Author: Bowery Boys

Every Bowery Boys History podcast in chronological order by subject

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date June 17, 2025
10 Comments on Every Bowery Boys History podcast in chronological order by subject

Detroit Publishing Company 1900, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Eighteen 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.

That’s right! If our podcast were a person, it would be able to vote in this year’s mayoral election.

(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 seventeen.

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.)

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.

Viewing our back catalog of podcasts in this fashion, we hope that you can really start seeing the entire history of New York City emerging. To this day, there are some blatant holes in our historical coverage that we hope to close up in future shows.

So enjoy! And thank you all again.

*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).

You can find our podcasts anyplace. Read here for more information on where you can find our shows.

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.

DUTCH AND ENGLISH PERIOD

Land of the Lenape and #432 The Lenape Nation: Past, Present and Future (Pre 1609 inhabitants)

#83 Henry Hudson and the European Discovery of Mannahatta (1609 – Hudson sails into the harbor)

#272 Life in New Amsterdam (1624 First permanent European on Manhattan Island)

#433 New Amsterdam Man: An Interview with Russell Shorto

#434 Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: Empire of the Seas

#435 Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: The Radical Walloons

#436 Amsterdam/New Amsterdam: Finding Peter Stuyvesant

#437 Haarlem, Breukelen, Utrecht: Exploring New York’s Dutch Roots

#212 Bronx Trilogy: The Bronx Is Born(1639 Jonas Bronck sets up a farm on what would be called the Bronx River)

#267 Broadway: The Story of a Street (1642 First mention of the street in Dutch documents)

#273 Peter Stuyvesant and the Fall of New Amsterdam (1647 Stuyvesant arrives)

#390 The Story of Flatbush: Brooklyn Old And New (1651 The village of Flatbush chartered)

#430 The Story of Flushing: Queens History, Old and New (1661 John Bowne House is constructed)

#452 How New York Got Its Name (1664 England takes over New York)

#454 Special Delivery: A History of the Post Office (1670s Construction of the Boston Post Road)

#301 Haunted Houses of Old New York (1680 Conference House built)

#228 The Pirate of Pearl Street: The New York Adventures of Captain Kidd (1690 Kidd moves to New York)

#97 Trinity Church (1698 First Trinity Church opens)

#406 How Wall Street Got Its Name (1711 Wall Street slave market opened)

#149 John Peter Zenger and the Power of the Press (1735 Zenger trial)

#379 How Chelsea Became a Neighborhood (1750 The original Chelsea Manor is completed)

#90 Columbia University (1754 King’s College established)

#115 African Burial Ground (Mid 18th century — Burials begin in the area south of Collect Pond)

REVOLUTION

The Revolutionary Tavern of Samuel Fraunces (1762 Samuel Fraunces opens tavern)

#266 New York City During the Revolutionary War (1776-1783)

#333 Tearing Down King George: The Monumental Summer of 1776

#201 GOWANUS! Brooklyn’s Troubled Waters (1776 Battle of Brooklyn)

#191 The Great Fire of 1776 (1776 Fire at the Fighting Cocks Tavern)

#298 The Story of Brooklyn Heights (1776 Washington’s meeting at the House of the Four Chimneys)

#157 Early Ghost Stories of Old New York (1778 Mohican tribe fighting for the Continental Army slaughtered)

#421 Evacuation Day: Forgotten Holiday of the American Revolution (1783 British leave New York for good)

NEW YORK IN THE NEW NATION

#373 New York Underground: The Story of Cemeteries (1788 The Doctors Riot)

#220 George Washington’s New York Inauguration (1789)

#221 New York: Capital City of the United States (1789-1790)

#63 New York Stock Exchange (1792 Buttonwood Agreement)

#354 Who Wrote The First American Cookbook? (1796 Amelia Simmons publishes American Cookery)

#240 Ghosts of Greenwich Village (1797 The area of today’s Washington Square becomes a potter’s field)

