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New York Islands Podcasts

The history of Hart Island, a place of strangeness and sorrow

Few people are allowed to go onto Hart Island, the quiet, narrow island in the Long Island Sound, a lonely place in sight of the bustling community of City Island. For over 150 years, Hart Island has been New York’s potter’s field, the burial site for over one million people — unclaimed bodies, stillborn babies,… Read More

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Health and Living Newspapers and Newsies Podcasts

Nellie Bly: Undercover in New York’s Notorious Asylum for the Insane

The story of New York World reporter Nellie Bly as she poses as a mental patient to report on the abuses of Blackwell’s Island’s Lunatic Asylum. PODCAST Nellie Bly was a determined and fearless journalist ahead of her time, known for the spectacular lengths she would go to get a good story. Her reputation was… Read More

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Know Your Mayors

Meet Andrew H. Mickle, perhaps the least qualified man to ever serve as the mayor of New York City

New York City Hall and its brand new water fountain, in 1846, courtesy Currier and Ives (LOC)KNOW YOUR MAYORS A modest little series about some of the greatest, notorious, most important, even most useless, mayors of New York City. Other entrants in the Bowery Boys mayoral survey can be found here.Mayor Andrew H. MickleIn office: 1846-1847… Read More