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.
Detroit Publishing Company 1900, courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Nineteen years ago (officially on June 19, 2007) we recorded the very first Bowery Boys podcast, appropriately about Canal Street, the street just outside the window of Tom’s apartment on the Lower East Side.
(For more information, check out our 15th anniversary show from two years ago.)
We cannot have possibly imagined on that hot June night, wielding only a bad microphone, a new laptop and some reasonably interesting information about a terribly polluted water soure, that would still be doing this, stronger than ever.
Thank you, listeners and readers, for helping us celebrate almost four hundred years of history in the past nineteen.
Tom Meyers in Park Slope, recording our first ever ‘on location’ show in 2015.Greg in the stocks at Colonial Williamsburg, 2017. (Okay, not really a Bowery Boys thing, but history related.) Greg and Tom in Amsterdam, 2024
Here’s a new way to experience our old podcasts.
Below is our entire list* of shows, placed in a particular chronological order, based on a critical date in that subject’s history.
*In the rare case where we revisited a subject (Flatiron Building, Canal Street) we only included the most recent show. For ‘rewind’ episodes with updates, they have been included over the original. And the first four episodes are not available (but those who support us on Patreon have access to episodes #2-4).
And finally — we can continue recording the Bowery Boys podcast thanks to the generous support of those on Patreon. Supporters receive bonus audio, free merchandise and first access to tickets for upcoming live shows.
For a very brief period — likely just a single year — there was a female counterpart to the New York (Male) Giants.
The New York Female Giants seem to have an unofficial affiliation with the better known Giants, the city’s most popular baseball team. Author Michael Carlebach speculatesthe team was probably formed by Giants manager John McGraw.
Early women’s teams — called ‘Bloomer Girls’ — often had a few men playing alongside them. Occasionally those men even disguised themselves as women as in a revealing case in the summer of 1913 in Washington DC: “Four thousand angry fans surged on the diamond in the old Union League baseball park this afternoon when they learned that the “Bloomer Girls,” who were playing against a team of young men, were not girls. The deception was suspected when the “girl” playing in centre field threw the ball from deep centre to the home plate.” [source]
(The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, featured in the movie A League Of Their Own, would not be formed until the 1940s.)
The Female Giants don’t appear to be all women players either, although there are no disguises at least. The men featured in these pictures played with the New York Giants.
The female players were mostly girls from local high schools and women athletes from other fields of sports.
Following her stint with the Female Giants, their captain Ida Schnall would head to Hollywood and become a silent film actress. She would later become an accomplished swimmer and an advocate for women’s sports, petitioning the National Olympics Committee to expand their offerings for women. Below: Ida in a glamorous pose
They broke up into two teams — the ‘Red Stockings’ and the ‘Blue Stockings’– and played a notable exhibition game for almost 1,500 people on Sunday, May 25, 1913 at the Lenox Oval, a sports field at Lenox Avenue and 145th Street.
Below: A 1919 soccer game being played at the Lenox Oval
Courtesy Museum of the City of New York
It seems their typical game schedule went unnoticed by the press which is probably a good thing. That May 25th game was written about by the New York Tribune in the following fashion : “The batter hitched up her skirt. The pitcher nervously adjusted a side comb. Girls will be boys, and the Reds and the Blues of the New York Female Giants were playing an exhibition game at Lenox Oval, 145th Street and Lenox Avenue.” [source]
Below: A catcher from the New York Giants, playing alongside a diminutive young player
We know about this particular game because it got shut down by the cops. In the ninth inning, a detective stepped out onto the field and handed the third baseman — a 17-year-old teenager named Helen Zenker– a subpoena to appear in Harlem court.
Due to New York’s ” blue laws, ” teams were not supposed to legally sell tickets to a baseball game on Sundays. While the women were indeed playing a practice game, Helen had been caught selling programs. She claimed that no such sales activity had taken place; people were just giving her money, including the detective. [More details in this amusing New York Times article from 1913.]
Fortunately, the young Zenker (“seventeen, pretty, active, intelligent, and has the easy gait and springy step of the athlete”) easily charmed the judge, and the case was dismissed. [source]
The photos in this post obviously take place on another date, as they’re wearing uniforms, which they were not allowed to do on a Sunday.
EDIT: After going live, I later included the line about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League and clarified that the team featured adult women playing alongside high schoolers. For instance, Ida Schnall, who went on to greater athletic fame, was 24 or 25 at the time of the game described above.
Above: the crowds at the Polo Ground for Game One. Many of these same people were certainly on hand for the fateful Game Four.
One hundred years ago today, in the frantic fall of 1912, even as the nation was in the midst of an intense three-way race to elect a new president, New Yorkers and Bostonians were overwhelmingly — perhaps even unnaturally — distracted. For the first time ever — since the introduction of the World Series baseball championship in 1903 — a New York club was finally battling for ultimate victory against a Boston team.
The two cities had been in perpetual competition for most of their history; organized sport merely provided a formalized outlet to rally regional pride. [For more information, check out my article on the roots of the Boston-New York rivalry.]
The two cities should have already met on the diamond for the 1904 World Series, as the New York Giants were victors of the National League, while the Boston Americans led the American League. Boston clutched that particular victory by defeating another team from New York, the upstart New YorkHighlanders (who later became the Yankees).
However, the Giants refused to play the Americans in the World Series, a tantrum thrown by managers aimed at the ‘inferior’ American League (originally the junior circuit). Rules were changed the following year to make championship play between the leagues compulsory.
