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Podcasts Pop Culture

Super City: The Secret Origin of Comic Books

PODCAST  A history of the comic book industry in New York City, how the energy and diversity of the city influenced the burgeoning medium in the 1930s and 40s and how New York’s history reflects out from the origins of its most popular characters. In the 1890s a newspaper rivalry between William Randolph Hearst and… Read More

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Neighborhoods Writers and Artists

Greenwich Village, through the eyes of Jean Shepherd

Jean Shepherd was born 100 years ago today in Chicago, so I’m bumping up this older post in tribute to this wonderful New Yorker.  Jean Shepherd, probably best known today as the voice of ‘A Christmas Story‘, was a regular presence on New York radio in the 1950s and 60s thanks to his memorable program… Read More

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Podcasts

Kings of New York Pizza: Lombardi, Totonno, Patsy, Ray?

Gennaro Lombardi and (I believe) Antonio Totonno Pero with a dog who must have been fed very well. You’ll notice that Lombardi’s is still a grocery store in this picture. Some bananas with your pizza? Although Gennaro is credited with opening New York’s first pizzeria, it may have been Antonio who came up with the… Read More

PODCAST: Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral

We don’t have a new podcast this week, so I thought I’d take an old one and pull a George Lucas on it, re-cutting it, improving the sound quality and taking out some of the dumb sound effects. I guess you’d say — it’s the Bowery Boys remastered! Here’s our ninth episode on old St… Read More

Jane, stop this crazy thing!

(Jacobs, as seen in Canada) We finally made it over to the Municipal Art Society’s exhibit on the extraordinary Jane Jacobs, community leader and civil planner whose theories on a successful urban landscape are currently fueling community activism today. Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York is part-bio on Jacobs, part inspection of her… Read More