#112 Archibald Gracie and His Mansion (1799 Mansion constructed)

#138 St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery (1799 Chapel opens)

#239 Murder at the Manhattan Well (1799 Elma Sands is murdered)

#65 Spooky Stories of New York (1799 Featuring the ‘ghost story’ version of the tale above, among other tales)

#41 New York Post (1801 Alexander Hamilton establishes the paper)

#297 Dr. Hosack’s Enchanted Garden (1801 Hosack opens Elgin Botanic Garden)

#414 The Brooklyn Navy Yard and Vinegar Hill (1810 Navy Yard opens)

#19 Washington Irving (1802 Irving begins writing)

#169 DUEL! Aaron Burr vs. Alexander Hamilton (1804 The infamous duel between Burr and Hamilton)

#367 The Ice Craze: How the Ice Business Transformed New York (1806 The first American ice business is formed)

#185 Adventures in Governors Island (1807 Castle Williams constructed)

#258 Tales from Tribeca History (1807 St. John’s Chapel and the first ‘upscale’ neighborhood are created)

#31 Battery Park and Castle Clinton (1808 Castle Clinton constructed)

#9 St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral (1809 Cathedral begins construction)

#422 Grace Church: A Most Fashionable History (Grace’s original congregation forms)

#50 Canal Street and Collect Pond (1811 Collect Pond is filled)

#163 South Street Seaport (1811 Schermerhorn Row counting houses constructed)

#93 City Hall and City Hall Park (1811 City Hall constructed)

#40 Union Square (1815 Union Place opened)

#343 Literary Horrors of New York City (1819 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is published)

#145 Bicycle Mania! From Velocipede to Ten-Speed (1819 First bicycle on the streets of New York)

NEW YORK, NEW WEALTH

#152 Bellevue Hospital (1821 Hospital opens)

#403 The Fulton Fish Market: History at the Seaport (1822 Market opens)

#407 New York By Gaslight (1823 New York gets its first gas company)

#52 DeWitt Clinton and the Erie Canal (1825 Canal opens)

Seneca Village and New York’s Forgotten Black Communities (1825 Seneca Village founded)

#388 The Hudson River School: An American Art Revolution (1825 Thomas Cole moves to Catskill, New York)

#460 The Brooklyn Museum and the Birth of a New City (1825 Brooklyn Apprentices Library opens)

#7 Washington Square Park (1826 City buys potter’s field to create a military parade ground)

#70 The Bowery Files (1826 – Bowery Theatre opens)

#252 The Underground Railroad: Escape Through New York (1826 David Ruggles moves to New York)

#58 Delmonico’s Restaurant (1827 First restaurant opens)

#142 New York University (NYU) (1831 College founded on Washington Square)

#193 St. Mark’s Place: Party In The East Village (1831 Hamilton-Holly house constructed)

#241 Edgar Allan Poe in New York (1831 Poe moves to New York)

#91 Haunted Tales of New York (1832 Merchant’s House built)

#171 The Keys to Gramercy Park(1833 Gramercy Park enclosed with a private fence)

#94 Corlear’s Hook and the Pirates of the East River (1833 First tenement built in the Hook)

#140 Rockaway Beach (1833 Marine Pavilion opens)

#224 The Arrival of the Irish: An Immigrant Story (1830s)

#113 Niblo’s Garden (1834 William Niblo opens the theater)

Strange Hoaxes of the 19th Century (1835 The Moon Hoax runs in the New York Sun)

City in Flames: The Great Fire of 1835

#211 The Notorious Madame Restell: The Abortionist of Fifth Avenue (1836 Ann Lohman begins work)

#222 Who Killed Helen Jewett? A Mystery By Gaslight (1836 Jewett murdered that Spring)

#59 Five Points: Wicked Slum (1837 Old Brewery becomes a slum)

#38 Tiffany & Co. (1837 Tiffany’s first opens)

#64 Green-Wood Cemetery (1838 Cemetery opens in Brooklyn)

