The Bowery Boys: New York City History
A long, long time ago in New York — in the 1730s, back when the city was a holding of the British, with a little over 10,000 inhabitants — a German printer named John Peter Zenger decided to print a four-page newspaper called the New York Weekly Journal. This is pretty remarkable in itself, as… Read More
Here’s a fun article I wrote back in 2012 that may find new meaning for many of baseball fans this week. Again, happy to take any corrections on any particular sports statistics! – Greg When again we see New York Knicks face off against the Boston Celtics this weekend, the beast of an old rivalry… Read More
When Prospect Park was first opened to the public in the late 1860s, the City of Brooklyn was proud to claim a landmark as beautiful and as peaceful as New York’s Central Park. But the superstar landscape designers — Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux — weren’t finished. This park came with two grand pleasure… Read More
On October 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford walked into a press conference at the National Press Club and, using more precise, more eloquent words than legend remembers, but in no uncertain terms, told New York City to drop dead. The following day the New York Daily News — the city’s first tabloid newspaper summarized his… Read More
The first part on our Amsterdam/New Amsterdam series — called Empire of the Seas — was just awarded the 2025 Webby Award for Best History Podcast (Individual Episode) A big thank you to our brilliant producer and editor Kieran Gannon, who pulled this together from about a dozen hours of audio footage. And our fabulous… Read More
Join Tom for an interview with Instagram historian Keith Taillon (@keithyorkcity), whose detailed posts about New York’s history have earned him nearly 60,000 followers and launched a successful tour business. Keith shares the story behind his remarkable pandemic project of walking every single block of Manhattan in 2020, capturing the empty city in photographs that… Read More
It’s a Bowery Boys Podcast/Marvel Comics Podcast crossover for the ages! Greg was a guest on this week’s episode of the Official Marvel Comics Podcast, talking about the New York City origins of Daredevil. The character first appeared in Marvel Comics in April 1964 and has always been rooted in the Manhattan neighborhood of Hell’s… Read More
We invite you to come with us inside one of America’s most interesting art museums – an institution that is BOTH an art gallery and a historic home. This is the Frick Collection, located at 1 East 70th Street, within the former Fifth Avenue mansion of Gilded Age mogul Henry Clay Frick. The museum containing… Read More
PODCAST Hell’s Kitchen, on the far west side of Midtown Manhattan, is a neighborhood of many secrets. The unique history of this working class district veers into many tales of New York’s criminal underworld and violent riots which have shaken the streets for over 150 years. This sprawling tenement area was home to some of… Read More
The history of the United States Postal Service as it plays out in the streets of New York City — from the first post road to the first postage stamps. From the most beautiful post office in the country to the forgotten Gilded Age landmark that was once considered the ugliest post office. The postal service has… Read More
Today marks the 114th anniversary of the Triangle Factory Fire. For information on commemorations and other activities, visit Remember the Triangle Coalition. For stories of the struggles faced by employees of the shirtwaist industry, check out our 2020 show on the Shirtwaist Strike of 1909: And for more information on the Triangle Factory Fire itself,… Read More
A special bonus episode! Two years ago we featured Patrick Bringley on the show, the author of All The Beauty In The World, regarding his experiences as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the life lessons he learned strolling silently past priceless works of art. The book has become a massive… Read More
It’s one of the most foundational questions we could ever ask on this show — how did New York City get its name? You may know that the English conquered the Dutch settlement of New Netherland (and its port town of New Amsterdam) in 1664, but the details of this history-making day have remained hazy… Read More
The New Yorker turns one century old — and hasn’t aged a day! The witty, cosmopolitan magazine published its first issue on February 21, 1925. And even though present-day issues are often quite contemporary in content, the magazine’s tone and style still recall its glamorous Jazz Age origins. The New Yorker traces itself to members… Read More
Greg and Tom have taken off their historian hats for a minute and have suddenly become — movie critics? Close but not quite! This week we’re giving you a ‘sneak preview’ of their Patreon podcast called Side Streets, a conversational chat show about New York City and, well, whatever interests them that week. In honor of the… Read More