Eight years later, in 1912, the New York Giants were matched against the same Boston team under their new name — the Boston Red Sox. No hesitation this time around. They were undeniably the two best terms in America, and both clubs were determined to win the title for their home cities.
For this Series, teams shuttled back and forth between Boston’s Fenway Park and New York’s premier baseball venue of the day, the Polo Grounds.
Above: A view of the Polo Grounds during Game Four, absolutely packed to the rafters
Game One, played at Polo Grounds, went to Boston. Game 2, at Fenway, lasted so long — eleven innings — that the game was declared a tie on account of darkness. (Night baseball wouldn’t be played at Fenway until 1947!) New York then won the second game at Fenway the following day, tying up the match.
For a fourth consecutive day of baseball, the teams were to return to the Polo Grounds (located at W. 157th Street and 8th Avenue). New Yorkers had the momentum, anxious to build upon their triumph in Game Three. Both teams, already exhausted, packed into trains and headed back down to New York, arriving that evening at Grand Central. The Giants headed to their respective homes in the city, the Red Sox to their accommodations at Bretton Hall on Broadway and 86th Street.
Fans were already so excited for Game Four the next day that some were already lined up at Polo Grounds before the players even arrived in New York.
Unfortunately, one curious obstacle threatened to ruin everybody’s good time: mud.
The Polo Grounds were an uncovered grass field and throughout most of that evening it was pelted with rain, turning this fairly new ballfield (re-built in 1911 after a fire) into what the Evening World called “a mysty mystery” of gray and yellow-brown fog. The infield was protected by a tarp, but the outfield was battered by the elements. Was it in any condition for a major baseball game?
Commissioners failed to decide that morning whether the game could commence, and baseball fans grew restless. Well, that’s an understatement. Giants fans were enraged. “[T]he lynching-hungry scream of an infuriated mob” filled the air around the stadium, as thousands more joined the brave few still in line from the night before should the field reopen.
An Evening World reporter followed a groundskeeper along the soggy field who lamented, “They can play on it, all right … Sure, they can play, but oh, me poor grass!”
Umpires were given a police escort into the Polo Grounds at 11 a.m. to inspect the condition of the field. By that time, the mob was practically foaming at the mouth, with “a blood-curdling shriek of 10,000 fans stretch[ing] from 157th Street to 140th Street, thousands and thousands of them.” [source]
Precisely at noon, the commission, located at the Waldorf-Astoria, telephoned to announce that the baseball game could be played, and the throng thundered into the stadium. The Evening World compared it to the Spanish running of the bulls. “[N]o man of this generation ever saw such racing and pounding along the sloping approaches of the Polo Grounds and began slamming down seats at one minute past twelve o’clock today.”
According to New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro in his book on the 1912 World Series ‘The First Fall Classic’, the stadium filled to capacity with thousands more watching from various nooks and crannies, over 40,000 people, “officially…the third largest in this history of this stadium (and, thus, the history of the sport) but unofficially shattered that record to smithereens.” Many thousands more listened in to an announcer in Herald Square.
And so, here’s the punchline: after all that madness, the New York Giants lost the game, on the muddy and thoroughly distressed Polo Grounds, to the Boston Red Sox, 3-2! The New York Times intoned, “Nine Grim Innings To Red Sox Victory.”
In fact, they went on to lose the entire series to Red Sox.
Below: For Game One, Mayor William Jay Gaynor threw out the first pitch, sitting alongside the mustachioed Massachusetts governor Eugene Foss. Less than a year later, Gaynor would succumb to injuries brought on by a bullet lodged in his throat, the unlucky souvenir of an 1910 assassination attempt. [Read more about Gaynor here.]
Oh, that Peter Stuyvesant. He was all about luxury, high class athletic sport and international travel. The Concorde! Monte Carlo! Caviar!
Less than three centuries after the iconic Dutch director-general of New Amsterdam died at his palatial farm in today’s East Village, his name was employed to sell a brand of stylish, premium cigarette, still enjoyed today by smokers in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other counties, most being places Peter Stuyvesant had no idea existed.
The cigarette was developed by a German company in the 1950s and soon became associated with an international sensibility due to its ‘American blend’ of various tobaccos from different countries. “The smell of the large far world: Peter Stuyvesant” went the slogan in 1958. It was test marketed in New York in 1957. Stuyvesant was not the only Dutch historical figure to make his cigarette debut that year; Rembrandt cigarettes also hit the streets of New York that year.
“Stuyvesant people having fun!” went the jingle, accompanied by rigorous activity that might prove challenging for those enjoying one too many of their advertised product:
By the 1980s, the Peter Stuyvesant cigarette was advertised as a high adventure,Donald Trump-like symbol of masculinity and wealth, trying to closely align with upper class leisure. In London, during the 1980s, the cigarette company even sponsored the Peter Stuyvesant Pops in London. In 2003, the cigarette was even bought by a British company, which would have disturbed the actual Peter Stuyvesant to no end.
The company even experimented with Peter Stuyvesant travel agencies in some places, clever ways to advertise their cigarettes in places with strict advertising laws.
The cigarette embodied the American ideal, a distillation of glamour, capitalism and excess, ‘further testimony to the adoption by European of American dreams’, according to author Alexander Stephan. “Feel the Big Apple beat!” went this promotion in 1985. “It’s fun! It’s fabulous! It’s fast!”
