The Boss Tweed connection to St. Sava, the cathedral destroyed by fire
New York City lost a very interesting landmark this past weekend. Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava, at West 25th
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Gilded Age New York
The Spark: Nikola Tesla in New York
PODCAST The strange and wonderful life of Nikola Tesla in New York City. The Serbian immigrant Nikola Tesla was among the
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Chelsea’s former opera house and the murder of a New York robber baron
Our last podcast detailed the scandalous murder of Stanford White in 1906, on the rooftop of the very building be
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The Murder of Stanford White
PODCAST The tale behind the brutal murder of renown architect Stanford White on the roof garden of Madison Square Garden, the building that
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Odds and Ends: Washington Irving, Modern Ruin, Tourist Advice, The Slide
Irving Place is the remarkably pretty street that travels from the south side of Gramercy Park to the less charming
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Chelsea and the Chocolate Factory (or rather, Hershey and his Sixth Avenue chewing gum plant)
Hershey’s employees cut and pack chewing gum at Sixth Avenue and 21st Street. For five glorious years in the early
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Consolidation! The tale of five boroughs and one big city
PODCAST Our 150th episode! Here’s the story of how two very big cities and a whole bunch of small towns and
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“The First Dandelion” and Walt Whitman’s very bad timing
In 1888, the New York Herald ran this poem by the great Walt Whitman:
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Frozen in time: The Blizzard of 1888 knocks New York City off its feet, creating the deadliest commute in history
PODCAST This year is the 125th anniversary of one of the worst storms to ever wreak havoc upon New York
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Before Al Roker and Sam Champion, there was Farmer Dunn, New York’s weather guru of the late 19th century
How did New Yorkers know to panic over the weather in the 19th century? How could they know to run
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The Fifth Avenue Hotel: Opulence atop a potter’s field, and accommodations for heated Republican power brokering
By the date of this photo (1890), the Fifth Avenue Hotel, facing Madison Square Park, had already seen its share
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Notes from the podcast (#132): Electric New York
Manhattan grid illuminated, taken from the Metropolitan Life Tower in Madison Square, looking downtown. I’m not sure when this photo
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Electric New York: From gaslight to Edison’s Pearl Street Station, illuminating the shadows, re-visualizing the night
The soft luminescence of electric light brings a mysterious glow to City Hall, the New York World Building and the
Read moreAll of the Lights: An invention of Edison’s invention
A new podcast will be ready for download later this evening! The film ‘Edison, The Man‘ was nominated for Best Original Screenplay,
Read moreMark Twain was here: Mapping a trail of his misadventures
Last year at this time, I did a podcast on Mark Twain in New York and featured this map of
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