#291 The Tombs: Five Points’ Notorious House of Detention (1838 Prison opens)

#82 Roosevelt Island (1839 – Lunatic asylum opens)

#242 New York and the Dawn of Photography and The First Woman Ever Photographed (1839 John Draper and his sister Dorothy Catherine first work on the photographic process at NYU)

#425 It Happened at Madison Square Park (1839 Madison Cottage opens)

#130 Haunted Histories of New York (1841 – Most Holy Trinity in Bushwick constructed)

#46 Barnum’s American Museum (1841 Museum opens)

#66 Who Killed Mary Rogers? (1841 Rogers is murdered)

#143 Water for New York: Croton Aqueduct (1842 Croton Aqueduct opens)

#386 On the Trail of the Old Croton Aqueduct (1842 Croton Aqueduct opens)

#428 The New York Game: Baseball in the Early Years (1842 First baseball game in Madison Square area)

NEW YORK: THE GROWING CITY

#324 Moving Day: Mayhem and Madness in Old New York (Essentially Every May)

#133 Red Hook: Brooklyn on the Waterfront (1847 Atlantic Basin constructed)

#37 Henry Ward Beecher and Plymouth Church (1847 Beecher moves to Brooklyn)

#281 The Treasures of Downtown Brooklyn (1848 Brooklyn City Hall constructed)

#293 Secrets of Upper Manhattan (1848 High Bridge constructed)

#289 Blood and Shakespeare: The Astor Place Riot (1849 Riot erupts outside Astor Place Opera House)

#356 Pfizer: A Brooklyn Origin Story (1849 Charles Pfizer begins selling worm medication)

#394 New York Calling: A History of the Telephone (1849 Antonio Meucci invents a version of the telephone in Staten Island)

#160 Tompkins Square Park (1850 Park opens)

#316 Jenny Lind at Castle Garden (1850 Lind performs at the Garden)

#181 Park Slope and the Story of Brownstone Brooklyn (1850s Edwin Litchfield purchases parcels of land in South Brooklyn)

#75 Williamsburg(h), Brooklyn (1852 City of Williamsburgh)

#178 The Crystal Palace: America’s First World’s Fair (1853 Crystal Palace opens)

#92 Steinway: the Piano Man (1853 Henry Steinway opens first shop in Manhattan)

#117 Mark Twain’s New York (1853 Young Mark Twain first visits New York)

#60 Five Points Part Two: The Fate of Five Points (1853 New Mission replaces the Old Brewery)

#51 McSorley’s Old Ale House (1854 Tavern opens)

#419 Ghost Stories by Gaslight (1854 Astor Library opens)

#25 The Original Bowery Boys (1855 Death of Bowery Boys leader Bill the Butcher)

#283 Walt Whitman in New York and Brooklyn (1855 Whitman first publishes Leaves of Grass)

#389 The Ruins of Roosevelt Island (1856 Smallpox Hospital built on Blackwell’s Island)

#103 Case Files of the NYPD (1857 Infamous police riot between Municipals and Metropolitans)

#382 Architect of the Gilded Age (1857 Hunt opens the Tenth Street Studios building)

#232 The Story of SoHo (1857 E.V. Haugtwout’s emporium opens)

#276 Murder on Bond Street (1857 Harvey Burdell is murdered)

#300 The Forgotten Father of New York City (1857 Andrew Haswell Green becomes involved with the Central Park Commission)

#385 Frederick Law Olmsted and the Plan for Central Park (1858 Olmsted and Vaux win the Central Park design competition)

#54 The Creation of Central Park (1857 Park opens)

#415 The Early Years of Central Park (1858 Park opens for ice skating)

#418 Theodore Roosevelt’s Wild Kingdom (1858 Theodore Roosevelt born)

#134 St. Patrick’s Cathedral (1858 Cornerstone laid)

#30 Peter Cooper and Cooper Union (1858 Cooper Union begins construction)

