The Broadway Musical is one of New York City’s greatest inventions, over 150 years in the making! It’s one of the truly American art forms, fueling one of the city’s most vibrant entertainment businesses and defining its most popular tourist attraction — Times Square.
But why Broadway, exactly? Why not the Bowery or Fifth Avenue? And how did our fair city go from simple vaudeville and minstrel shows to Shuffle Along, Irene and Show Boat, surely the most influential musical of the Jazz Age?
This podcast is an epic, a wild musical adventure in itself, full of musical interludes, zipping through the evolution of musical entertainment in New York City, as it races up the ‘main seam’ of Manhattan — the avenue of Broadway.
We are proud to present a tour up New York City’s most famous street, past some of the greatest theaters and shows that have ever won acclaim here, from the wacky (and highly copied) imports of Gilbert & Sullivan to the dancing girls and singing sensations of the Ziegfeld revue tradition.
CO-STARRING: Well, some of the biggest names in songwriting, composing and singing. And even a dog who talks in German! At right: Billie Burke from a latter-year Follies. (NYPL)
This show, originally recorded in 2013, has been re-edited, remastered and even includes extra material which was cut from the original episode.
LISTEN NOW: THE BIRTH OF THE BROADWAY MUSICAL
A few images from Greg’s trip to the Museum of Broadway at 145 West 45th Street.
The Black CrookZiegfeld FolliesShowboatRentThe Phantom of the Opera
The original grid plan from 1811. As you can see, Broadway was not meant to extend further than the Parade Ground, the largest planned plaza from the Commissioner’s Plan. Years later, the Parade Ground was reduced (becoming Madison Square) and Broadway was allowed to break the grid, creating plazas conducive for transportation and public gathering. (NYPL)
New York Public Library
One of dozens of knock-off productions of HMS Pinafore, this one featuring children:
The facade of the Fifth Avenue Theater, once located at 1185 Broadway. Why was it called the Fifth Avenue Theater then? Possibly to just make the society ladies feel at home here! This was home to three Gilbert & Sullivan original productions, including the premiere of The Pirates of Penzance.
The Florodora girls, from the hugely successful 1900 musical comedy which debuted at the Casino Theater. (NYPL)
The Casino Theatre at West 39th Street and Broadway.
One of the more fantastic creatures from Victor Herbert’s Babes In Toyland, which made its debut in Columbus Circle’s Majectic Theater. You can read my article here on the musical which inspired Herbert’s show, the musical version of The Wizard of Oz. (NYPL)
New York Public Library
George M Cohan singing “Over There”
Video of a Ziegfeld Follies from 1929, a bit past their heyday, actually. They would only last until 1931:
Sheet music from 1921 of one of the most famous songs from Shuffle Along (NYPL):
Dancing girls during the Actors Strike of 1919, which galvanized the industry and gave regular New Yorkers a window into the tough conditions faced by many background performers. (NYPL)
So the number ‘After The Ball’ — a huge hit song that made its stage debut in A Trip To Chinatown — made a return appearance to Broadway in 1927’s Show Boat!
Musical cues from this week’s show: Give My Regards To Broadway and After the Ball performed by Billy Murray A version of Make Believe recorded by Bing Crosby, and Ol Man River, performed by Paul Robeson, from a 1932 cast recording, featuring Victor Young and His Orchestra Love Will Find A Way, from a 1921 recording by Eubie Blake Selection from HMS Pinafore, from a 1914 recording by the Victory Light Opera Chorus
And finally, a clip from the film version of ‘Show Boat’, featuring an iconic performance by Paul Robeson.
Was there an estate in New York ever as beautiful as Morrisania, nearly 2,000 acres that hugged the Harlem River until it opened out into the turbulent East River as it coursed past small islands and flowed into the Long Island Sound?
A property that varied from western hills looking over the river to the rolling spread of Manhattan below, to eastern marshes and flatlands suitable for farming.
Today’s Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania is only a small portion of the original property owned by the Morris family since the 1670s, during the dawning years of British dominance in the New York region.
Vestiges of the old estate still existed well into the 20th century, including their old well (pictured below in 1910)
The original parcel, purchased by Welsh captain Richard Morris, was only 500 acres, a part of original land settled by Bronx namesake Jonas Bronck.
When Richard died, brother Lewis Morris (for reasons that will soon be evident, let’s call him Lewis I) moved from the West Indies to claim the property. He would be one in a succession of Lewis Morrises to live here and place an imprint on what would some day contain much of the South Bronx.
The Morris family was feisty, business savvy, well connected, extremely aristocratic and entirely unoriginal with names. Another Lewis Morris (Richard’s son, or Lewis II) became the governor, at separate times, of both New York and New Jersey. Yet another Lewis (Lewis III) became a powerful New York justice. His son Lewis Morris (Lewis IV) was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Below: Morris farm houses, still standing in 1920
If you haven’t gleaned it already, the clan carried themselves like some kind of royal family. They were, artificially at least, as were many families in the New World who quickly made fortunes here and staked claims in manners similar to what their forebears were accustomed to in Europe. Over the decades, the Lewises would blend by marriage into other elite, bold-faced families to form a tangled ball of interlinked faux American royalty.
Morrisania for most of the 18th century resembled a miniature British kingdom, with a spread of small farms, dairies and cattle pens operated by those leasing from the Morris family, a proper workaday serfdom common for the era. However, during the early decades, the land was even worked with slave labor, although the practice was phased out in later generations.
Below: The Lewis G Morris house which stood at Montgomery Avenue and 176th Street at late as 1905 (the date of this image)
Museum of City of New York
When Lewis 3passed in 1762, this massive property was split in two. West of the small babbling Mill Brook (honored today with a playground and a housing development) belonged to Lewis IV and his brothers, but the more bucolic eastern side fell to Lewis III’s second wife Sarah and eventually her only son. That’s right, Gouverneur Morris (pictured below).
Gouverneur fled his home during the Revolutionary War, but his mother Sarah stayed behind. During this time, the rich farmland was vandalized and the family’s voluminous library, one of the largest collections in North America at the time, was ransacked.
Gouverneur was quite busy in the late 18th century doing things like penning the Constitution and being minister to France in the midst of their bloody revolution. But wherever he traveled, he always felt a closeness to Morrisania.
After the war, while Gouverneur was in France, Lewis Morris (the fourth one, Gouverneur’s half brother) offered up the family estate of Morrisania be used as the site for the new American capital. One can just imagine the history of New York had Congress taken him up on that offer!
The former mansion of Gouverneur Morris which sat near the waterfront in the Bronx until the 1900s.
Museum of the City of New York
In 1798, when Gouverneur returned from France and claimed the property for himself, he built a new home here (the one pictured above) and filled it with all his gathered French finery. Perhaps no household was more beautiful — or as pretentious — as Morris’ new manor.
