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Gilded Age New York Landmarks The Gilded Gentleman

New York Architecture Week: Podcasts About Skyscrapers and Beaux-Arts Style

Presenting new episodes of the Bowery Boys podcast and The Gilded Gentleman podcast, both tied to the story of architecture in New York City. After listening to both of these, you’ll understand the nature of city skyline and unlock the secrets to New York’s most famous landmarks. The American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City… Read More

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Roaring 20s Skyscrapers The Jazz Age

The Chrysler Building and the Great Skyscraper Race

The Chrysler Building remains one of America’s most beautiful skyscrapers and a grand evocation of Jazz Age New York. But this architectural tribute to the automobile is also the greatest reminder of a furious construction surge that transformed the city in the 1920s. After World War I, New York became newly prosperous, one of the… Read More

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Film History Mysterious Stories

Scream Time: Ten Fun Horror Films Set In New York City

Horror movies normally go for nameless suburbs, dark woods or remote Victorian-style haunted houses for their scary settings, so it’s a wonderful treat when New York City and its recognizable landmarks get to host a few cinematic monsters. Ever since King Kong traipsed up the Empire State Building, filmmakers have used the city’s architecture as… Read More

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Podcasts Skyscrapers

The Tallest Building In New York: A Short History

  PODCAST One World Trade Center was declared last year the tallest building in America, but it’s a very different structure from the other skyscrapers who have once held that title. In New York, owning the tallest building has often been like possessing a valuable trophy, a symbol of commercial and social superiority. In a… Read More

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Bowery Boys Bookshelf Skyscrapers

Supreme City: The ascent of Midtown Manhattan in the 1920s

A view of Midtown Manhattan, looking southeast, by the Wurts Brothers (NYPL)Supreme CityHow Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern Americaby Donald L. MillerSimon & Schuster Supreme City, by Donald L. Miller, certainly one of the most entertaining books on New York City history I’ve read in the past couple years, is also one of… Read More

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Uncategorized

The Avengers Disassemble the MetLife Building

Fare thee well, you who we once called the Pan Am. We hardly knew thee. Image from Comic Book Movie Warning: This story contains light spoilers. Recent fantasy films and TV shows have found ways to alter New York City through the creation of alternate universes.  On Fox’s Fringe, a parallel world features a New… Read More

A new ‘Metropolis’ — for our metropolis — at the Ziegfeld

Fritz Lang claims the Manhattan skyline influenced the look of his film ‘Metropolis’ . In fact, the film’s fantasy city resembles futuristic sketches rendered by American magazine illustrators of the late 19th century. The giant screen at the Ziegfeld Theatre goes silent this Friday as a two-week run of Fritz Lang’s fantasy masterpiece ‘Metropolis’ opens,… Read More

The History of (Destroying) New York City

I apologize for the second post in a row about films, but I had to ask the question, when did destroying New York become hot again? This Friday is the opening of I Am Legend, an adaptation of Richard Matheson’s classic thriller about the last non-zombiefied human being alive. In this case, he resides in… Read More

Monster madness at the Chrysler Building

BOWERY BOYS RECOMMEND is an occasional feature whereby we find an unusual movie or TV show that — whether by accident or design — uniquely captures an era of New York City better than any reference or history book. By the early 80s, New York City has already seen its absolute nadir as a fiscally… Read More

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Podcasts

PODCAST: The Chrysler Building

Ah, the classic Chrysler Building! She’s got style, glamour and all that jazz. But what magical surprise did she spring on New York in October of 1929? Join us as we tell the story of New York’s most beautiful art deco treasure. The picture above is of famed photographer Margaret Bourke-White, who had an studio… Read More