The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Welfare Island (once the more enticingly named Blackwell’s Island) was New York’s depository of human services, once a dour place of horrifying asylums and miserable workhouses. In the 1960s Mayor John Lindsay was preparing to revitalize the East River island with new housing and increased support for the hospitals there. Architects Philip Johnson and John Burgee… Read More
The Bowery Boys Road Trip to the Hudson Valley mini-series, exploring stories of American history along the Hudson River, is now complete. Catch up on all three episodes — and join us on Patreon for a special ‘behind the scenes’ episode: On the Trail of the Croton Aqueduct Welcome to the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail, 26.5… Read More
New Amsterdam, the home of Claes Maartenszen van Rosenvelt (by Thomas Addis Emmet, courtesy NYPL) The new Ken Burns seven-part documentary The Roosevelts: An Intimate History is underway on PBS, a sprawling look at one of New York’s most prominent families. It began last night with the introduction of young Theodore Roosevelt, the sickly boy… Read More
ABOVE: These are the ladies who lunch in Prospect Park 1935 We talk about a lot of white men on the Bowery Boys podcast. When discussing the mainstream history of the city, it’s pretty unavoidable. Men had the money, the power, the influence. Not to mention most of the corruption, the crime, the scandal. So… Read More
ABOVE: These are the ladies who lunch in Prospect Park 1935 We talk about a lot of white men on the Bowery Boys podcast. When discussing the mainstream history of the city, it’s pretty unavoidable. Men had the money, the power, the influence. Not to mention most of the corruption, the crime, the scandal. So… Read More
We really shouldn’t demonize Robert Moses as we do — he did give the city so many marvelous things — but you hear about one of his schemes that almost came to fruition and you just want to cry. This time around, I’m referring to the Brooklyn-Battery Bridge, a potential catastrophic project Moses cooked up… Read More