#23 Macy’s: the Man, the Store, the Parade (1858 Rowland Macy opens first store)

#129 Chinatown (1858 First Chinese resident of New York documented)

#325 The Staten Island Quarantine War (1858 Residents burn the hospital)

#268 The Astonishing Saga of the Atlantic Cable (1858 First communications made)

#126 Fernando Wood: The Scoundrel Mayor (1860 Wood becomes mayor of New York)

#139 Brooklyn Academy of Music (1861 Academy opens)

#285 Boss Tweed’s House of Corruption (1861 Construction begins on the courthouse)

#286 Uncovering Hudson Yards (1861 Abraham Lincoln first arrives in New York via the Hudson River Railroad)

The Real Mrs. Astor: Ruler or Rebel? (1862 The Astors move to 34th and Fifth Avenue)

#357 Edith Wharton’s New York (1862 Wharton is born on 23rd Street)

#348 Cheers! The Stories of Four Fabulous Cocktails (1862 Jerry Thomas publishes his bartending guide)

#340 The Real Life Adventures of Tom Thumb (1863 Stratton marries Lavinia Warren)

#183 Orchard Street: Life On The Lower East Side (1863 Construction of 97 Orchard Street)

#127 The Civil War Draft Riots (1863 Summer of Draft Riots)

#10 Central Park Zoo (1864 Menagerie opens)

#128 Hoaxes and Conspiracies of 1864 (1864 Confederate fires set in November)

#320 The History of Hart Island (1864 The island becomes a potter’s field)

Painting George Loring Brown, courtesy Museum of the City of New York

NEW YORK: BEGINNINGS OF A GILDED AGE

The Bowery Boys Presents: The First Broadway Musical (1866 The Black Crook debuts)

#368 Henry Bergh’s Fight for Animal Rights in Gilded Age New York (1866 Bergh founds the ASPCA)

#84 Prospect Park (1867 Park opens to the public)

#141 New York Beer History (1867 George Ehret opens brewery)

#102 Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach (1868 – First resort in Brighton Beach)

#274 Ghost Stories of Hell’s Kitchen (1868 Landmark Tavern opens)

#114 Supernatural Stories of New York (1869 – Hart Island first used as a potter’s field)

#131 The First Apartment Building (1869 Stuyvesant Apartments constructed)

#207 The First Subway: Beach’s Pneumatic Marvel (1869 Alfred Ely Beach builds under Broadway)

#329 The First Ambulance: The Humans (And Horses) Who Saved New York (1869 Bellevue debuts its ambulance service)

#366 North Brother Island: New York’s Forbidden Place (1869 The lighthouse is constructed)

#331 The East Side Elevateds: Life Under the Tracks (1870 First elevated railroad for passengers)

#161 Fire Department of New York (FDNY) (1870 City-funded fire team founded)

#341 The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1870 Museum is founded)

#238 Astoria and Long Island City (1870 Long Island City becomes an official municipality)

#177 The Big History of Little Italy (1870s Italian immigrants began arriving in large numbers)

#429 The Moores: A Black Family in 1860s New York (1970 The Moores move to their Lauren Street tenement)

#86 Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall (1871 Boss Tweed arrested)

#45 Grand Central and #431 Park Avenue: History with a Penthouse View (1871 Grand Central Depot opens)

#198 Greenpoint, Brooklyn: An Industrial Strength History (1874 Faber Pencil Factory opens)

#458 Parkways and the Transformation of Brooklyn (1874 Eastern Parkway opens)

#270 Heaven on the Hudson: A History of Riverside Park (1875 Riverside Park first opens)

#323 The Bowery Wizards: A History of Tattooed New York (1876 Edison invents the tattoo machine)

#396 Samuel Tilden and the Presidential Election of 1876 (1876 Americans go to the polls and make an indecisive choice)

Dinosaurs and Diamonds: The American Museum of Natural History (1877 First portion of museum opens)

#215 Ghosts of the Gilded Age (1877 Mysterious body found in an abandoned Queens farmhouse)