Gouverneur, of course, facilitated the growth of New York with his roles in the development of both the Commissioners Plan of 1811 and the Erie Canal. His old farms, however, were technically part of Westchester Country. In the 1840s, his son Gouverneur Morris Jr. emulated New York’s former estate owners and began to develop his property for commercial and residential use.
Below: The village of Morrisania, an original ‘commuter’s town’ for those who worked in the city of New York down south.
MCNY
Chief among these decisions was becoming vice president of the New York and Harlem Railroad (eventually to be owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt) and allowing the railroad to cut through the old property. Townships formed around the railroad station, include one small village named for the old manor, Morrisania. That village is the root of today’s neighborhood of the same name.
Gouverneur Junior was cut from the visionary mold that would define many in the 19th century. One pet project was the development of a port village along the old family property on the eastern shoreline, today’s Port Morris area.
Port Morris, pictured below in 1920, would become a chief location for manufacturing in the borough.
Given that Gouverneur Senior was partially responsible for Manhattan’s grid, it’s no surprise that a different grid patterns were adhered to the old Morris properties over the years. In emulating Manhattan’s pattern, all traces of the area’s early farm existence was eradicated.
The following years would hold many strange detours in the history of the South Bronx: opulent boulevards, the New York Yankees, 1970s urban decay. But the Morrises live on, if in name only.
However one lasting physical vestige to the Morris family still remains — St. Ann’s Church (pictured below) in the neighborhood of Morrisania, built in 1840 and the location of burials for members of the Morris family, including Gouverneur Morris and Lewis Morris (the fourth).
Portions of this article were taken from an earlier one that I wrote for this blog back in 2010.
In the past, New Yorkers have celebrated election days with some behaviors and traditions that are no longer with us:
1) Lights and drama at the Flatiron Building I’m unsure of the date of this postcard, however it’s from a time when the Flatiron was one of the city’s tallest buildings. Today we have the Empire State Building to help us celebrate in lights — but the apparent tradition of a swirling spotlight has alas not been replicated.
2) Torchlight Parades This image, of one such procession, gathered supporters of George McClellen who tried to wrest the presidency from Abraham Lincoln in 1864. I’ll bet the swillholes of the Bowery were hoppin’ that night.
3) Bonfire celebrations on Canal Street In this illustration from Frank Leslie’s magazine, election victory in the 1870s often spawned open fires in the street. Today, candidates are more likely to have a few drinks at the W Hotel than light open blazes on a busy thoroughfare. (Pic courtesy NYPL)
4) Wholesale violence Repeat voting, destruction to polling places and destruction of unfavorable ballots were common practices during more contested elections of the 19th century. The Bowery Boys and other gangs were recruited to create disruption for political parties and create a hostile environment for potential voters. The image below, from the Illustrated London news, lays out the scene during the Lincoln/McClellan faceoff in 1864.
Today, the most hostility you might face are from children fighting past voters to get to their classrooms. (Pic courtesy NYPL)
5) Aligning mayoral candidates with World War I emperors This cartoon from the New York Times implies that Kaiser Wilhelm II seemingly supports Democrat John F. Hylan and the Socialist candidate Morris Hillquist. Shudder if that were the case; Hylan ended up winning that election and held the job of mayor for eight years.
Of course, over-dramatic political cartoons and tying leaders to totalitarian regimes is still rather run of the mill in today’s politics. (Pic courtesy Wikimedia)
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 subtlety — and lingers upon vast areas of speculation in his biography. This would be totally unacceptable if it were anybody else but Harry Houdini, who routinely blended fact and fiction in his personal presentation. The influences of Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige are evident.
Death hung over Houdini in his performances so it’s no surprise that he had a personal hand in the creation of his final artifice. He’s pictured above in 1916 sitting on his own exedra. The stonework would be moved to Machpelah Cemetery to a plot reserved for his whole family, including his brother and fellow magician Theodore Hardeen.
He was at last interred here at Machpelah on November 4, 1926. Busts have appeared and re-appeared throughout the years — stolen or knocked off. The first one debuted on Halloween in 1927, unveiled by members of the Society of American Magicians, an organization which started in a magic store in Greenwich Village. The current one (see below) was placed there by curators at Pennsylvania’s Houdini Museum.
PODCAST: How the Tweed Courthouse became a symbol for everything rotten about 19th century American politics.
The roots of modern American corruption traces themselves back to a handsome — but not necessarily revolutionary — historic structure sitting behind New York City Hall.
The Tweed Courthouse is more than a mere landmark. Once called the New York County Courthouse, the Courthouse is better known for many traits that the concepts of law and order normally detest — greed, bribery, kickbacks and graft.
But Tammany Hall, the oft-maligned Democratic political machine, served a unique purpose in New York City in the 1850s and 60s, tending to the needs of newly arrived Irish immigrants who were being ignored by inadequate city services. But they required certain favors like the support of political candidates.
And that is how William ‘Boss’ Tweed rose through the ranks of city politics to become the most powerful man in New York City. And it was Tweed, through various government organizations and his trusty Tweed Ring, who transformed this new courthouse project into a cash cow for the greediest of the Gilded Age.
How did the graft function during the construction of the Tweed Courthouse? What led to Tweed’s downfall? And how did this literal temple to corruption become a beloved landmark in the 1980s?
We’d like to thank Mary Beth Betts of the NYC Public Design Commission for giving us a tour of the Tweed Courthouse. Tours are not currently available of the courthouse, but Betts and her docents lead tours of New York City Hall next door. Visit their website to book a free tour.
Some images from our visit —
Leopold Eidlitz brought a million arches into the courthouse, his medieval inspirations playing an interesting contrast to the Romanesque Revival of architect John Kellum.Roy Lichtenstein’s Element E now dominates the interior of the courthouse. Students, teachers and administrators work in the spaces surrounding the sculpture.The infamous rotunda roof which remained incomplete even when courts began convening in the courthouse in the 1870s. The sumptuous staircases are all made of cast iron.The courthouse has many curious staircases, leading to smaller spaces on the upper floors. You can actually view the two competing architectural styles on the exterior facades facing into City Hall Park. (Hint: Arches vs. no arches)
The Tweed Courthouse under construction, date unknown Image taken from page 269 of ‘King’s Handbook of New York City. An outline history and description of the American metropolis. With … illustrations, etc. (Second edition.)’ Courtesy the British LibraryA view of the Tweed Courthouse as seen from the City Hall elevated train station, 1915. The brownstone structure to the right of the courthouse is no longer there. In 1915 the city planned to actually get rid of the Tweed Courthouse. This rendering creates a large park space surrounding City Hall.
H.M. Pettit. Department of Bridges/Plant & Structures collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
The courthouse in 1979 — in shoddy condition and without its famous staircase! Photo by Walter Snalling, Jr., Library of Congress“Can the law reach him?–The dwarf and the giant thief.” Thomas Nast/New York Public Library Digital CollectionAgroup of vultures waiting for the storm to “blow over.”–“Let us prey.” Thomas Nast/New York Public Library Digital CollectionSomething that did blow over–November 7, 1871. Thomas Nast/New York Public Library Digital Collection
FURTHER READING:
Boss Tweed’s New York by Seymour J. Mandelbaum
Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York by Kenneth D. Ackerman
Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics by Terry Golway
The Tweed Ring by Alexander B. Callow Jr.