Meanwhile, over in Brooklyn, the neighborhood which bore the Stuyvesant name (Bedford-Stuyvesant) was hardly tasting the fruits of prosperity advertised in Stuyvesant commercials half a world away. And it was hardly Polos and champagne in the East Village, the neighborhood which developed from Stuyvesant’s old farm to become the gritty backdrop for 1980s art and punk music.
Not that Stuyvesant cigarette executives turned their backs to the promotional opportunities provided by the fight for freedom and human rights. In 1989, employees in ‘Come Together’ shirts distributed Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes to East Berliners on their way to the vote in the election that would unite the former Soviet sector with West Berlin.
Here’s an older ad for you German speakers!
Tomorrow, the Bowery Boys will return to the world of Peter Stuyvesant in our newest podcast.
Image by Leonard Fink; courtesy of The LGBT Community Center National History
Today every shop seems to wear a Rainbow Flag and every corporation and major retailer seems to offer a welcoming message to the LGBTQ community or a line of multi-colored ‘gay apparel’.
But keep in mind that just a bit over fifty years ago no such celebration would have ever occurred. In fact the city was certainly doing its best to obscure, frustrate and even expel its gay and lesbian population from living in the open.
Stormé DeLarverie. Craig Rodwell. Dick Leitsch. Marsha P Johnson. These are some of the people that made this present moment possible.
But those individuals have others to thank for creating a network of gay and lesbian spaces in New York City that have existed — mostly in the shadows — for over 150 years. Flawless Sabrina.James Baldwin. Alice Austen. Julian Eltinge. And yes — Walt Whitman.
So yes — celebrate Pride! And listen to one of these Bowery Boys: New York City History podcasts to give some important context to the celebration.
Celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Whitman, a journalist who revolutionized American literature with his long-crafted work “Leaves of Grass.” The 19th-century cities of New York and Brooklyn helped shape the man Whitman would become — from its bustling newspaper offices to bohemian haunts like Pfaff’s Beer Cellar.
Fire Island is one of New York state’s most attractive summer getaways, a thin barrier island on the Atlantic Ocean lined with seaside villages and hamlets, linked by boardwalks, sandy beaches, natural dunes and water taxis. (And, for the most part, no automobiles.)
But Fire Island has a very special place in American LGBT history.
It is the site of one of the oldest gay and lesbian communities in the United States, situated within two neighboring hamlets — Cherry Grove and the Fire Island Pines.
In the beginning there were two styles of drag — vaudeville and ballroom. As female impersonators filled Broadway theaters — one theater is even named for a famed gender illusionist — thrill seekers were heading to the balls of Greenwich Village and Harlem.
By the 1930s, the gay scene began retreating into the shadows, governed by mob control and harshly policed. By design, drag became political. It also became a huge counter-cultural influence in the late 1960s — from the glamour of Andy Warhol’s superstars to the jubilant schtick of Charles Busch.
In 1966, a revolutionary gay-rights organization took a page from the civil rights movement to stage a demonstration in a small bar in the West Village. This little event, called the Sip-In at Julius‘, was a tiny but significant step towards the fair treatment of gay and lesbians in the United States.
In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, undercover police officers attempting to raid the Stonewall Inn, a mob-controlled gay bar with darkened windows on Christopher Street, were met with something unexpected — resistance.
That ‘altercation’ was a messy affair indeed — chaotic, violent, dangerous for all. Homeless youth fought against riot police along the twisting, crooked streets of the West Village. And yet, by the end, thousands from all walks of life met on those very same streets in the days and weeks to come in a new sense of empowerment.
The history of the New York City fashion industry and how it found its home south of Times Square aka The Garment District.
The Garment District in Midtown Manhattan has been the center of American fashion for almost one hundred years. The lofts and office buildings here still buzz with the business of making clothing — from design to distribution.
But the district has become endangered today as clothing manufacturers move out and the entire industry faces new challenges from online sales and overseas production.
During the mid-19th century, garment production thrived in New York thanks to thousands of arriving immigrants skilled in making clothes. Most clothing in the United States was made below 14th Street, in the city’s tenement neighborhoods, especially the Lower East Side.
As the industry grew more prominent, the residents and merchants of Fifth Avenue feared it would overtake their fashionable street. So, by the 1930s, a new district was born. Hardly a stitch was sewn in the United States without passing through the blocks between 34th Street and 42nd Street, west of Sixth Avenue.
Listen in as we describe the Garment District’s chaotic flurry of activity — from the fabulous showrooms of the world’s greatest designers to the nitty-gritty bustle of its crowded streets.
In celebration of Made In NYC Week, we present our tribute to New York City’s active and thriving garment industry. A version of this show was originally presented in January 2016. Now with a new introduction and ending, this show was reedited by Kieran Gannon.
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every two weeks. We’re also looking to improve the show in other ways and expand in other ways as well — through publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!
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Please visitour page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too — Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far. And the best is yet to come!
Fashionable streets: hats in the Garment District, photo by Margaret Bourke White
Courtesy Life Magazine
There were as many trucks in the Garment District as models, taking supplies to the busy workshops and finished garments to retailers. Photo is from Nov. 29, 1943.
Courtesy AP Photo
Another common site — racks of clothing being pushed down the street.
Museum of the City of New York
The Garment District at lunchtime, 1944. We told you it was insane!