#395 Jefferson Market and the Women’s House of Detention (1877 Jefferson Market Courthouse opens)

#339 James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central (1878 James Williams born)

#107 New York’s Elevated Railroads (1878 First regular elevated railroad in service)

#375 The Great Bank Robbery of 1878

#172 Ghost Stories of Brooklyn (1878 Reports of a ghostly doorbell in Clinton Hill)

Art by Charles Hart. Courtesy Museum City of New York

NEW YORK: CITY OF INNOVATION

#99 Madison Square Garden (1879 First Madison Square Garden opens)

#376 Skid Row: The Bowery of the Forgotten (1879 The Bowery Mission opens)

#8 Dakota Apartments and ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ (1880 Dakota begins construction)

#449 Italian Harlem: New York’s Forgotten Little Italy (1880s Italians move uptown)

The Mystery of the Central Park Obelisk (1881 Obelisk erected in Central Park)

#186 Hell’s Kitchen: New York’s Wild West (1881 Incident at Hell’s Kitchen tenement)

#225 P. T. Barnum and the Greatest Show on Earth (1881 Barnum and Bailey Circus formed)

#132 Electric New York: Edison and the City Lights (1882 Pearl Street Station opened)

#347 Steam Heat! A Gilded Age Miracle (1882 Steam system constructed)

#387 Hyde Park: The Roosevelts on the Hudson (1882 Franklin D. Roosevelt born in Hyde Park)

#426 Behind the Domino Sign: Brooklyn’s Bittersweet Empire (1882 The Brooklyn sugar plant opens)

#108 Cable Cars, Trolleys and Monorails (1883 New York’s first cable car system)

#29 Brooklyn Bridge and #410 The Roeblings: The Family Who Built The Bridge (1883 Bridge completed)

#261 The Huddled Masses: Emma Lazarus and the Statue of Liberty (1883 Lazarus writes poem)

#89 Chelsea Hotel (1883-5 Hotel is constructed as a cooperative)

#79 The Whyos: Gang of New York (1884 Whyos list of ‘killing prices’ published)

#179 The Fight for Bryant Park (1884 Park renamed for William Cullen Bryant)

#275 Return to Tin Pan Alley: Saving American Music History (1885 First music publishers move to West 28th Street)

#81 The Puck Building: “What Fools These Mortals Be!” (1885 Puck Building constructed)

#34 Katz Delicatessen (1886 Deli opens as the Iceland Brothers)

#73 Webster Hall “The Devil’s Playhouse” (1886 Webster Hall completed)

#16 Statue of Liberty (1886 Statue dedicated)

#439 The Ticker-Tape Parade: A Very New York Celebration

#294 That Daredevil Steve Brodie (1886 Brodie jumps of the Brooklyn Bridge — or does he?)

#308 Andrew Carnegie and New York’s Public Libraries (1886 Carnegie donates money for his first library in the United States)

#194 Nellie Bly – Undercover In the Madhouse (1887 Nellie goes to the asylum)

#304 The Miracle at Eldridge Street (1887 Synagogue opens)

#269 Harry Houdini and the Golden Age of Magic in New York (1887 The future Harry Houdini moves to New York)

#148 Frozen In Time: The Great Blizzard of 1888 (1888 The blizzard hits)

TESLA: The Inventor in Old New York (1888 Westinghouse licenses Tesla patents)

#216 Edwin Booth and the Players Club (1888 Booth forms the Players Club in Gramercy Park)

#400 Jacob Riis: ‘The Other Half’ of the Gilded Age (1888 Riis begins the lectures which will culminate in his landmark book)

#169 The Tallest Building In New York: A Short History (1890 Construction of the New York World Building)

#213 Bronx Trilogy: The Bronx Is Building (1890 Construction begins on the Grand Concourse)

#256 DUMBO: Life on Brooklyn’s Waterfront (1890 Robert Gair invents the cardboard box)

