PODCAST Grab your fedora and take a trip with the Bowery Boys into the heart of New York City’s jazz scene — late nights, smoky bars, neon signs — through the eyes of one of the greatest American vocalists who ever lived here — Billie Holiday. Eleanora Fagan walked out of Pennsylvania Station in 1929… Read More
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The opening of Siegel-Cooper department store, 1896, created one of the great mob scenes of the Gilded Age. Today, TJ Maxx and Bed Bath and Beyond occupy this once-great commercial palace. PODCAST Ladies’ Mile — the most famous New York shopping district in the 19th century and the “heart of the Gilded Age,” a district… Read More
No amount of studying will prepare you for some of these odd questions. (A girl at Seward Library, photographed by Lewis Hine.)Trivia quizzes are very popular today in bars and pubs throughout the city, but in the past, they’ve had more elitist purposes. In November 1914, a group of possibly insecure ex-New Yorkers in Chicago… Read More
Bond Clothing Store sign was a mainstay of Times Square in the 1940s and 50s. For more on Bond’s unusual transition after that, read my article from 2007 on Bond International Casino. Picture courtesy Life Magazine, Lisa Larsen photographerNew York Neon is the Bowery Boys Book of the Month for July, a superb review of the… Read More
A sizzling 52nd Street in July 1948 (courtesy LOC)BOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH Each month I’ll pick a book — either brand new or old, fiction or non-fiction — that offers an intriguing take on New York City history, something that uses history in a way that’s uniquely unconventional or exposes a previously unseen… Read More
Girl gone wild: Madonna enjoys the video opulence of Private Eyes with former boyfriend and producer Jellybean Benitez, July 17, 1984 It’s 1984, and the hottest trend in American pop culture is the music video . MTV had debuted a channel of non-stop music videos in 1981, and just three years later, most new pop superstars were… Read More
The Irish Way: Becoming American in the Multi-Ethnic Citypart of the Penguin History of American Life seriesBy James R. BarrettPenguin Group The Irish were the first to immigrate to this country en masse in the 1840s, only to find themselves near the bottom of almost every aspect of American life. In James R. Burnett‘s tidy and studied… Read More
 One need only walk past the old Limelight in the neighborhood of Chelsea to understand the strange flexibility of church architecture. This former Richard Upjohn-designed Episcopal church at West 20th Street and Sixth Avenue was transformed into a rehab center in the 1970s, then a notorious nightclub in the ’80s, then an upscale mall. And… Read More
The 24 States: playing field for America’s first board game HOW NEW YORK SAVED CHRISTMAS My yearly roundup of little events in New York history that actually helped establish the standard Christmas traditions many Americans celebrate today. Not just New York-centric events like the Rockefeller Christmas Tree or the Rockettes, but actual components of the festivities… Read More
Thanks to everybody who came out on Saturday for our reading at Swift Hibernian Lounge, as part of the 4th Annual Lit Crawl. Swift makes for a incredibly atmospheric place to spin tales of New York history. Or possibly preach the gospel. Or hold an occult ritual. (Above: That’s me behind the massive podium.) And it… Read More
The ultimate terminal for air and sea, if you don’t mind eliminating a few neighborhoods. Goodbye Hell’s Kitchen! (Click image to enlarge) Are you a Manhattan business professional who’s tired of sitting in maddening traffic to get all the way out to John F. Kennedy Airport? Does LaGuardia Airport seem dreary and dismal to you? And Newark Liberty… Read More
Today is a day of big historical remembrances, from the 150th anniversary of the first battle of the Civil War to the 50th anniversary of man’s first entry into space. But to me, April 12th will always be the day that William ‘Boss’ Tweed died in his cell at the Ludlow Street Jail in 1878,… Read More
Wheels converge: Motor buggies, horse drawn carriages and other conveyances glide and to and from the railroad terminal ferry station at West 23rd Street (i.e. Chelsea Piers) Pic courtesy NYPL Tomorrow we begin our first official summer blockbuster: a set of several podcasts in a row, themed BOWERY BOYS ON THE GO. Every two weeks,… 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