Museum of the City of New York/US Office of War Information
The following are a series of pictures capturing workers in a clothing factory on 36th Street and Tenth Avenue, 1937
Museum of City of New York/Federal Art Project
Behind the scenes at a Gimbels Fashion Show, 1949
Photo by Stanley Kubrick/Museum of the City of New York
Racks of clothing, 1955
Library of Congress/WikiMedia
The unique brutalist architecture of the Fashion Institute of Technology 1964
Wurts Brothers/Museum of the City of New York
From ‘Press Week’ aka Fashion Week, Jan. 7, 1972. (AP Photo/Ray Stubblebine)
PODCAST The story of the devastating snowstorm that changed New York City forever.
Every winter, as forecasters gaze upon a gruesome impending storm, they always mention one of the worst storms to ever wreak havoc upon New York City, the now-legendary mix of wind and snow called the Great Blizzard of 1888.
The battering snow-hurricane of 1888, with its freezing temperatures and crazy drifts three stories high, was made worse by the condition of New York’s transportation and communication systems, all completely unprepared for 36 hours of continual snow.
The storm struck on Monday, March 12, 1888, but many thousands attempted to make their way to work anyway, not knowing how severe the storm would be. It would be the worst commute in New York City history. Fallen telephone and telegraph poles became a hidden threat under the quickly accumulating drifts.
Elevated trains were frozen in place, their passengers unable to get out for hours. Many died simply trying to make their way back home on foot, including Roscoe Conkling (at right), a power broker of New York’s Republican Party.
But there were moments of amusement too. Saloons thrived, and actors trudged through to the snow in time for their performances, And for P.T. Barnum, the show must always go on!
This show was originally recorded back in 2013, just a few months after Hurricane Sandy. We think the comparisons to Sandy that were made in that show feel even more relevant today.
And for 2026, we’ve added a bunch of new exclusive features to our membership levels — on top of our regular behind the scenes podcast called Side Streets, which we are also recording on video, we’re also releasing classic episodes of the Bowery Boys each week, ad-free. Patrons can now hear this show (The Blizzard of 1888) ad-free.
On top of that, of course, we have exclusive merchandise made just for patron, you also get first dibs on tickets for upcoming live appearances – and so much more!
So please join the fun over at Patreon.com/boweryboys and thank you for helping support the Bowery Boys podcast.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.
In the blizzard of 1888, the streets disappeared and the snow came down almost horizontally. Imagine being trapped at work, several miles from your home. This was the plight experienced by thousands of New Yorkers (and others throughout the northeast) that Monday. (Library of Congress)
Why did the 1888 blizzard become such a hazard for New Yorkers? Let this picture be your first clue. The city was a cobweb of elevated telegraph, telephone and electric wires. This picture is from 1887. (LOC)
Langill & Bodfish/Museum of the City of New YorkMuseum of City of New York
One example of a terrible (although minor) snow drift that might have kept this family in their home all day. Because of the unpredictable changes in wind, some houses might have been drift-free, while others close by completely locked in with snow. (LOC)
George Washington at the Sub-Treasury Building (today Federal Hall).
The Brooklyn Bridge, not even five years old, weathered the winds quite well, but became a hazard due to ice. In this picture, people are crossing over as there was no other way to get between Manhattan and Brooklyn. It’s not clear if any of the trains are operating in this picture.
The biggest danger for those venturing outside were the hundreds of downed telegraph, telephone and electrical poles, no match for the intense gusts. The poles would quickly fall then get covered with snow, creating deadly hazards for people walking past. The snow would just as quickly cover over an unconscious individual; many New Yorkers froze to death when they fell and were instantly shrouded.
Henry Bergh, founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. He did not survive the blizzard. (NYHS)
Transportation in and out of the city was at a complete standstill for half the week. Here workers frantically try to clear the way for trains going into Grand Central Depot.
Clean-up was truly chaotic, a feeble effort by the city paired with private contractors with horses, shovels and carts. The piles of snow were taken to water’s edge and dumped, or, in a few less preferred cases, people just started bonfires and melted it away. (For a great picture of a snow dump in the river, see this photo at Shorpy of a blizzard from 1899.) Top pic courtesy LOC, at bottom Maggie Blanck.
The cover of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, usually one of the more sensational pieces of journalism people might have found at their newsstand.
Illustrations from Scientific American, March 24, 1888
For more information on New York City’s history with snow removal, listen to our 2019 show on the history of the city’s Department of Sanitation.
For some of New York City’s history, snowstorms have been completely paralyzing, and most residents had to clear their own streets, an impossibility in areas of a more rural character.
The notion that it was actually the city’s responsibility to remove snow is a product of the early-to-mid 19th century. The notion that all residents — not just the wealthiest — should benefit from this difficult civic task is newer still.
A snow plow at Union Square, circa 1901-1905 (LOC)
Snowed Under
There was no simple method for clearing thoroughfares.
The task was heavily labor intensive, with dozens of men shoveling down roads obscured with newly fallen snow. As a result, only the most important streets were cleared — mostly around City Hall, Wall Street and Fifth Avenue — leaving the rest of the city to fend for itself.
Later on, snow plows were attached to horses, piercing through the snow-covered streets, while wagons would follow along to collect the snow.
The arduous task of clearing the streets with only horses, shovels and carts, 1867 (NYPL)
The Mechanics of Removal
Civic snow removal was initially a responsibility of the police department up until 1881, when the Department of Street Cleaning became its own separate entity.
