The Bowery Boys: New York City History
PART ONE of a two-part podcast series A NEW DEAL FOR NEW YORK. In this episode, we look at the impact New Deal funding had in shaping the city’s infrastructure — from bridges and tunnels to neighborhood parks — how New York City uniquely benefited from this government program. EPISODE 337 New York City during… Read More
This is the final part of our three-part NEW YORK IN THE JAZZ AGE podcast series. Check out our two prior episode #233 The Roaring ’20s: The King of the Jazz Age and #234 Queen of the Speakeasies: A Tale of Prohibition New York Something so giddy and wild as New York City in… Read More
We hope you enjoyed our epic three-part tour through the history of the Bronx. This was the first time we’ve ever tackled the story of a borough over the course of a few shows, and we really had to learn to think concisely and in big concepts, lest each episode be a couple hours long.… Read More
PODCAST The history of video games and arcades in New York City. New York has an interesting, complex and downright weird relationship with the video game, from the digital sewers below Manhattan to the neon-lit arcades of Times Square. It’s not all nostalgia and nerviness; video games in the Big Apple have helped create communities… Read More
The approach to the Kosciuszko Bridge, photographed in 1939 by the Wurts Brothers. Photo courtesy the Museum of the City of New York“That sound that crashes in the tyrant’s ear – Kosciuszko!” — Lord Byron Byron was talking about Polish hero Tadeusz KoÅ›ciuszko, who was (most likely) born on this date in 1746. Hopefully, within… Read More
Charles Norris and the toxicology laboratory at Bellevue Hospital [source]The Poisoner’s HandbookPBS: American ExperiencePremieres January 7, 20148pm EST / 7pm CST“In 1922 101 New Yorkers hanged themselves. Four hundred forty-four died in car accidents. Twenty were crushed in elevators. There were 237 fatal shootings and 34 stabbings. And that year, nine hundred and ninety-seven New Yorkers died… Read More
Tom Bosley in a Tony-winning performance as Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, in ‘Fiorello!’, which tied for the Best Musical Tony in 1960 with ‘The Sound of Music’. Only one of these productions is regularly produced by high schools across the country. For those of you not watching the season finale of Mad Men this Sunday, the… Read More
Above: Mayor LaGuardia presenting his weekly WNYC radio show from Gracie Mansion. He would carry on the tradition at his Riverdale home. Fiorello LaGuardia, among the greatest mayors ever in New York history, died on this date, September 20, 1947, at his home in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx. He arrived at the lovely four-story… Read More
PODCAST Come fly with us through a history of New York City’s largest airport, once known as Idlewild (for a former golf course) and called John F. Kennedy International Airport since 1964. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia wanted a new and improved facility to relieve the pressure from that other Queens airport (you know, the one with… Read More
Just a barrel of laughs: Prohibition agents dump illegal containers of wine into the streets. FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER To get you in the mood for the weekend, on occasional Fridays we’ll be featuring an historic New York nightlife haunt, from the dance halls of the old Bowery, to the massive warehouse clubs of the mid-1990s.… Read More
Above: An unemployment line in November 1933. The O’Brien administration offers no relief to the city. KNOW YOUR MAYORS 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.Mayor John Patrick O’BrienIn office: 1933 There’s… Read More
It’s been awhile since America faced the potential of an Olympic Games boycott. The debate about Beijing is still being waged in the press. America withdrew from the Moscow Olympics in 1980. And in 1936, there was an equally emphatic cry to boycott the Olympics in Berlin, Germany — and New York City led the… Read More
Above: Essex Market then…. The Lower East Side this weekend was filled with young fashionable people in their 20s flitting about from restaurant to bar from dusk till the early morning. Of course the neighborhood still has a strong presence from the Puerto Rican and Chinese communities, but they close up well before the nightowls… Read More
(I couldnt find much about the artist above, but the grave marker is certainly one of the most striking.) Here’s a few shots from my stroll through Woodlawn. Its certainly worth a visit if immersion into classic crypts and tombstones are your sort of thing. (Click on the shots to get detail.) This mausoleum happened… Read More