The Tiger: The Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall by Oliver E. Allen
FURTHER LISTENING:
Our original Boss Tweed show from 2009 — with a big news reference at the very beginning that echoes the story we’re about to tell
The massive waves of Irish immigrants who arrived in this country starting in the 1830s and 40s changed New York City forever. Here’s their story:
Fernando Wood was another major power broker in New York City politics in the 1860s.
Our first ghost stories show was released on October 11, 2007, featuring New York City’s famous haunted tales and urban legends (with historical context). Since that time we have released nineteen Halloween-related shows as well as a recording of our Joe’s Pub live show.
We’re celebrating our upcoming 20th show with a look back at some of our favorite haunted landmarks in this week’s new release:
The 20th Bowery Boys Halloween podcast arrives next Friday — so take a spooky trip down memory lane with a re-listen to all our past Halloween shows.
Listening tip: The episodes do get better with each passing year so start with the newest one and work your way back to 2007.
Creep yourself out with these spooky legends of New York City. From the haunted woods of Van Cortlandt Park to spirits haunting Captain Kidd’s treasure on Liberty Island. Psychics at Carnegie Hall, unsettling spirits in Cobble Hill, undead party animals at Grand Central!
Greg and Tom take a road trip to Long Island to explore the region’s most famous haunted tales from legend and folklore, ‘real’ reported stories of otherworldly encounters that have shaped this historic area of New York state.
Each of New York City’s five boroughs bring their own unique histories and personalities, so we thought we’d give each one the spotlight – or rather the spooklight – to highlight the city’s haunted landscape, from rural escapes to densely populated urban centers.
From a Staten Island cemetery to the Bronx Zoo. From a luxury apartment in Flatbush to the Old Flushing Meeting House in Queens. And what’s the strange light, seen from the Manhattan waterfront, floating in the East River?
The old Furniss mansion, with its dark secrets literally behind a locked door.
Spooky stories from the gaslight era of New York City, the illuminating glow of the 19th century revealing the spirits of another world. Featuring various ghost stories associated with Fordham University, a tale of literary ghosts in Astor Place, a haunted townhouse north of Washington Square Park and a haunted tenement on the East River waterfront.
Featuring a ghost-filled mansion in Nyack, New York that holds a unique place among all American supernatural sites; the unsettling tale behind those mysterious ruins known as Bannerman Castle; a ghastly apparition in the Colonial-era Catskills leads to a disturbing life sentence and the secrets of Kingston’s Old Dutch Church with an entity which may trapped beneath its holy steeple.
Cheryl Crow
2021 Gotham’s Greatest Ghosts
For this 15th annual Bowery Boys Halloween ghost story podcast, Greg and Tom taking a look back at their favorites (and yours), the tales which have stayed with us — which have possessed us — like a persistent phantom who refuses to leave.
We present classic tales of the strange and supernatural written by the most famous horror writers in New York City history.
— A celebration of the 200th anniversary of Washington Irving‘s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” featuring the Headless Horseman and the backstory of this classic story’s creation;
— The unsettling nights of H.P. Lovecraft in Brooklyn where his xenophobia, racism and anxiety manifest into a pair of dark, claustrophobic tales, plucked from the waterfront and the West Village;
— A bizarre and allegedly true story (or is it an urban legend?) of an unconventional jewel thief named Fanchon Moncare, made famous by that 20th century purveyor of all things unbelievable — Robert Ripley;
— And a look at the life of Patricia Highsmith — celebrating the 100th anniversary of her birth a bit early — whose nasty little tales of mad murderers have inspired Hollywood and unsettled a new generation of suspense lovers.
A very special Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast presentation, recorded live on Halloween Night 2019 at Joe’s Pub. Prepare to hear new versions of your favorite ghost stories including:
— A Brooklyn house haunting that may be related to the spirits from a colonial-era prison ship;
— A famous murder trial from the year 1800 and a mysterious well which still stands in the neighborhood of SoHo;
— The ghosts (or other supernatural entities) which guard the treasure of the famous Captain Kidd; and
— The mournful secrets of a famed Broadway theater and the inner demons of a Hollywood icon.
With an ALL NEW GHOST STORY — WHO HAUNTS THE FORMER ASTOR LIBRARY?
Near Madison Square Park, an eccentric writer posts a classified ad, hoping to rent out an attic room to a prospective subletter. Unfortunately the room already an occupant — a greenish ghost with a troubling Civil War history.
— The Conference House in Staten Island played an interesting role in the Revolutionary War, and some residents from that period may still wander its ancient hallways.
— On the Upper East Side, a lavish penthouse ballroom may be permanently vexed with the ghost of a testy spirit named Mrs. Spencer. Can a legendary funny lady and a Vodou priestess manage to keep the ghoul under control?
And for the first time in Bowery Boys ghost-stories history, Greg and Tom record a segment of the show — from within an actual haunted house. Merchant’s House docent Carl Raymond joins them for a close look at the life of Gertrude Tredwell and the rooms where she lived and died — and may, to this very day, haunt.
We cautiously approach the dark secrets of Greenwich Village, best known for bohemians, shady and winding streets and a deeply unexpected history. You will never look at its parks and townhouses again after this show!
Featuring: The hidden history of Washington Square Park; the Brittany Residence Hall for New York University students; James Walker Park with its secrets underfoot; and an old Bank Street townhouse with a surprise in its ceiling.
Highlighting haunted tales from the period just after the Civil War when New York City became one of the richest cities in the world — rich in wealth and in ghosts!
— In the Bronx once stood a haunted house in the area of Hunts Point, a mansion of malevolent and disturbing mysteries.
— Then we turn to Manhattan to a rambunctious poltergeist on fashionable East 27th Street.
— Over in Queens, a lonely farmhouse in the area of today’s Calvary Cemetery is witness to not one, but two unsettling and confounding deaths.
— And finally, in Staten Island, we take a visit to the glorious Vanderbilt Mausoleum, a historic landmark and a location with a few strange secrets of its own.
Ghost stories associated with the city’s most popular and recognizable places from baby-faced spooks at the Dakota Apartments to spirited revelers at Grand Central Terminal.
What’s still lurking in the hallways of the Chelsea Hotel? And whatever you do tonight, do not linger too long on the Brooklyn Bridge at night! A figure from the bridge’s past may still be looking for his head.
Four tales of spirits haunting Brooklyn back in the 19th century when it was still an independent city. Featuring an horrific gangly ghost on the railroad tracks, a historic Clinton Hill home with an invisible hand that would not stop knocking, a Coney Island hotel in 1894 with a secret in room 30, and the wacky wraiths of Bushwick’s Evergreens Cemetery.