New York street-cleaners manned a broom during the spring and a shovel in the winter, working with horse-drawn carts in “piling and loading gangs” to clear gutters and intersections.
Most of the time, snow clearing was not even begun until it was believed the snowstorm was over. As a result, mountainous piles were even more difficult to tackle.
Obviously, this was slow going and highly prone to the corruption of the era. (Need snow removed from your street, business owner? ) And due to the erratic nature of snowfall, there were hardly enough men on hand at any given moment.
The Blizzard of 1888 changed everything in New York City. The storm was so devastating that certain streets were blocked for days.
More horrifying still, due to the hurricane-force winds, many people had been knocked unconscious and were subsequently buried in the snow. Not to mention the hundreds of dead animals also found underneath the massive snow drifts.
New York’s entire system of street cleaning — in sun or snow — radically changed when the Civil War veteran George E. Waring Jr. (pictured below) became commissioner of the Department of Street Cleaning in 1894.
The brilliant and reform-minded engineer had guided healthy sewage and draining maintenance throughout the country, from the design of Central Park to the streets of Memphis, Tennessee.
Snow Patrol
Waring transformed his men into a small military unit, garbed in all-white uniforms who occasionally marched in parades with Commissioner Waring out front, on horseback.
This military mindset was a boon for New York; Waring referred to his employees as “soldiers of the public.”
Street cleaning was no longer a luxury, but a necessity.
Clearing snow in the Waring era, 1896, photos by Alice Austen (she was riding around in her bike in this weather?) Courtesy NYPL
Waring was part of a large progressive movement in the 1890s, one that would finally, with zeal, tackle the numerous health and livelihood issues associated with the city’s overcrowded tenement districts.
A ‘Moral Obligatiion’
In the spring of 1897, the commissioner produced a lengthy treatise for Mayor William Strongon the thorny subject of clearing snow. Its opening paragraph lays out the scope of Waring’s staunch, progressive vision:
“The question of snow removal has always been one of the most vexatious problems confronting the various administrations. The removal of ‘new fallen snow from leading thoroughfares and such other streets and avenues as may be found practicable’ is a duty made obligatory upon the Commissioner by law, and with each year, the moral obligation to the vast traffic interests of congested Manhattan Island becomes more insistent.” [source]
Before Waring, never was it considered necessary to remove snow from the entire city, but only from “leading thoroughfares”.
However, thanks to the rise of sophisticated urban planning and progressive socialism, it soon became a “moral” responsibility on behalf of the health of the city and its citizens.
From the report: “[A] delay in the removal of the almost knee deep snow and befouled slush is at the cost of much sickness and, probably, lives each winter.”
By the late 1890s, Waring hired private contractors specifically for snow clearance, leaving his regular crew of street cleaners to focus on their regular responsibilities.
With the 20th century came motorized plows and more sophisticated street-cleaning rules to better facilitate the headache of a bad winter.
But after Waring, it would no longer be acceptable in the public’s eye to pick and choose which neighborhoods receive the city’s attention. (Both our former and current mayors have certainly learned this lesson!)
Below: Pictures Valentine’s Day Blizzard of 1914. The bottom picture is of Union Square, with snow covering the construction site of the new subway station. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
That was a headline in the New York Times back in November about the highly problematic section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway located beneath the Brooklyn Promenade, the romantic walkway that offers sumptuous views of lower Manhattan.
Everybody loves the Promenade. Nobody loves the BQE, especially in its present state. So how did we get here? You have to go all the way back to the origins of the neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights for the answers.
A stroll through Brooklyn Heights presents you with a unique collection of 19th-century homes — all preserved thanks to the efforts of community activists in the 20th century. Each street sign traces back to an original landholder from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Those are more than just street names. Each sign traces back to an original landholder who developed this special place in the early 19th century.
New York from Brooklyn Heights [The Hill-Bennett-Clover view.], 1837
By then, the land once known as Clover Hill had seen its share of both tranquility and drama, the former site of a Revolutionary War fort and a crucial evening in the saga of the American Revolution.
But by the 19th century, most Americans knew Brooklyn Heights for more than just architecture and George Washington. This was the home to respected cultural institutions and to scores of churches, so many that the borough received a very spiritual nickname.
The Heights would go on a roller-coaster ride with the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn’s transformation into a borough of Greater New York. The new subway would bring the bohemians of Greenwich Village into Brooklyn Heights, transforming it into an artist enclave for most of the century.
When Robert Moses began planning his Brooklyn Queens Expressway in the 1940s, he planned a route that would sever Brooklyn Heights and obliterate many of its most spectacular homes.
It would take a devoted community and some very clever ideas to re-route that highway and cover it with something extraordinary — a Promenade, allowing all New Yorkers to enjoy views of New York Harbor.
LISTEN NOW — THE STORY OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS AND THE PROMENADE
When, on October 24, 1929, the plaque to the The House of Four Chimneys was unveiled, visitors observed that two lines of the plaque were covered in tape. That’s because a minor war broke out between the Sons of the Revolution and the Daughters of the Revolution as to where the fateful meeting with George Washington and his general actually took place!
George Washington and the Contintental Army flee in the dead of night, from the shores below Brooklyn Heights.
