The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Baseball, as American as apple pie, really is “the New York game.” While its precursors come from many places – from Jamestown to Prague – the rules of American baseball and the modern ways of enjoying it were born from the urban experience and, in particular, the 19th-century New York region. The sport (in the… Read More
It’s great fun to watch an outdoor movie in one of New York City’s many parks; it’s a tradition that been in the city for well over one hundred years.  But the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment wants to go bigger than that by having the entire city watch the same movie. The winning film… Read More
PODCAST The history of the Gowanus Canal, at the heart of a trendy Brooklyn neighborhood today, once used to be quite beautiful and non-toxic. Brooklyn’s Gowanus — both the creek and the canal — is one of the most mysterious and historically important waterways in New York City. By coincidence, it also happens to be… Read More
Brooklyn gentrification has reached a curious impasse — the Gowanus Canal. The neighborhood surrounding it thrives with new housing developments, trendy restaurants and bars, music venues, shuffleboard clubs and even a Whole Foods. Curbed just named it neighborhood of the year. It’s now a destination for foodies. Pity about that fetid and uniquely aromatic body of… Read More
Picture courtesy Steve Welsh/Flickr One of the most striking sights in Brooklyn is the old Kentile Floors sign in Gowanus, a pleasant sight to those who pass it daily and one of the last vestiges of non-franchise billboard art in the city. The current owners of the location are preparing to tear it down, but… Read More
The piping hot uniforms of the Brooklyn Tip-Tops, worn by baby-faced manager Lee Magee For a brief shining moment between 1914 and 1915, Brooklyn had two major league baseball teams — the legendary Brooklyn Dodgers and the not-so-legendary Brooklyn Tip-Tops. Baseball has long been a sport of two parallel sports leagues — the National League… Read More
We’d like to offer our condolences to the friends and family of Robert Guskind, the creator and wit behind Gowanus Lounge, one of the very best blogs about Brooklyn. When I began this site over 20 months ago, Guskind’s was one of the first that I linked to and read on a regular basis, admiring… Read More