The scary revelations of a New York medium, married Midtown ghosts who fight beyond the grave, a horrific haunting at a 14th Street boardinghouse, and the creepy tale of New York’s Hart Island.
The secrets of the restless spinster of the Merchants House, the jovial fright of the Gay Street Phantom, the legend of the devil at Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and the spirit of a dead folk singer.
The drunken spirits of the Algonquin, the mysteries of a hidden well in SoHo, the fires of the Witch of Staten Island, and ‘the most haunted brownstone in New York’.
The ghosts of a tragicZiegfeld girl, a scandalous doyenne of old New York, a bossy theater impresario and the ghoulish bell-ringer of St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery.
Here are the locations mentioned in all of our New York City ghost podcasts:
Most of the public domain spooky images in this post come from the Internet Book Archive.
Mott Street all fancied up for a religious festival in 1908. It's May 16, so perhaps Ascension Day? (Cleaned up picture courtesy Shorpy)
Little Italy is the pocket-neighborhood reminder of the great wave of Italian immigration which came through New York City starting in the late 1870s.
This was the home of a densely packed, lively neighborhood of pushcarts, cheese shops, barber shops and organ grinders, populated by thousands of new immigrants in dilapidated old tenements.
The area has some of New York’s oldest still-operating shops, from Ferrara Bakery to Di Palo’s. But there’s also a dark side to this neighborhood, memories of extortion plots by the Black Hand and a perpetual presence of organized crime.
The present-day Little Italy is completely charming but constantly shrinking. How long can the neighborhood survive in the face of a growing Chinatown and the threats of gentrification?
PLUS: Our love/hate relationship with Nolita — REVEALED!
LISTEN TODAY
A version of this show originally ran in 2015. This newly remastered and reedited version by Kieran Gannon.
An Italian boy on his way to school in New York, taken between 1910 and 1915.
A street musician and a cop on Mulberry Street, 1897. Notice the banks in the background. Â Mulberry Street was known as ‘the Italian Wall Street’ for all the banks which assisted in Italians saving and sending home their earnings. Â (Courtesy Museum of City of New York)
Children dancing on Mulberry Street as a man plays a barrel organ. (No monkey in sight!) 1897 (Courtesy Museum of the City of New York)
Playing on the street in Mulberry Bend, 1897. This was the year Mulberry Bend Park opened (see below) so hopefully they got out of that filthy street! (Museum of City of New York)
Mulberry Bend Park in 1900, replacing a set of the worst tenements in this area of Five Points
Elizabeth Street near Houston Street 1912 (Cleaned up image courtesy Shorpy)
Mott Street all fancied up for a religious festival in 1908. It’s May 16, so perhaps Ascension Day? (Cleaned up picture courtesy Shorpy)
An Italian bank at Lafayette and Spring Streets, damaged in a Black Hand dynamite attack, 1915 Nov. 6 (Courtesy Library of Congress)
Another view of the damaged bank (Courtesy Library of Congress)
A sample extortion letter from the Black Hand. ““You dog, spy, informer. If you do not do what we say, we have a shot gun prepared for you. What a fine feast for the rats your fat carcass will make. Do what we say, it will be better for your skin.†(Courtesy the National Law Enforcement Museum)
149 Mulberry Street, near Grand Street. 1932. Banco Stabile which is off-picture to the right is the home of the Italian American Museum today. (Courtesy Museum of the City of New York)
San Gennaro Festival, 1948, taken by Sid Grossman
Bella Napoli (taken from a great Facebook feed called ‘Mulberry Street 1900s)
Umberto’s Clam House, site of the infamous mob hit on gangster Joe Gallo in 1972 (Courtesy New York Daily News)
Oddly enough, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan appeared at the San Gennaro Festival in 1980. (New York Daily News)
How do vibrant New York City neighborhoods react to major changes to city life while retaining their historic character? For the next three weeks, we will present three neighborhood-history shows from the Bowery Boys podcast in a new light, exploring how these historic areas survive sudden changes in economic growth, housing needs and tourism.
PODCAST The history of SoHo, New York’s 19th century warehouse district turned shopping mecca
Picture the neighborhood of SoHo (that’s right, South of Houston) in your head today, and you might get a headache.
Crowded sidewalks on the weekend, filled with tourists, shoppers and vendors, could almost distract you from SoHo’s unique appeal as a place of extraordinary architecture and history.
In the mid 19th century this area, centered along Broadway, became the heart of retail and entertainment, department stores and hotels setting up shop in grand palaces. (It also became New York’s most notorious brothel district).
The streets between Houston and Canal became known as the Cast Iron District, thanks to an exciting construction innovation that transformed the Gilded Age.
Today SoHo contains the world’s greatest surviving collection of cast-iron architecture. But these gorgeous iron tributes to New York industry were nearly destroyed — first by rampant fires, then by Robert Moses.
Community activists saved these buildings, and just in time for artists to move into their spacious loft spaces in the 1960s and 70s. The artists are still there of course but these once-desolate cobblestone streets have almost unrecognizably changed, perhaps a victim of its own success.
A version of the episode was originally released in July 2017. This newly edited, remastered version is courtesy Kieran Gannon.
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
Find us on Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators.
Visit our page to learn more about the exclusive features available to supporters, including our Patreon-only podcast Side Streets.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.
A map of the Bayard farm and how it was broken up and carved into the streets we know today.
Niblo’sGarden, located at Broadway and Prince Streets, was one of the finest theaters along Broadway in the area of today’s SoHo.
Looking north along Broadway between Grand and Broome Street. The St. Nicholas Hotel is the white structure in the center of the photo.
Photo attributed to Silas A Holmes
An auction poster from 1872 advertising a property on Broome Street and “South Fifth Avenue or Laurens Street” — today’s West Broadway.
MCNY
Here is that corner at 504-506 Broome Street — in 1935 (photo by Berenice Abbott). Per Sean Sweeney on Facebook: “The two buildings were demolished and for years were a parking lot. Now a new 3-story retail building sits in their place.”
NYPL
The house at 143 Spring Street — in 1932 (photograph by Charles Von Urban) and today (it’s a Crocs shop!)
Museum of City of New York/Charles Von Urban collection
491 Broadway at Broome Street — in 1905 (photograph by the Wurts Bros.) and today
James Bogardus, the man who helped give SoHo its distinctive appearance thanks to his vigorous marketing and promotion of cast-iron architecture.
The first cast-iron structure in New York, built in 1848, was further south at the corner of Centre and Duane Streets.
NYPL
Robert Moses’ view of Broome Street via his project Lower Manhattan Expressway project. Broom Street would have had an elevated highway, enclosed within modern buildings. A view of surviving cast-iron architecture on the right.
SoHo would have been eliminated (or greatly reduced) by Moses’ project which was thankfully nixed.
Map produced by vanshnookenraggen
A map of the art galleries in the SoHo art scene during the 1970s.
