The Bowery Boys: New York City History
The Paris Theater, as glamorous and as eccentric as any film it’s ever played, has the benefit of having the Plaza Hotel and Central Park to ensure it never goes out of style. But the history of this romantic and occasionally radical movie house, the longest running single-screen movie theater in New York, is as… Read More
PODCAST REWIND The Plaza Hotel has become one of the most recognizable landmarks in New York City, a romantic throwback to the last days of the Gilded Age. It epitomized the changes that were arriving on Fifth Avenue, steering away from the private mansions of the moneyed class and towards a certain kind of communal living… Read More
BOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH Each month I’ll pick a book — either brand new or old, fiction or non-fiction — that offers an intriguing take on New York City history, something that uses history in a way that’s uniquely unconventional or exposes a previously unseen corner of our city’s complicated past. Then over the… Read More
BOWERY BOYS BOOK OF THE MONTH The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald I re-read The Great Gatsby a few weeks ago on purpose, not because I had a school assignment. Unlike my first experience with Gatsby at age 14, I actually read it, without the signposts of a Cliff’s Notes to tell me what… Read More
The dramatic Woolworth mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery With completion of the Woolworth Building in 1913, the leader of the five-and-dime retail craze Frank W. Woolworth had his grand declaration of success in New York, widely feted and proclaimed. His hundreds of stores would go on to define the shopping experience around the world over the… Read More
The National Book Award for Non-Fiction was awarded last night to a book loaded with gritty New York History — ‘Just Kids’, the lovely memoir by Patti Smith about her friendship with Robert Maplethorpe. If you’re a fanatic of Manhattan in the ’70s, it’s simply a must-read, from meandering along St. Mark’s Place to hanging… Read More
Caruso, wearing the big white turban, during the 1916-17 performance at the Met The Plaza Hotel might have been built on the fortunes of a barbed-wire magnate, but its continued existence throughout the years partially stems from its popularity amongst the bold-print set. Celebrities, however, come with a drawback. Along with their famous name and… Read More
It got off to a rocky start, but the Plaza Hotel has become one of the most recognizable landmarks in New York City. We take a look at its kooky history, from its days as an upper class ‘transient hotel’ to a party place for celebrities. Starring: Henry Hardenberg, Eloise, Truman Capote and of course… Read More
(picture courtesy the NY Post) Scandalous, I know, but I was out of town on Monday and missed the 100th anniversary party for The Plaza Hotel, the famous French Renaissance playground-lodge for the rich, very rich and famous. It seems wrong not to have had at least one Bowery Boy there. Oh well. The Plaza… Read More