The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Hoe Avenue in the Bronx has nothing to do with farming, although it once indeed ran through a grand 19th century farm estate. The avenue’s namesake, Richard March Hoe, born 200 years ago today, brought about a revolution in the world of printing. Without his innovations, the phrase ‘hot off the press’ might never have… Read More
The grueling life of a Brooklyn newsboy, taken by Lewis Hine, 1910 (Library of Congress) The new Disney-produced Broadway musical ‘Newsies‘ puts melody to the events surrounding the Newsboys Strike of 1899. For one week that summer, young newspaper sellers fought back against their employers’ unfair pricing schemes, turning their former street corners into places… Read More
The gritty image of the scrappy 19th century newsboy, the can-do kid slinging newspapers from the street corner, full of vinegar and character, was an encouraging invention of the newspapers themselves. Children were cheap labor, willing to sling stacks of freshly printed papers to corners across the city. Many kids preferred the profession to that… Read More