SoHo Artists Association Records, 1968-1978. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
SoHo Artists Association Records, 1968-1978. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
We greatly encourage you to check out the SoHo Memory Project for a lot of fantastic and often deeply personal recollections about the SoHo days of yore.
For further listening, check out the following Bowery Boys podcasts which were referenced in this week’s show:
I’ll be bringing this feature back once in a while, because there are dozens more nightclubs, saloons and speakeasies of the past just waiting to be explored. And what a better choice to restart than the dance hall known as the Moulin Rouge of New York, a lively, brightly lit cabaret with debauchery for everyone — the Haymarket.
The Tenderloin district of Manhattan hosted the city’s biggest assortment of vice industries in the late 19th/early 20th century. Sure, Five Points gets all the press, but this vast area — approximately everything between 23rd and 42nd streets, and 6th and 9th avenues — was the more likely destination for regular New Yorkers who wanted to dally in illicit entertainment.
It was at the edge of more fashionable districts (Broadway to its east, Ladies Mile south) and many of its more successful ventures drew respectable gentlemen looking for respite from Gilded Age propriety.
Haymarket was the Tenderloin jewel, a three-story dance hall illuminated (disguised?) like a legitimate Broadway theatre and named for an even more legitimate British theater district. New York’s chief of police in 1887 described it as “animate with the licentious life of the avenue.”
Briefly, it really was a theater, called the Argyle, originally opening in 1872, before its owner got wise and reopened in 1878 as a saucier and more profitable dance hall. Its location, on 66 West 30th Street at Sixth Avenue, placed it just a few blocks from legitimate society, but its bevy of scintillating options were miles outside New York’s traditional morals.
With bands playing and high kicking saloon girls swirling about the floor, owner Edward Corey maintained his club was legally ‘above board’. In a quote from Timothy Gilfoyle’s A Pickpocket’s Tale, “An innocent man and his wife could have wandered into the Haymarket and been entirely unconscious of what was going on around them.”
In fact, those girls were most often prostitutes. Nicknamed ‘the prostitutes’ market’, the Haymarket was a veritable sin shopping mall, ladies luring men to tables to buy them champagne, shower them with presents and quite often making their way to curtained rooms in the balcony and upper floors.
If you preferred male prostitutes, you simply made your way to the back entrance. And although girls and boys were strictly forbidden by management to rob their clientele, the Haymarket nonetheless became a paradise for thievery.
Below: the crowded late night streets of the Tenderloin (picture courtesy Ephemeral NY)
Even still, its reputation grew as New York’s liveliest party in the 1890s, a flashy, fleshy dive thumbing its nose at society. Women drank for free and were allowed to carouse and drink freely with men, who paid a one-quarter entrance fee for the privilege of joining them.
Respectable gentlemen joined riff-raff from local opium dens on the dance floor, their arms around painted, corseted ladies. Naturally, the Haymarket thrived with the help of police corruption and bribery: $250 a week greased the palms of law enforcement who looked the other way. When it actually was closed during rare moments of police reform, it simply re-opened under different names. Its abandon inspired writers like Stephen Crane and even Eugene O’Neill, who wrote of the club:
The music blares into a rag-time tune — The dancers while around the polished floor; Each powdered face a set expression wore Of dull satiety, and wan smiles swoon
John Sloan painted the Haymarket in 1907, still lively in his depiction though in its waning days by the time he put paint to canvas. (The painting currently hangs at the Brooklyn Museum). The hall even became the subject of a 1903 silent film A Night At The Tenderloin.
The Haymarket finally shut down for good in 1911, just as the neighborhood was itself transforming, with the construction of Penn Station and the development of Times Square clearing away much of the Tenderloin’s vice.
Standing at Sixth Avenue and 30th Street today, you’d have no idea that one of New York City’s biggest parties once raged here.
The double-breasted, cigar-chewing gentlemen who gathered in the sumptuous rooms of the Fifth Avenue Hotel were occasional connoisseurs of New York City history, and in particular, these amateur historians spoke of the very street corner where their hotel stood.
Before Madison Square, when the area was a barren parade ground, one Corporal Thompson opened a roadhouse and stagecoach station in the area that was to become 23rd Street and and Fifth Avenue.
Many spoke fondly of Thompson’s establishment, called Madison Cottage, because they remembered the place as young boys. They recalled the area’s rural quality, with carved rectangular blocks carved into the land and a dirt-road Broadway meandering north.
But that was the 1840s.
Madison Cottage, Hitchcock, Darling & Co.
Forty years later, Madison Square Park was the center of New York, a focal point of class, business and luxury that stretched south to Union Square, through that attractive collection of fine stores known as Ladies Mile, and up Fifth Avenue into the fabulous mansions of the rich.
And dead center of all that activity was the Fifth Avenue Hotel, not only the “finest [hotel] in this metropolis”, the “leading hotel of the world ,” but quite simply one of the most surprising stages for American politics of the mid and late 19th century.
New York’s Hotel Revolution
Hotels were fast becoming the center of New York life from at least the days of the Astor House, located near City Hall, in the 1830s. Within two decades, trendy new hotels (such as the St. Nicholas and the Metropolitan) spread up along Broadway and eventually clustered around Union Square.
The Fifth Avenue Hotel opened in 1859, the venture of wealthy merchant Amos Richards Eno, who accurately gambled that the center of city commerce would soon settle at 23rd Street. So confident a speculator was Eno that he moved from his brownstone at 74 Broadway (the first New Yorkbrownstone, he claimed) to a massive home nearby the hotel.
Some thought it unwise to build so far north, and when workers unearthed dozens of skeletons during construction — the area once being a potter’s field — the corner was even considered cursed. Eno defied the naysayers, pouring his wealth into the hotel to make it the most modern, most luxurious accommodation of the day.
The Fifth Avenue Hotel, 1879. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
A Gilded Age Confection
The Italian exterior was awash in five stories of imported marble, while austere, carpeted interiors of French design drew comparisons to European palaces.
Guests enjoyed reading rooms, a luxurious bar, a barber shop, a dedicated telegraph office, and a variety of dining and drawing rooms, not to mention the first passenger elevator ever built in the United States, a steam-powered monstrosity whisking passengers to their floor.
The Fifth Avenue Hotel reading room, busy every weekend. (Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co.,)
Wheeling and Dealing
As the finest hotel in the city in the post Civil War years, it naturally became a magnet for politicians and financiers. Of all the ‘backrooms’ of American politics, none were as gleaming as the Fifth Avenue.
Bankers huddled in the legendary ‘parlor D. R.’ during the tense days of the financial panic of 1873. In particular, the hotel became a de facto headquarters for New York Republicans.
While often secondary to the city’s Democrats — this being the era of Tammany Hall‘s swelling power — Republicans were frequently in control of state government, and the Fifth Avenue Hotel became a smoky center of political wheeling and dealing.
During the 1870s, New York republicans became national power brokers and frequently hashed out crises here at the Fifth Avenue.