#371 A Visit to Little Syria: An Immigrant Story (1890 Sahadi’s opens on the Lower West Side)

#312 Has Jack the Ripper Come To Town? (1891 Carrie Brown is brutally murdered)

#57 Carnegie Hall (1891 Hall opens)

#360 The Botanical Gardens of New York City (1891 The New York Botanical Garden is established)

Nickelodeons and Movie Palaces: New York and the Film Industry (1892 First Kinetoscope parlor)

#88 Ellis Island(1892 Immigration station opens)

#237 Columbus Circle: A Century of Controversy (1892 Columbus Circle opens)

#262 Secrets of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine (1892 Work begins on the cathedral)

NEW YORK: CITY OF SCANDALS

#21 The Astors and the Waldorf-Astoria

#244 The Rise of the Fifth Avenue Mansions (1893 Waldorf Hotel Opens)

#295 Saving The City: Women Of The Progressive Era (1893 Lilian Wald opens the Henry Street Settlement)

#296 Talking Trash: A History of New York City Sanitation (1894 George E. Waring Jr becomes commissioner)

#335 Pulitzer vs Hearst: The Rise of Yellow Journalism (1895 Hearst buys the New York Morning Journal)

#146 Herald Square (1894 New offices for the New York Herald)

#355 The Midnight Adventures of Doctor Parkhurst (1894 Parkhurst goes on his trip to the ‘underworld’)

#409 The Great New York City Pizza Tour (1894 New evidence of the first pizza sold in America)

#165 Ladies’ Mile (1896 Siegel-Cooper Department Store opens)

#305 Christmas in New York: The Lights of Dyker Heights (1896 Dyker Heights Club opens)

#359 The Magic of the Movie Theater (1896 The Vitascope debuts at Koster and Bial’s vaudeville house)

#378 The Ansonia: Only Scandals In The Building (1897 The Ansonia is completed)

#87 The Kings of New York Pizza (1897 Lombardi’s Pizza opens)

#47 Grants Tomb (1897 Tomb completed)

#189 TAXI: History of the New York City taxicab (1897 first electric taxis)

#71 Saks Fifth Avenue (1898 Store founded)

#150 Consolidation! Five Boroughs, One Big City (1898 Five boroughs created)

#443 Ghost Stories of the Five Boroughs

#336 The War on Newspaper Row (1898 The Spanish American War)

#101 The Bronx Zoo (1899 Zoo opens)

#251 McGurk’s Suicide Hall (1899 – McGurk’s earns its grim nickname)

#219 Newsies on Strike! (1899 Strike freezes newspaper delivery)

#290 Bagels: A New York Story (1900s First bagel unions established)

#315 Abandoned Pantheon: The Hall of Fame For Great Americans (1900 Pantheon established in the Bronx)

#159 The Broadway Musical: Setting the Stage (1901 Florodora opens)

#328: Chop Suey City: A History of Chinese Food in New York (1901 Chinese Tuxedo opens in Chinatown)

#397 Ghost Stories of the Hudson River (1901 Construction begins on Bannerman Castle)

#184 The Flatiron Building: A Story from Three Sides (1902 Flatiron constructed)

#446 Mr. Morgan and His Magnificent Library (1902 Construction begins on the Morgan Library)

#259 Crossing to Brooklyn: How the Williamsburg Bridge Changed New York (1903 Bridge opens)

#166 General Slocum Disaster 1904

#12 Coney Island: The Golden Age (1904 Dreamland opens)

#109 New York City Subway, Part 1: Birth of the IRT

#253 Opening Day of the New York Subway (1904 — First subway opens)

#28 One Times Square (1904 New York Times opens new headquarters)

#118 Times Square (1904 – New York Times opens new headquarters)

#440 When Longacre Square Became Times Square

#352 The Birth of Black Harlem (1904 — Philip A. Payton incorporates Afro-American Realty Company)

#332 Welcome to Yorkville: German Life on the Upper East Side (19o4 Yorkville Casino Opens)