The Werner Company, Akron, OhioView of Brooklyn Heights with Underhill’s Colonnade Buildings from the River, Thomas Swann Woodcock engraver, 1838m Museum of the City of New YorkA view of the bridge — taking Montague Street down to the water’s edge (and the Wall Street Ferry landing). From the excellent website Walt Whitman’s Brooklyn.Ferry House Foot of Montague Street, 1850. From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (courtesy Museum of the City of New York)
Just a small sampling of the architectural variance found in Brooklyn Heights:
FURTHER LISTENING:
Listen to these shows in our back catalog for more information on subjects mentioned in this show —
Whitman’s father was actually a builder and developer. A few of the houses he and his son Walt constructed are still standing in Brooklyn Heights.
Plymouth Church — and many residents of Brooklyn Heights — play a significant role in the abolitionist movement.
Henry Ward Beecher was, shall we say, a complicated man.
Brooklyn’s premier performing arts destination got its start on Montague Street — along with a few other notable institutions.
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every other week. We’re also looking to improve and expand the show in other ways — publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!
We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators.
Please visit our page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are six different pledge levels. Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
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We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.
On Lexington Avenue sits a special food store named Kalustyan’s with a second floor stocked with international spices, syrups and bitters. In 1881, this was the home of Chester A. Arthur, and it was here in the early morning hours of September 20, that he became the 21st President of the United States.
He is only one of two men inaugurated for president in New York City — the other was George Washington. And Arthur was certainly no Washington!
Fans of the Netflix series Death By Lightning have already been introduced to Arthur’s rugged, street-toughened personality, an efficient operator of Republican politics in a city governed by Democrats and Tammany Hall. He was quite famous, in fact, for converting Tammany men to Republican voters by using similar bareknuckle tactics.
He eventually became the Collector of the Port of New York, one of the most lucrative jobs in American government. And then, through a strange series of events, he was catapulted onto the national ticket for president, the running mate of James Garfield.
But nobody really wanted the New Yorker for president, did they?
This is a story not only of a man out of his depth, but of the two very different individuals who helped hone his reputation — the New York power broker Roscoe Conkling, and the Upper East Side recluse Julia Sand, who may have helped guide Arthur through the toughest moments of his ‘accidental’ presidency.
PLUS: How Madison Square Park has become one of the only true monuments to his legacy.
LISTEN TODAY: CHESTER A. ARTHUR — THE GENTLEMAN BOSS
This podcast was inspired by this website post I wrote back in 2017:
There are several enemies in Candice Millard‘s Destiny of the Republic, the terrific 2011 narrative history of the assassination of President James Garfield during the summer of 1881.
The most obvious foe is the delusional Charles Guiteau, who believed himself the nation’s savior when he shot President Garfield twice at a Washington DC train station on July 2, 1881.
Then there were the microbial infections transmitted during improperly sanitized operations performed by Garfield’s doctor at the White House, causing blood poisoning that worsened the president’s suffering and ultimately killed him.
For the purposes on this website, however, I was drawn into the tales of two New York politicians who became victims of rumor-mongering that summer.
From Puck Magazine: The Great Presidential Puzzle”: “Illustration shows Senator Roscoe Conkling, leader of the Stalwarts group of the Republican playing a puzzle game. All blocks in the puzzle are the heads of the potential Republican presidential candidates.”
Boss of the Gilded Age
Powerful New York senator Roscoe Conkling was seen as a political rival of Garfield’s, a thorn in the president’s side, especially considering Conkling’s own political protege — his pawn, really — was Garfield’s vice president, Chester A. Arthur.
Traumatic crises in this country are frequently accompanied by a churning undercurrent of suspicion and conspiracy, and Conkling and Arthur became victims of just such a shadowy accusation that summer.
Many believed Conkling to be culpable of the assassination attempt himself — perhaps not of pulling the trigger, but of fostering and encouraging the discord that inspired it.
The Fifth Avenue Hotel. Read more about Conkling and the Fifth Avenue Hotel here.
It’s not a stretch to consider Conkling an embodiment of the spoils system which determined hundreds of government jobs through political affiliation. Guiteau thought himself unfairly left out of that patronage system when he attacked Garfield that hot July day.
Conkling endured the disintegration of his political career from his rooms at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, the luxury accommodation at 23rd Street off Madison Square that became senator’s second home and a regular scene of political intrigue for the Republican Party.
Arthur in charge?
Meanwhile, many were mortified at the very thought of Arthur, hardly a universally admired figure, ascending to the presidency.
While the president lay incapacitated in Washington, there was even debate as to when presidential responsibilities should cede to the vice president. Nobody seemed enthusiastic at the prospect of a President Chester A. Arthur.
Thus, Arthur essentially spent his summer hiding out in his townhouse at 123 Lexington Avenue(below), fearful of seeming overly ambitious even as the fate of President Garfield seemed uncertain.
123 Lexington Avenue, taken from an Arthur biography (via Daytonian in Manhattan)
The Presidential Brownstone
On the day the president finally succumbed to his injuries, Arthur sobbed uncontrollably from his shuttered home as servants shooed away the press.
Several hours later, he was sworn in as the 21st President of the United States on September 20, at 2:15 a.m, from the green-shuttered parlor of his home here.
To quote from an excellent biography of Arthur The Unexpected President by Scott S. Greenberger:
“Judge R. Brady of the New York Supreme Court, who had been fetched out of bed, administered the oath of office at 2:15 am. Arthur recited the words solemnly, kissed his son, and accepted the congratulations of his friends. There were several carriages and a handful of reporters outside Arthur’s brownstone, and French had ordered two police officers to patrol the sidewalk in front. Otherwise, there was nothing to indicate that history had been made behind the closed blinds of 123 Lexington Avenue.”