In the years before the Waldorf-Astoria, presidents and dignitaries all stayed here during visits. Seamier political maneuvers took place in the chambers of prominent politicians who held court here, including the inimitable Roscoe Conkling (at left), senator of New York and leader of the Republican faction known as the Stalwarts.
National Influence
When fractured Republicans at their convention in 1880 nominated non-Stalwart James Garfield for president, the nominee had to basically grovel for their support by symbolically ‘kissing the ring’ of the Stalwarts during a visit to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, partially agreeing to their system of patronage and taking Conkling ally Levi Morton as a member of his cabinet. (Garfield later backed out on this arrangement.)
Another frequent guest here was Chester A. Arthur, Garfield’s eventual vice president. When Arthur became president after Garfield’s assassination by Charles Guiteau (who had himself wandered the hotel’s hallways in delusion), he would set up his entire administration here during visits to his adopted city.
By the 1890s, a corridor of the hotel known as the ‘Amen Corner‘ was a famous congregation spot for Republican political bosses and reporters. As they frequently powwowed here on Sundays, gatherers would caustically shout ‘Amen!’ during heated discussions.
The Fifth Avenue Hotel in relation to the Flatiron Building
Checking Out
The hotel became a magnet for shenanigans of all varieties. In 1893, a couple hundred proponents of a U.S. monetary silver standard erupted into a riot that included two U.S. senators.
The bank robber Robert Montague was arrested here in 1896 thanks to a tip-off from a chambermaid. An early vestige of baseball’s National League met here annually, and the national pool competitions were held in the hotel’s billiard room.
By the new century, of course, the locus of New York activity was hastily moving uptown, and the Fifth Avenue Hotel was deemed a relic, even as a brand new structure across the street — the Flatiron Building — was being proclaimed the finest building in the city.
In 1908 the Fifth Avenue Hotel was torn down and replaced by the 16-story Toy Center (called the Fifth Avenue Building back in the day), the epicenter of toy manufacturing for much of the 20th century.
The summer blockbuster Spider-Man: Homecoming may be the greatest New York City superhero movie ever.
It doesn’t treat New York like a series of famous backdrops (although there certainly are a couple); it has a familiar landscape and there’s a particular care given to depicting Queens, the home of Peter Parker. There’s even a couple scenes with a mangy deli cat; you can almost smell it! (We will over look one major flaw that anybody riding the Staten Island Ferry will immediatelynotice.)
The film reinforces the notion of Spidey as the premier urban heroic figure. Indeed, in when faced maneuvering through a suburban neighborhood, he’s virtually useless, ripping through trees, tumbling into backyards.
In tribute I thought I would update my tribute to Spider-Man, New York City’s ultimate hero.
A shorter version of this article originally ran ten years ago at the start of that other reboot of the Spider-Man movie franchise. The following article was also inspired by a box of old comics books which have followed me around to various apartments for the past two decades. Last week I moved to yet another new apartment and the boxes are still with me.
From Amazing Spider-man #176
THE KING OF QUEENS
Spider-Man might be considered the superhero version of the New York Mets. Ever in the shadow of stronger, older, perhaps stodgier renditions from a different league (Superman, the Yankees), both Spider-Man and the Mets have origin stories which begin in Queens in the 1960s and are often considered New York underdogs. Their fans call them Amazing.
No modern fictional character inhabits a city quite like Spider-Man does with New York City.
Like other creations from the stable of Stan Lee, Spider-Man was meant to reflect a normal human being in a familiar setting, unlike the characters of DC Comics, who were space aliens, amazons or billionaires.
Yet it’s only Peter Parker’s humble beginnings as a teen from Forest Hills, Queens, that seem ordinary; as Spider-Man, he nimbly darts over the city, never in need of public transportation, elevators or a taxicab.
BITTEN BY THE BUG
Writer Steve Ditko** fleshed out Lee’s vision of an awkward teenager-turned-acrobat who could virtually sail through the streets outside their window.
The locations of Marvel’s offices and studios — formerly in the Empire State Building, but at 635 Madison Avenue by 1962 — certainly played a role in developing Marvel’s early characters as urbanites.
Most all his adventures take place in New York, and the city plays backdrop to these melodramatic, often cataclysmic events.
Upon the covers of hundreds of comics books that Spider-Man has appeared since his debut in August 1962, the webslinger has perilously dangled over the grid, either swinging down the avenues or bouncing super villains against an endless number of brick walls. (Like more than a few fashionistas, he sometimes even wears all black to work.)
If superheroes existed, New York City’s maintenance and security costs would well exceed its annual budget, and nobody would dare build a new skyscraper. Why, the budget to clean buildings of Spidey’s used webbing would reach into the thousands each year! (Ed. note: I’ve since been informed that the hero’s webbing is basically biodegradable. Great for the environment!)
Most structures depicted in his greatest adventures are mere abstractions, simple ledges for perching and windows for smashing. We rarely see pedestrians fleeing the falling debris or the contractors assessing the damage for disgruntled landlords.
YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD TOUR GUIDE
Spider-Man doesn’t fly. The superhero and the city have a symbiotic relationship; he needs the city’s height to swing around, and the city needs him to protect it. And so New York landmarks have frequently popped up on Spider-Man comic book covers, perhaps more than any other superhero creation. He gathers his strength from the famous skyline itself.
You can actually take a tour of the city through Spider-Man covers, from the 1960s to today. Below are several examples of New York’s guest appearances.
Swing along with him as he takes you past 1) the East Village, 2) Federal Hall, 3) the subway, 4-5) the Roosevelt Island tram, 6-7) the Statue of Liberty, 8) Cleopatra’s Needle, 9) the George Washington Bridge, 10) the American Museum of Natural History 11) the New York Marathon, 12-13) the Empire State Building, 14) the New York Public Library, 15) a vehicle from the New York Police Department, 16) a yellow cab, 17) the Brooklyn Bridge, 18) Rockefeller Center, 19) Times Square, 20) the Chrysler Building, 21) the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 22) Grand Central Terminal, 23) One Times Square. (Not pictured: the Flatiron Building, where the Daily Bugle is located in the earlier films.)
**Note: There is some controversy over whether legendary artist Jack Kirby might also have been involved in the creation of Spider-Man. I have re-edited the story above, however I send you to i09’s 2009 article Who Created Spider-Man? which discusses artist’s possible involvement. (7/9/12)
Â
And finally, Marvel and the creators of Spider-Man did pay tribute to the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Appropriately, for a comic book that often wantonly celebrates the crumbling of random structures in high-flying battles with super villains, the creators chose to use no image:
Top image courtesy IGN. A couple of these are from Sam Ruby, a couple of them are my own scan! You can see the complete collection of Spider-Man covers over at Cover Browser where I borrowed a couple of these as well.
All art, images and characters on this page are courtesy Marvel Comics.
For this article, I look at what some of the dangerous undercurrents to life in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1981. “By the 1970s, Williamsburg was best known for its steeply rising crime rate, harboring both violent street-gang activity and organized crime.” You can read the whole article here.