#106 Staten Island Ferry (1905 – New York takes over private ferry service)

#188 The Murder of Stanford White (1906 White is killed at MSG)

The Curious Case of Typhoid Mary (1906 Mary gets a job in Oyster Bay)

NEW YORK IN TRANSITION

#245 The Fall of the Fifth Avenue Mansions (1906 B. Altman’s department store opens on Fifth Avenue)

#69 The Plaza Hotel (1907 Hotel opens)

#74 The Ziegfeld Follies (1907 The first Follies)

#284 Scott Joplin in New York: A Ragtime Mystery (1907 Joplin moves to New York)

#441 The Recluse of Herald Square: The Ida Wood Mystery (1907 Ida Wood withdraws her money)

#279 A New Year in Old New York: From Times Square to Chinatown (1907 – first Times Square ball drop)

#98 Manhattan Bridge (1909 Bridge opens)

#349 The Queensboro Bridge and the Rise of a Borough (1909 Bridge opens)

#370 Tragic Muse: The Life of Audrey Munson (1909 Munson moves to New York)

#311 Uprising: The Shirtwaist Strike of 1909

#280 House of Mystery: The Story of the Collyer Brothers (1909 The Collyer family moves to Harlem)

#180 The Chelsea Piers and the Age of the Ocean Liner (1910 – Chelsea Piers constructed)

#205 The Disappearance of Dorothy Arnold (1910 – Dorothy Disappears)

The Construction of Penn Station (1910 – Penn Station opens)

#42 The Triangle Factory Fire (1911 Disaster occurs in March)

#372 The Shuberts: The Brothers Who Built Broadway (1911 The Shubert open the Winter Garden)

#17 New York Public Library (1911 Main branch opens)

#271 Counter Culture: Diners, Automats and Luncheonettes in New York (1912 — The first automat opens in NYC)

#408 The Titanic and the Fate of Pier 54 (1912 The Titanic sinks)

#399 The Changing Lower East Side: A View From Seward Park (1912 The Forward Building opens)

#147 Art Insanity: The Armory Show of 1913 (1913 — Exhibition debuts)

#110 New York City Subway, Part 2: By the Numbers (and Letters) (1913 — The Dual Contracts agreement inspired subway growth)

Harlem Nights at the Hotel Theresa (1913 — Hotel constructed)

#156 The Boy Mayor of New York (1913 – Mitchel elected mayor)

#76 Woolworth Building (1913 — Woolworth Building completed)

#249 Madam C.J. Walker: Harlem’s Hair Care Millionaire (1913 Walker opens her first salon in Harlem)

#39 New York Yankees (1913 Highlanders renamed the Yankees)

#263 Ebbets Field and the Glory Days of the Brooklyn Dodgers (1913 Ebbets Field opens)

#401: The World Before Wordle: A History of Puzzles (1913 The first crossword puzzle)

#202 The Lower East Side: A Culinary History (1914 – Russ & Daughters opens)

#226 Beauty Bosses of Fifth Avenue (1915 – Rubinstein opens her first shop)

#353 Harlem Before the Renaissance (1916 Marcus Garvey moves to Harlem)

#199 Battle For The Skyline: How High Can It Go (1916 – Zoning Law)

#197 Danger In The Harbor: The Black Tom Explosion (1916 – Explosion Occurs)

#384 Nuyorican: The Great Puerto Rican Migration (Puerto Ricans receive American citizenship)

#330 The Silent Parade of 1917: Black Unity in a Time of Crisis

#310 1918: The Story of the Harlem Hellfighters (1918 Hellfighters in France)

Samuel H. Gottscho, courtesy Museum of the City of New York

NEW YORK IN THE JAZZ AGE

#223 The Algonquin Round Table (1919)

#369 Last Dance at the Hotel Pennsylvania (1919 The Hotel Pennsylvania opens)

The Landmarks of Coney Island (1920 Wonder Wheel opens)

