History, stories, and deep dives from the Bowery Boys.
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Bowery Boys BookshelfJuly 22, 2020
Without moving images or sound recordings to guide us, it can be hard to imagine the lives and careers of famous theater actors from the 19th century. And yet the American theater produced a list of wildly famous performers whose names were repeated in…
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The notion of organized 'ocean bathing' -- actually going into the water for health, relaxation and enjoyment -- was really a 19th century invention, first popularized…
The devastating results of the monstrous Great Fire of 1835 helped change the course of Manhattan -- hastening the residential migration up the island, rewriting the…
By the 1930s, New York City's thriving garment industry had moved from the Lower East Side to Midtown Manhattan*, housed within nondescript buildings with hundreds of…
While traipsing through Red Hook a couple months ago, I happened upon a family of raccoons camped out underneath a pick-up truck. New York City is…
One hundred and fifty years ago this month, Henrietta Wood sued the man who kidnapped her and sold her back into slavery. In his lifetime, that…
One hundred and fifty-five years ago (on July 13, 1865), New York City lost one of its most famous, most imaginative and most politically incorrect attractions.…
Ask any New Yorker at random where the site of Fort Washington once stood, and chances are your query will be met with a furrowed brow,…
There is no place in New York City quite like the converted factory building at 538 Johnson Avenue in Bushwick*, Brooklyn. At the same time, it evokes in…
Nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale was born 200 years ago today in Florence, Italy. And it got me thinking about my favorite Nightingale-related landmark in New York.…
Ever wonder what the very first movie ever shot in Manhattan was? It also happens to be the first American film ever shown to a paying…
On April 15, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln died from his injuries by the assassin John Wilkes Booth who shot the president the previous evening at Ford's…
In the picture above: People in Sunday finery stroll past the New York Public Library building. The library had not even been open two years by…
