The Bowery Boys: New York City History
In the 1980s comic book Watchmen, a redheaded protester haunts a local New York newsstand holding a sign which says THE END IS NIGH. Sometimes I feel the urge to hoist my own version of that sign upon a street corner, moaning as I watch the city I fell in love with change into something… Read More
Last night a haunting and inconceivable ruin of the Lower East Side was mysteriously destroyed in a massive fire. The abandoned shell of the old synagogue Beth Hamedrash Hagodol has been a feature of life of Norfolk Street, stubbornly nestled next to apartment buildings, a vestige of the past clinging to the present without care… Read More
PODCAST When historians look back at the year 2014, what events or cultural changes within New York City will they deem significant? In this special episode, the Bowery Boys look back at some of the biggest historical events of the year including the opening of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the troubling… Read More
A little bit Jetsons, a little bit Gladiator, a little bit P.T Barnum. Photo/Marco Catini PODCAST The ruins of the New York State Pavilion, highlight of the 1964-65 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, have become a kind of unofficial Statue of Liberty of Queens, greeting people as they head to and from LaGuardia… 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
Bialystoker Home for the Aged may not make it into many tourist guides, but this Lower East Side art deco artifact holds an important link to New York’s immigrant history. It was just born on the wrong side of the street, and because of that, it’s an endangered structure. On the south side of East… Read More