He spend his first two hours as President smoking and chatting with friends, “[t]oo nervous and too excited to sleep.” He finally went to sleep at 5 am, the first morning of his presidency.
The brownstone at 123 Lexington Avenue still exists today. For decades, the Mediterranean grocer Kalustyan’s has inhabited the first two floors of the building.
123 Lexington Avenue, photo by Greg Young
And this is not the only landmark to Arthur in the neighborhood. A bronze statue to the former president stands in the northeast corner of Madison Square Park, dedicated on June 13, 1899.
Photo by Greg Young
FURTHER LISTENING
After listening to this podcast, head back to these past Bowery Boys episodes with similar or related themes:
PODCAST The ultimate history of New Year’s celebrations in New York City.
This is the story of the many ways in which New Yorkers have ushered in the coming year, a moment of rebirth, reconciliation, reverence and jubilation.
In a mix of the old and new, we present a history of early New Year’s festivities, before heading to the city’s most famous party — New Year’s Eve in Times Square.
Why did Times Square become the focal point for the world’s reflection on a new calendar year? And how did Times Square’s many changes in the 20th century influence those celebrations? Featuring Dick Clark, Guy Lombardo, Three Dog Night — and Daisy Duke.
THEN Greg brings you the story of the Chinese New Year which has been celebrated in Manhattan’s Chinatown since before there was even a Times Square! The celebration has been at the bedrock of the Chinese experience in New York. But in the 19th century, the customs of the season were met with curiosity, bewilderment and sometimes harsh disapproval. And what’s up with the fireworks?
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every other week. We’re also looking to improve the show in other ways and expand in other ways as well — through publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!
We are now a member of Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators for as little as a $1 a month.
Please visit our page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too — Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
Visit Times Square NYEfor details about this Tuesday’s party in Times Square. For general information about this year’s Chinese New Year, check out this handy web guide. And visit Better Chinatownfor a map of this year’s parade route.
New Years Day celebrations have evolved since the days of New Amsterdam when visitations symbolized a ‘fresh start’ to the year.
Courtesy NYPL
A decorative cigar box from the 1890s, ringing in the new year with a winsome damsel and wholesome scenes of winter beckoning you to smoke a cigar.
Courtesy Museum of the City of New York
The crowds outside Trinity Church on 1906 gathered to usher in the new year. The church was traditionally the place people gathered before the Times Square celebration took off.
Fated to be the centerpiece of New Years Eve, One Times Square once wore some beautiful architecture until much of it was ripped off to accommodate a frenzy of electronic signs.
Courtesy NYPL
Times Square in 1905 for the very first New Years Eve celebration albeit one with fireworks, not a ball drop.
Courtesy NYPL
The party offerings at the Hotel Astor in Times Square in 1926.
Courtesy Museum of the City of New York
The view of Times Square from the Empire State Building.
Courtesy NYPL
New Years Eve 1938
AP photo
The throngs in 1940 with the Gone With The Wind marquee in the background (not to mention Tallulah Bankhead in the play The Little Foxes!)
Courtesy New York Daily News
Ushering in 1953:
Celebrations were also held for a time in Central Park, like this festive group from 1969:
Courtesy New York Parks Department
An electrician from the Artkraft Strauss Sign Corporation tests out the lighting effects that will greet the new year in 1992.
MARTY LEDERHANDLER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Images of Chinese New Year celebrations in Chinatown from the early 20th century, courtesy the Library of Congress.
[1900] Library of CongressChinese child with an adult on step outside of building, Chinatown, New York City, 1909. Library of Congress[Jan. 30 1911] Library of Congress
The parade in 1936.
Museum of the City of New York
The Chinese New Year Parade of 1943 was decidedly more patriotic
This month marks the 190th anniversary of one of the most devastating disasters in New York City history — The Great Fire of 1835.
This massive fire, among the worst in American history in terms of its economic impact, devastated the city during one freezing December evening, destroying hundreds of shops and warehouses and changing the face of Manhattan forever.
It also underscored the city’s need for a functioning water system and permanent fire department.
So why were there so many people drinking champagne in the street? And how did the son of Alexander Hamilton save the day?
FEATURING Such Old New York sites as the Tontine Coffee House, Stone Street, Hanover Square and Delmonico’s.
To mark this special anniversary, we have newly remastered and edited our classic Bowery Boys podcast on this subject which was originally released on March 13, 2009
LISTEN HERE: THE GREAT FIRE THAT TRANSFORMED NEW YORK
At top: Nicolino Calyo captured the terrible sight of the blaze as it might have looked from Red Hook, Brooklyn
Before the blaze: Charming Wall Street in 1825, from a 1920s guide book. Prosperity from the Erie Canal was just around the bend. (Courtesy Ephemeral New York)
The original Merchant’s Exchange building, one of New York’s more ornate building, featuring a statue of Alexander Hamilton standing nobly in its rotunda. (Illustration courtesy the New York Public Library image gallery)
What’s the damage?: the red areas below indicate the blocks destroyed by the swift moving conflagration (map courtesy CUNY)
City officials, including mayor Cornelius Lawrence, could only watch and stare as the blaze over takes a stretch of prominent buildings. Also included below is Charles King, who watches as his newspaper the New York American is overcome by the fire.
