The Bowery Boys: New York City History
On the 160th anniversary of the killing of Phillip Barton Key, I’m reposting this article from 2014 which originally ran on the 100th anniversary of Daniel Sickle’s death. We don’t have large, parade-like funeral processions marching up the avenues as they once did during the Gilded Age and in the early years of the 20th… Read More
PODCAST A gaslight murder mystery with more twists than an Agatha Christie novel! On January 31, 1857, a prominent dentist named Harvey Burdell was found brutally murdered — strangled, then stabbed 15 times — in his office and home and Bond Street, a once-trendy street between Broadway and the Bowery. The suspects for this horrific crime populated the rooms… Read More
It was during one of those terrible February nights — blizzard winds with the streets packed tight with snow — at a jazz club in the East Village named Slug’s Saloon, packed with people haloed in cigarette smoke, that a woman named Helen Morgan walked up to one of the performers, her common-law husband, a rising… Read More
PODCAST The story of a brutal murder in a New York brothel and the prime suspect’s controversial trial which captivated Americans in the 1830s. In the spring of 1836, a young woman named Helen Jewett was brutally murdered with a hatchet in a townhouse brothel on Thomas Street, just a few blocks northwest from New… Read More
PODCAST The tale behind the brutal murder of renown architect Stanford White on the roof garden of Madison Square Garden, the building that was one of his greatest achievements. On the evening of June 25, 1906, during a performance of Mam’zelle Champagne on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden, the architect Stanford White was brutally… Read More
In 1981, there were more reported robberies in New York City (over 120,000) than in any year in its history. There were over 2,100 murders that year (slightly down from the previous year) including such infamous crimes as the mob-related Shamrock Bar murders in Queens. After years of steadily increasing crime rates, it seemed unlikely in 1981 that… Read More
In 1981, there were more reported robberies in New York City (over 120,000) than in any year in its history. There were over 2,100 murders that year (slightly down from the previous year) including such infamous crimes as the mob-related Shamrock Bar murders in Queens. After years of steadily increasing crime rates, it seemed unlikely in… Read More
Does this woman look like a murderer to you? This is Florence Carman, the wife of Dr. Edwin Carman, one of the most respected men in Freeport, on Long Island’s south shore. Mrs. Carman would be at the center of a murder trial that captivated New Yorkers 100 years ago. Dr. Carman received a visitor… Read More
NOTE: This article has a few plot spoilers but no major twists are revealed or discussed. I’ve tried to write the descriptions within the interactive map as vaguely as possible. The Alienist by Caleb Carr was published 20 years ago this week, an instant best-seller in 1994 that has become a cult classic among history… Read More