During my research for this piece, I found this rather startling map in the New York Times, August 1, 1974, charting out the various turfs of northern Brooklyn street gangs.
This is not a souvenir from the film The Warriors, but an actual list of the many violent gangs which kept Brooklyn a very dangerous place to walk around in during the 1970s.
Gang activity was so especially vicious at this time — particularly gang-vs-gang violence — that Luis Garten Acosta, the founder of El Puente youth outreach program, called northern Brooklyn ‘the killing fields’ in 1981.
I dug a little further to find some specific incidents which involved some of these gangs. I’ve put numbers by the gangs so you can find their dedicated turf on the map above:
— September 16, 1972 — A gang altercation among the members of the Young Barons (44) resulted in the death of one young man and another whose nose was cut off.Â
— August 21, 1973 — Several members of the Devils Rebels (19) were walking around Bushwick when they were accosted by the Screaming Phantoms (11). Two boys associated with the Devils Rebels were stabbed and killed. Police report “the Screaming Phantoms operated out of the Williamsburg area and had been ‘way out of their area’ at the scene of yesterday’s gang fight.”
— October 12, 1973 — Several gangs have been cast as extras in a new film called The Education of Sonny Carson, including the Tomahawks (48), Pure Hell (22) and the Unknown Riders (43).
— February 25, 1974 — The Times reports on the extortion schemes of various northern Brooklyn gangs, mentioning the Outlaws (28,29), the Tomahawks (48), the Jolly Stompers (not listed) and B’Nai Zaken (41).
One of the few photos ever taken of any New York street gang was this image shot in 1887 by Jacob Riis of the Short Tails  under a pier in Corlears Hook.
The Short Tails were a particularly nasty gang of criminals who terrorized the Lower East Side and the docks of Corlears Hook roughly during the period of the Gilded Age.
By the 1910s, this sinister assemblage had been absorbed into other street gangs — some say Monk Eastman‘s criminal organization is an off-shoot — and largely disappeared as a physical threat to innocent New Yorkers.
Then Herbert Asbury‘s Gangs of New York happened, vaulting a number of once-forgotten street gangs into a realm of historic romanticism. Even here, the Short Tails play second fiddle to more organized and mythic groups of young men such as the Dead Rabbits, the Whyos and, ahem, the Bowery Boys.
Confusingly, there was once a gang called the Shirt Tails who coexisted with other Five Points gangs, but this group of ruffians was long gone by the time the Short Tails terrorized neighborhoods to the east of their turf.**
The Short Tails feature as the principal villains in Mark Helprin’s New York fable Winter’s Tale, the film version of which opens today in movie theaters.
Their fictional leader, Pearly Soames (played by Russell Crowe), is a maniac with a penchant for gold and dangerous hideaways. He and his mob pursue the narrative’s hero Peter Lake (played by Colin Farrell) through the streets of a tinted-postcard New York that seems to shift like a kaleidoscope.
The original Short Tails were less romantic in nature, and less oppressive. (Helprin’s version: “Pearly and sixty of the Short Tails went marching through the street like a Florentine army.”) Still, their scant appearance in newspapers of the era reveal a most malevolent group of men and boys. What were some of the traits of this menacing band?
— They were headquartered at the corner of Rivington and Goerck Street. That’s around the area of Baruch Playground today. Back then, it was a stone yard. In 1882, these ‘East Side desperadoes‘ began terrorizing a German-owned saloon in the area, attacking the proprietor with a broken beer glass. In August, the leader of the Short Tails, Frank Nixon, was seriously injured in a shoot-out here and later arrested. [source]
Goerck Street from a much later period (1939) at Stanton Street, just a block from the gang’s headquarters. (NYPL)
— They were an outgrowth of another gang called the Border Gang, so named because they were on the border of two police precincts.
— They loved beer. They loved it so much they were known for their habit of “rushing the growler,” filling up buckets of beer from local saloons and taking it back to headquarters. “The man who went for it would simply march out of the saloon with the filled receptacle [without paying for it], and if the barkeeper attempted to stop him, he would make a few remarks of a maledictory sort, interlarded with profanity and obscenity” and threaten to bring the wrath of the entire gang down on the saloon if he didn’t “hold his yawp.” [source]
— They were unrelenting murderers and thieves. The gang’s loathsome crimes seem especially brutal, even today. From a report in 1884: “The members of the gang are known to the police as hard drinkers, thieves, pickpockets and highwaymen.” [source]
— They were skilled at boat-related crimes. The Short Tails, being stationed near the piers along Corlears Hook, often committed crimes upon vessels along the water front. The unfortunate members of the Young Men’s Cathedral Association learned this the hard way during an river outing in 1886. “Some members of a notorious gang of desperadoes, calling themselves the Short Tails, smuggled themselves on the boat, got drunk and began to fight.” [source]
Corlears Hook in the 1870s, right before the era of the Short Tails. (NYPL)
— Their schemes could sometimes be quite dastardly and clever. They perfected a naughty little trick in 1896 involving wagons which lined up along the water’s edge. As some Short Tails pushed the wagons into the river, others would run to the owners and offer to rescue their drowning wagons for a fee of $3. This money would be used almost entirely on buying beer. (I guess saloon owners got a bit more aggressive by the 1890s!) “When the money was spent they returned and pushed two more trucks into the water.”
— Some of them loved music. In fact, the earliest record (from 1881) that I could find of Short Tail-related violence involved an accordion! “Policeman Philip F. Mahoney … observed a crowd of forty young men last night … standing at the corner of Delancey and Sheriff Streets. One of the gang was playing an accordion and Mahoney directed them to move on, as it was 11:30 o’clock. The accordion player refused to stop playing, whereupon Mahoney attempted to arrest him. The gang set upon him and took his club away.” The accordion player and other members were later arrested. [source]
— Delancey Street required extra police duty because of them. Officers of the NYPD wised up after the accordion incident, patrolling the area in pairs of two — “one to protect the other.” The gang was certainly no match for the most hearty of souls in the police force.
One officer in the 1880s, avenging a friend killed by a Short Tail, stormed right into their headquarters “without club or firearm of any kind” and personally throttled a great number of them, “grab[bing] two of the more notorious by their coat collars” and dragging them to jail. [source]
** Neither the Short Tails nor the Shirt Tails are related to this group. (Courtesy Rob Starobin on Twitter )
Looking for a healthy assortment of fireworks to ignite for the Fourth of July holiday? In New York, from the late 19th century until the 1930s, one needed to look no further than one of the city’s most heavily trafficked areas near City Hall.
Firecracker Lane was a short row of fireworks dealerships that sat on Park Place between Broadway and Church Street, a couple blocks away from the old Astor Houseand the congregants of St. Paul’s Chapel.
