The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Bird in the sky: The delicate Ms. Millman makes it look easyLast night on my walk home, I observed something you just don’t always see everyday — a renegade acrobat dangling from the top of the Williamsburg Bridge! The perilous pair, Seanna Sharpe and Savage Skinner, performed this foolhardy trapeze as traffic whizzed by below them, and… Read More
Alexander Hamilton was shot by Aaron Burr 207 years ago today in their infamous morning duel in Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton would die of his injuries the next afternoon, July 12, 1804. Just imagine Joe Biden and Timothy Geithner rowing to New Jersey and shooting at each other*! This bluff overlooking the Hudson River was the bloodsoaked… Read More
I hope you’ve had a chance to play around in the Library of Congress’s National Jukebox was recently launched on their website. It’s an incredible catalog of old music, from a variety of genres, and could easily play as a soundtrack to many of the posts on this page. One old tune I happened to… Read More
Somebody should make a movie about Fernando Wood, and the role should be played by Johnny Depp. Wood is endlessly fascinating, not only as a shady character of political theater, but as a example of bald tenacity. He was written off as finished at many occasions — and saddled with mounting corruption charges — only to… Read More
An elaborate fireworks celebration over the grounds of the World’s Fair of 1939-40. (I’m not sure which year this picture was taken.) The wars of American independence, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and World War I are represented in a lighting display in the foreground. And you also may have noticed something familiar over… Read More
His Honor, one of the most ambitious, most duplicitous leaders of New York in its history — as photographed by no less than Matthew Brady. PODCAST The first part of our Bowery Boys Go To War! trilogy of podcasts set during the years of the American Civil War. Fernando Wood, New York’s mayor at… Read More
House on the hill: the stark and mysterious convent of Central Park, 1861 In tomorrow’s podcast, I’ll be spending a bit of time in 1861 and will be briefly mentioning Central Park. So I thought I’d give you a look at what it looked like then. Pictured above is a structure that once dominated the… Read More
As if one needed any more examples of the importance of New York’s immigrant culture to the history of music, today is the centenary of the birth of Bernard Herrmann, arguably the most important film music composer in history. Bernard was born (and prematurely at that) to immigrants from Russia. His father, Abraham Dardick, came to… Read More
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast celebrates its FOURTH ANNIVERSARY this week! And we’re using the occasion to debut a trilogy of summer podcasts, starting July 1st, featuring New York City’s involvement during the Civil War as a dramatic backdrop. The secession of Southern states starting in February 1861 brought out the best in New… Read More
Above: From a great photo stream of images from the 1971 parade by Me In San Fran/Flickr (check them out here) I happened across some rather extraordinary archival videos on YouTube posted by Randolfe Wicker, recorded in 1971 at New York’s second Gay Pride festivities ever, initially called the Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day. In those… Read More
One hundred years ago today (June 23), the big news was the coronation of England’s King George at Westminster Abbey. Judging from the New York papers, American fascination with this event makes the recent royal nuptials of William and Kate seem like a forgettable folly. The June 23, 1911, issue of the New York Tribune is… Read More
If this were 1914, we would be in the midst of a week-long celebration of New York babies! Actually, the occasion was a bit more somber. According to the photo caption, Greater New York Baby Week was initiated “to reduce the toll of preventable infant deaths by calling city-wide attention to needs met and needs… Read More
Happy first day of summer! Who doesn’t want to run down a street, streaking through bursts of water emanating from old-style fire hydrants? Although I’m pretty sure nobody has ever tried to guess the identity of the very first ragamuffins to break into a fire hydrant, common sense and a rote knowledge of teenage behavior can… Read More
A century-old party: ghoulish revelers from the 1911 parade An even larger collection of freaks and aquatic oddities than Coney Island’s everyday normal assortment will come slithering down Surf Avenue this Saturday with the 29th annual Mermaid Parade. The parade is the heart of Coney’s modern freak-show aesthetic, Christmastime for the tattooed and glittery. Most… Read More
If you love perusing lists of books that you’ll never get a chance to read in your lifetime, please check out the Guardian’s list of the 100 greatest non-fiction books ever written. And when they say ever, they mean it. (The oldest entrant is dated c400 BC.) The works on their list cover the entire… Read More