Calyo’s painted depiction of the “Burning of the Merchant’s Exchange”
Another interpretation from the same angle — the futility of battling the blaze was chillingly illustrated from the corner Wall and William streets, where winds carried the flames from building to building, high above the heads of fighters below.
As the old Dutch Church on Garden Street caught fire, a morose parishioner mounted the organ and began playing a dirge. (Where’s Garden Street? According to Forgotten New York, Garden Street was “between William Street and Broadway, just south of Wall Street” and is now part of Exchange Place today.)
Aftermath at the Merchant’s Exchange. Many business owners actually tranferred their stock to the Exchange building, unfortunately thinking it would be impervious to the encroaching flames.
The devastation that met New Yorkers the following day led most to believe the city would never recover.
Most of the buildings on today’s Stone Street were built in the immediate years following the fire, Greek Revival-style countinghouses that are refitted for modern times as taverns and restaurants. It’s also one of the few cobblestone streets still around in the Financial District area.
And did you know there was also a terrible fire ten years later — in almost the same location? Check out my article on the Great Fire of 1845 — and these captivating illustrations by Currier and Ives:
In this Currier & Ives lithograph, the serene fountain in Bowling Green as flames consume buildings all around it.
Who exactly was Nicolino Calyo, the man who painted so many vivid pictures of the Great Fire?
Nicolino Vicomte de Calyo was a political dissenter who fled Italy in the 1830s and settled in Baltimore, becoming entranced by the new American landscape.
Although his most famous depictions of New York are of the city in flame, he also painted a few serene views (like the one below, a vantage of the harbor from Brooklyn Heights).
His works are in many New York museums, including the Burning of the Merchant’s Exchange which is at the Museum of the City of New York.
Another cool resource on the Great Fire is up at the CUNY website, with more pictures and more backstory as to New York’s capacity to fight blazes in the early 19th century.
FURTHER LISTENING
Other podcasts in our back catalog that relate to this week’s show:
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
We’re also looking to improve and expand the show in other ways — publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!
We are now a creator on Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators.
Please visit our page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans.
If you’d like to help out, there are six different pledge levels.Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.
Above: John Purroy Mitchel, the ‘boy mayor’, in 1910 PODCAST As New York City enters the final stages of this year’s mayoral election, let’s look back on a decidedly more unusual contest 110 years ago, pitting Tammany Hall and their estranged ally (Mayor William Jay Gaynor) up against a baby-faced newcomer, the (second) youngest man to ever become the mayor of New York City.
John Purroy Mitchel, the Bronx-born grandson of an Irish revolutionary, was a rising star in New York City, aggressively sweeping away incompetence and snipping away at government excess.
Under his watch, two of New York’s borough presidents were fired, just for being ineffectual! Mitchel made an ideal candidate for mayor in an era where Tammany Hall cronyism still dominated the nature of New York City.
Nobody could predict the strange events which befell the city during the election of 1913, unfortunate and even bizarre incidents which catapulted this young man to City Hall and gave him the nickname “the Boy Mayor of New York“.
But things did not turn out as planned. He won his election with the greatest victory margin in New York City history. He left office four years later with an equally large margin of defeat.
Tune in to our tale of this oft-ignored figure in New York City history, an example of good intentions gone wrong and — due to his tragic end — the only mayor honored with a memorial in Central Park.
PLUS: The totally bizarre death in 1913 of Tammany Hall’s most popular leader
The Bowery Boys Podcast is proud to be sponsored by Founded By NYC, celebrating New York City’s 400th anniversary in 2025 and the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026.
Read about all the exciting events and world class institutions commemorating the five boroughs legacy of groundbreaking achievements, and find ways to celebrate the city that’s always making history at Founded by NYC.
Mayor William Jay Gaynor on his inauguration day in 1909, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall, from his home in Park Slope.
William Jay Gaynor at the very moment he was shot in 1910, on an ocean vessel docked in Hoboken. This picture was taken by a New York World photographer, one of the most famous works of early journalism photography.
Gaynor (at left) attempted to stage a political comeback (after being by Tammany Hall) at the notification of his independent candidacy at City Hall in September 1913. The shovel in front of him was his campaign emblem.
Within a few days, he would be dead of the assassin’s bullet he received three years earlier.
The death of Big Tim Sullivan also caused ripples in the mayoral election of 1913. The picture below is of the Bowery, overflowing with mourners.
While Sullivan was out of politics (and in an asylum) by 1913, his sudden and unusual passing had an effect on Tammany Hall supporters, throwing another strange event into an already tumultuous year.
Mayor Mitchel with President Woodrow Wilson in May 1914, at a memorial service for American marines and seamen killed in Veracruz during the Mexican Revolution.
Mitchel at his desk at City Hall, presumably cracking down on some kind of over-expenditure or waste. Or possibly silently suffering from migraine headaches which plagued him during his entire term as mayor.
John with his wife Jane.
Gerstner Field in Louisiana, where Mitchel had his tragic airplane accident on July 6, 1918.
Another New York funeral: The body of John Purroy Mitchel is carried in a procession from City Hall, through the Washington Arch, and up to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Theodore Roosevelt, one of the pallbearers at Mitchel’s funeral, leaves St. Patrick’s in this short film by Edison.
The John Purroy Mitchel memorial, near the reservoir in Central Park.
Most pictures above are public domain, courtesy of the Library of Congress