12 Park Place, one of the prominent retailers of explosives along ‘Firecracker Lane’. James Pain was known as one of the world’s greatest pyrotechnists. Today the Pain name lives on in a UK fireworks company. (Wurts Brothers, courtesy MCNY)
As questionable as that might sound, fireworks were actually quite common on the streets of New York in the 19th century. And Park Place was New York’s official ‘fireworks mart‘, specializing in “celebration goods,” even well into the years that its new neighbor, the Woolworth Building, towered over its shelves of fanciful explosives.
The proprietors of Firecracker Lane could attest to their shops’ safety.
“Fireworks are not made now as they were years ago and for that reason there is little danger,” said one shop owner, adding, “A fire in a fireworks store when once started will make good headway in short order, but there will be no great explosion, no blowing down of walls, nor wiping out of buildings…” What a relief!
Coincidentally, both the Great Fire of 1835 and its modest cousin the Great Explosion of 1845both ignited many decades before just south of this area. So proprietors here made doubly sure to reassure people that such conflagrations could never happen because of their merchandise.
Below: Union Square under the sparkle of fireworks on July 4, 1876 (NYPL)
But it was another explosion that was on the minds of New Yorkers during the 4th of July 1901. Just a couple weeks before, across the water in Paterson, NJ, a fireworks factory exploded, killing 17 people who lived in the tenement above.
“So great was the force of the blast,” reported the New York Times, “that a boy playing in the street a half a block away was lifted from his feet and hurled against an iron fence, and had one of his legs broken.”
The Paterson tenement, destroyed by an explosion in the fireworks factory in the building. (Courtesy Paterson Fire History)
For this reason, people started avoiding Firecracker Lane, getting to the elevated train station by going the long way around, avoiding the boxes of potentially combustible merchandise stacked along the sidewalks.
Perhaps they were wise to do so. In July 1903, in front of one particular establishment, the Unexcelled Manufacturing Company, at 9 Park Place, a box ignited, showering the street with a terrifying display of rockets and smoke.
“[T]he contents, consisting of rockets, firecrackers and several small bombs, went off with a noise that almost equalled that made by Pain’s destroying of Pompeii [referencing a popular Manhattan Beach attraction].”
These Firecracker Lane establishment had larger plants in rural areas like Staten Island, but that did not minimize the danger. In 1907, the plant owned by one Park Place shop exploded in Graniteville, Staten Island, killing two children.
Workers (and their families) on a float in New Jersey, representing the Unexcelled Manufacturing Company. During World War I, the company also manufactured signal rockets, flares and other wartime equipment. (Courtesy Great War Postcards)
Believe it or not, you could still buy fireworks on Park Place as late as the 1930s.
However the once-bustling Firecracker Lane had been whittled down to just two shops — the Unexcelled Manufacturing Company and Pain’s Fireworks Display, owned by the very man who been responsible for the afore-mentioned Pompeii display, thirty years earlier!
By this time, the city began cracking down on the usage of fireworks, fueled by reports of hundreds of fireworks-related injuries filling city hospitals during Independence Day festivities.
The old Park Place establishments, forced to sell to an ever decreasing number of small towns where fireworks remained legal, could not withstand the scrutiny and eventually closed.
George Washington’s copy of the Declaration of Independence is perhaps the most well-known of the almost 200 copies first made of the document.
As a facsimile, it’s certainly not the the most valuable document held by the Library of Congress — after all, they have Thomas Jefferson’s actual rough draft of the Declaration, along with tens of thousands of his other papers — but it’s certainly an inspiring artifact in its own right.
Below: The document in question.
Because Washington wasn’t in Philadelphia at the time of the actual declaration on July 2 or the completion by Jefferson of the finished copy on July 4.
Later, as news of a British arrival to New York became evident, he moved his headquarters to City Hall, then on Wall Street and Broad Street.
Below: Washington’s two headquarters pre-July 1776:
Internet Archive Book Images
Hundreds of British war vessels had stationed themselves off of Sandy Hook by the first of July, so fearful a presence that many of New York’s 20,000 residents had fled in fear.
By July 9, thousands of Continental Army soldiers had amassed in New York, turning the port town overnight into a military outpost. The key gathering point for Washington and his men was the Commons, a former livestock area that had been the scene of protests against the British for over a decade. Many a liberty pole had stood here, an age old protest against despotism.
George Washington, painted by Charles Willson Peale in 1776
But on that day, July 9, there was not a single inanimate symbol of protest, but rather many thousands of animate ones, all summoned to gather by 6 p.m. to await Washington’s words.
From the text of Washington’s order that day:
“The several brigades are to be drawn up this evening on their respective Parades, at Six O’Clock, when the declaration of Congress, shewing the grounds and reasons of this measure, is to be read with an audible voice.
The General hopes this important Event will serve as a fresh incentive to every officer, and soldier, to act with Fidelity and Courage, as knowing that now the peace and safety of his Country depends (under God) solely on the success of our arms: And that he is now in the service of a State, possessed of sufficient power to reward his merit, and advance him to the highest Honors of a free Country.“
A copy of the Declaration — the one pictured above — had been hand-delivered to Washington on that very day. However the General himself did not read it aloud. Rather he had one of his aides read it to the gathered crowd.
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation….”
Below: A British map of New York as it was played out in 1776:
These weren’t empty phrases. Upon the completion of the reading, New Yorkers knew their city would be attacked. The men of Washington’s army knew they would fight and possibly die.
The words were greeted with joy, fear, anticipation and rage. The crowds surged with excitement. Most ran to their places — to Kings College, to the counting-houses of Hanover Square, to the ships docked along the East River — and prepared for the world to change.
Many people certainly ran to their local taverns to get wasted. (Samuel Fraunces must have hosted a lively crowd that night.) Some New Yorkers went to their homes, packed their belongings and fled.
Needless to say, the reading had gone off as intended. General Washington’s letter to the Continental Congress is an almost amusing example in understatement:
“Agreeable to the request of Congress I caused the Declaration to be proclaimed before all the Army under my immediate Command, and have the pleasure to inform them, that the measure seemed to have their most hearty assent; the Expressions and behaviour both of Officers and Men testifying their warmest approbation of it.”
In fact, not only did his army and the gathered New Yorkers approve of the Declaration, but later that night, they actively demonstrated their approval by rushing down Broadway to Bowling Green, where they proceed to pull down the loathsome statue of King George!
Afterwards, Washington had his personal copy sent to Artemes Ward, his major general stationed in Massachusetts. Washington’s note to Ward also survives:
“The inclosed Declaration will shew you, that Congress at Length, impelled by Necessity, have dissolved the Connection between the American Colonies , and Great Britain, and declared them free and independent States; and in Compliance with their Order, I am to request you will cause this Declaration to be immediately proclaimed at the Head of the Continental Regiments in the Massachusetts Bay.”
Today the Washington Declaration — or rather, a fragment of it — is only one of 26 Dunlap copies that are still believed to exist. It lives, naturally, in Washington D.C. However three copies of the ‘Dunlap’ Declaration are in New York City — at the Morgan Library, at the New York Public Library and another, in the hands of an unknown private collector.
