-granted concepts were invented. For instance, there is some place on the planet I’m sure that heralds as the first place somebody put a straw in a… Read More
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 pasts. Other entries in this series can be found here. I have a friend of Jamaican descent that lives in Jamaica,… Read More
Today it’s the Met Life Building. It’s been called the ugliest building in New York City. It sits like a monolith behind one of the city’s most enduring icons Grand Central Terminal. But it’s got some secrets you may not know about. In this podcast, we scale the heights of this misunderstood marvel of modern… Read More
In 1962, Minoru Yamasaki was given an improbable, totally ridiculous task. Yamasaki, a Japanese-American architect best known at the time for his modernist designs of airports, university buildings and synagogues, won the World Trade Center job in 1962 over more internationally famous architects. He was paired with the prolific Emery Roth and Sons, who had… Read More
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. Democrats and Republicans in this year’s election who think they can roll into office on the mantel of “change” may want to look at the… Read More
A stubborn group of good-looking, well-meaning squatters were finally evicted last night as the hit Broadway musical ‘Rent’ closed after 5,124 performances. The show had become the most peculiar historical time capture on Broadway, freezing forever a musical variation of late 80s/early 90s, pre-Guiliani East Village underground, recalling a time when Avenue B had far… Read More
Astroland is once again closing for the final time at the end of this weekend, making way for Thor Equities to begin their new development of the area. The park’s main attraction, the legendary Cyclone, isn’t going away however. A functioning roller-coaster since 1927 — and built on the spot of the world’s very first… Read More
Above: Another local gang of the Lower East Side, the Shirt Tails of Corlear’s Hook, most likely fought with the Cherry Hill gang, the Batavia Street gang, or maybe even both (circa 1889 pic from courtesy of Irishinnyc) We’re finally stepping away from the grime of the late 19th century, but not before giving a… Read More