A Most Violent Year
1981 was indeed “A Most Violent Year” in New York City
In 1981, there were more reported robberies in New York City (over 120,000) than in any year in its history. There were over 2,100 murders that…
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True CrimeIn 1914, a Jersey City fireworks and munitions plant exploded. Was it sabotage by the Germans?
October 3, 2014
One hundred years ago today, the Detwiller & Street fireworks plant, located in the Greenville section of Jersey City, exploded in a horrible shower of fire and glass. Â Four men were killed instantly and dozens of employees were injured. Â Several surrounding buildings "fell to…
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More Articles
Those Were The Days
Housewives demand open markets! One century ago, New York radically changed how people bought groceries
Setting up a market under the Manhattan Bridge. (Courtesy MCNY. Note: This photo may be of an earlier market here, but this gives you an idea…
Holidays
Happy Rosh Hashanah! Images of Jewish New Years’ past
Look to the stars children! A vintage Rosh Hashanah card manufactured by the Williamsburg Art Company in the 1920s.Rosh Hashanah is here -- the first of…
New Amsterdam
The story of ‘Klein Klassje’, the New World’s first Roosevelt and the surprising origin of Roosevelt Street
New Amsterdam, the home of Claes Maartenszen van Rosenvelt (by Thomas Addis Emmet, courtesy NYPL)The new Ken Burns seven-part documentary The Roosevelts: An Intimate History is…
Bowery Boys Bookshelf
Spectropia, or How to Make Ghosts in Your Home
Above: The cover of the New York edition of Brown's optical illusion bookOne of the hottest books in New York City in the fall of 1864…
Health and Living
The tale of two hospitals: Enjoy the “inexpressibly nauseating” aromas of Brooklyn’s oldest operating theater
Syms operating theater at Roosevelt Hospital in 1900, perhaps one of the cleanest places in Manhattan! (Picture courtesy Museum of the City of New York) It…
Planes Trains and Automobiles
New York City’s “stripped and abandoned” car crisis
The fate of an automobile at Breezy Point, 1973 (Courtesy US National Archives) The abandoned car, that most dramatic symbol of urban blight, is a sight…
Amusements and Thrills
Harry Houdini sitting upon his own grave 1916
Anybody watching the Houdini mini-series on the History Channel? It's, um, interesting, I guess. It breezes over any actual character development -- eschews all forms of…
Wartime New York
The Women’s Peace Parade, a moody anti-war protest in 1914
Give Peace A Chance: Women take to the streets in a stunning parade of mourningBelow are some pictures of what's possibly New York City's first anti-war…
Brooklyn History
Brooklyn Dodgers vs. Cincinnati Reds at Ebbets Field — in the first Major League baseball game ever broadcast on television
Seventy five years ago today, an extraordinary tradition began -- televised Major League baseball!The location was appropriately Ebbets Field, one of baseball's legendary 'field of dreams'. The…
Those Were The Days
Joyful mourning: The Lower East Side honors a forgotten star
An extraordinary photograph of Yiddish theater stars! Front row: Jacob Adler, Sigmund Feinman, Sigmund Mogulesko, Rudolph Marx; Back row: Mr. Krastoshinsky and David Kessler For a passionate…
The Knick
The cocaine fiends of the Gilded Age: New York stages an intervention for its over-the-counter drug problem
We once lived in a world when cocaine was in nearly everything -- pain relievers, muscle relaxers, wine, fountain drinks, cigarettes, hair tonics, feminine products. It…