The Bowery Boys: New York City History
PODCAST The story of how Fifth Avenue, once the ritziest residential address in America, became an upscale retail strip and the home of some of New York’s finest cultural institutions. LISTEN HERE: In this episode, the symbols of the Gilded Age are dismantled. During the late 19th century, New York’s most esteemed families built extravagant mansions… Read More
PODCAST The story of how Fifth Avenue, once the ritziest residential address in America, became an upscale retail strip and the home of some of New York’s finest cultural institutions. LISTEN HERE: In this episode, the symbols of the Gilded Age are dismantled. During the late 19th century, New York’s most esteemed families built extravagant… Read More
Above: Newsboys and bootblacks playing craps, photographed by Lewis Hines in 1912. Some of these were most likely recipients of free dental care, provided at the Second Avenue newsie’s lodging house in that year by the Society of Good Cheer. Newsboys with poor teeth one hundred years ago — I’m guessing this would be most… Read More
“There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the Earth as the Free Public Library — this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.†–Andrew CarnegieThe doors of the main branch of the New York Public Library (a.k.a. the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building) opened 100 years ago this… Read More
Click picture for greater detail Above is a picture, facing east, of Seward Park Library in the ‘lower’ Lower East Side at 192 E. Broadway (picture taken in 1911). This spectacular branch library, funded by Andrew Carnegie, opened in November 1909, two years before the 42nd Street main branch opened. All of the housing behind… Read More
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Well, we can at least show you the way through its tumultuous history, from a fortunate meeting on a Norwegian cruise ship, passed a symphonic rivalry, and into the 20th Century with some of the biggest names in classical and popular music. Listen to it for free on… Read More
Being rich is a side effect of making money. That may sound like an absurd statement, but not when describing Andrew Carnegie, second richest man who ever walked the planet. The trappings of the Gilded Age never quite suited the wealthy steel magnate, who nevertheless owned one of the finest homes in New York City.… 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. Abram Hewitt could easily be considered a very pivotal mayor in New York City, given the significant development and personal connections he had to the… Read More