The Bowery Boys: New York City History
OLYMPICS ROUNDUP Starting today Tokyo, the biggest city in the world, will host the Games of the XXXII Olympiad aka the Tokyo Olympics 2020 (in 2021). The Japanese city first hosted the games back in 1964. New York City, the biggest city in the United States, has never hosted the Olympics Games. The city did aim… Read More
For once, the biggest news story in America in 1915 was not about the war waging in Europe. On October 23, 1915, the forces of the women’s suffrage movement mobilized to create the most ambitious gathering to date, a parade of thousands to force the issue into the consciousness of New Yorkers and American at… Read More
Listen to our podcast on the history of the Silent Parade of 1917 here: “To the beat of muffled drums 8,000 negro men, women and children marched down Fifth Avenue yesterday in a parade of ‘silent protest against acts of discrimination and oppression’ inflicted upon them in this country, and in other parts of the… Read More
PODCAST (EPISODE 310): New York’s 369th Infantry Regiment was America’s first black regiment engaged in World War I. The world knew them as the Harlem Hellfighters. On February 17, 1919, the Hellfighters – who had spent much of the year 1918 on the frontline – marched up Fifth Avenue to an unbelievable show of support… Read More
Mayor John Lindsay pulled out all the stops for the first official Earth Day on April 22, 1970, with such a show that one could be mistaken in the belief that the holiday was created here. (It was officially sanctioned in San Francisco the year before.) In honor of the inaugural environmental holiday, Lindsay authorized Fifth Avenue closed… Read More
The men of the 369th who were awarded France’s Criox de Guerre for distinguished acts of heroism:  Pvt. Ed Williams, Herbert Taylor, Pvt. Leon Fraitor, Pvt. Ralph Hawkins. Back Row: Sgt. H. D. Prinas, Sgt. Dan Strorms, Pvt. Joe Williams, Pvt. Alfred Hanley, and Cpl. T. W. Taylor New York’s 369th Infantry Regiment was America’s… Read More
Give Peace A Chance: Women take to the streets in a stunning parade of mourning Below are some pictures of what’s possibly New York City’s first anti-war protest organized by women, on August 29, 1914. War had erupted that summer in Europe, sparked by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June and unfurling… Read More
The exaltation of fat, plucky babies via beauty contests stems from a rather grim origin — American infant mortality rates of the 19th century. During the 1880s, as swelling immigrants and overcrowding in New York created harbors for disease and malnourishment, over one in five infants would die in America, with higher occurrence among poor… Read More
All The Single Ladies: though I believe the women above are actually garbed for a suffrage march in 1912, I just couldn’t resist this photo (Courtesy LOC, click pic for detail) It seems so bizarre now that it feels funny writing it — one hundred years ago, women didn’t have the right to vote in… Read More
A banner celebration: loading up with signs for the 1908 Labor Day Parade in New York Labor Day is one of the few national holidays that New York City can lay claim to as their own. The roots of the U.S. holiday began here, with Union Square as its centerpiece, in 1882. But in fact,… Read More
Below: two pictures of the ticker-tape parade thrown in New York City on August 13, 1969 to celebrate Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins and their successful landing on the moon. Believe it or not, this was the second space-themed ticker-tape parade that year. In January, Frank Borman, James A. Lovell,… Read More
Four hundred years ago, on September 12, Henry Hudson sailed into New York harbor and casually discovered the island of Mannahatta, the future home of New Amsterdam, Wall Street, and the New York Yankees. Two hundred years later, ferry mogul Robert Fulton patented the steamboat, an engineering marvel he perfected, but did not invent. Fulton,… Read More
The Saint Patrick’s Day parade, as it looked 100 years ago, i.e. about the same as it’ll look today… Our podcast on the history of McSorley’s Old Ale House Photo courtesy Corbis
A very different Puerto Rican Day parade, in 1966 Manhattan’s largest parade happens this Sunday, June 8th: the annual National Puerto Rican Day Parade, an event that yearly brings national pride, festivity, chaos and anxiety to most of the city. The first Puerto Rican Day parade occured all the way back in 1958, a replacement… Read More
As I was threading through the city streets yesterday I stumbled upon New York’s annual Muslim Day Parade which marched down Madison Avenue with a few thousand supporters in costumes, floats and some really unusual mascot wear(see above). Depending on what you believe, the date of the parade (two days before 9/11) was either a… Read More