#144 Mysteries and Magicians of New York (1920 – Joseph Rinn debunks spiritualists at Carnegie Hall)

On the Radio: A History of the Airwaves (1920 – First radio station)

#18 Ghost Stories of New York City (1920 Showgirl Olive Thomas commits suicide)

#243 New York In Neon: Signs of the City (1920s The first neon signs in NYC)

#265 Absolutely Flawless: A History of Drag in New York (1920s Harlem drag balls draw thousands of spectators)

#125 Sardi’s Restaurant (1921 – Sardi’s opens for business)

#196 Ready to Wear: A History of the Garment District (1920s – Moves from LES to Midtown)

#100 Robert Moses (1922 Robert Moses begins work on New York City parks)

#362 Gatsby and the Mansions of the Gold Coast (1922 The year The Great Gatsby is set)

#313 The Straw Hat Riots of 1922

#192 Haunted Landmarks of New York (1923 – John Campbell leases his Apartment in Grand Central)

#260 Journey to Grey Gardens: A Tale of Two Edies (1924 — The Beales move to the Grey Gardens estate)

#321 Lauren Bacall: At Home at the Dakota Apartments (1924 Betty Joan Perske is born)

#445 The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: A Century of Cheer (1924 The first parade)

#153 NYC and the Birth of Television (1925 – First television broadcast from Roosevelt Hotel)

#450 Harlem in the Jazz Age: A Renaissance in New York (1925 Unofficial start of the Harlem Renaissance)

#451 The New Yorker Magazine: Talk of the Town for 100 Years (1925 Magazine begins publication)

#174 American Kicks: A History of the Rockettes (1925 – Dance troupe founded in St. Louis)

#420 Garbo Walks: Old Hollywood in New York (1925 Greta Garbo comes to America)

#233 The Roaring ’20s: King of the Jazz Age (1926 Jimmy Walker becomes Mayor of New York

#170 The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino (1926 – Rudolph Valentino dies)

#182 Mae West, “Sex” on Broadway (1926 – The play ‘Sex’ opens)

#307 The Holland Tunnel: The Wonder of the Jazz Age (1927 — The Tunnel opens for traffic)

#204 The Cotton Club: Aristocrat of Harlem (1927 – Duke Ellington debuts)

#234 Queen of the Speakeasies: A Tale of Prohibition New York (1928 Texas Guinan arrested for operating a speakeasy)

#363 The Sunny Saga of Jones Beach (1929 Jones Beach is built)

#278 Newark vs. LaGuardia: A Tale of Two Airports (1929 Newark Airport opens)

#314 Tillie Hart: The Holdout of London Terrace (1929 Tillie holds out!)

#383 The Temple on Fifth Avenue (1929 The new Temple Emanu-El opens near Central Park)

#235 The Crash of ’29: New York In Crisis (1929 stock market crashes)

#427 The Chrysler Building and the Great Skyscraper Race (1930 Building completed)

#162 George Washington Bridge (1931 – GWB opened)

#209 The Waldorf-Astoria’s Complicated History (1931 Hotel opens)

#250 The Empire State Building: Story of an Icon (1931 Empire State Building opens)

#377 The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree (1931 The first Rockefeller Center Christmas tree)

NEW YORK DURING THE DEPRESSION

#44 Rikers Island (1932 Jail opens)

#27 Radio City Music Hall (1932 Opening night)

#337 Robert Moses and the Art of the New Deal (1933 The first programs of the New Deal enacted)

#55 The Evolution of Central Park (1934 New York Parks Department created)

#15 The Apollo Theater (1934 Vaudeville house becomes the Apollo)

#53 Glamour and Gore: The Meatpacking District (1934 Elevated railway opens)

#135 The High Line (1934 Elevated railway opens)

#136 High Line Walking Tour (1934 Elevated railway opens)

#442 Urban Legends of New York City (1935 First alligator seen in the sewer)

#455 House of Beauty: The Story of the Frick Collection (1935 Frick Collection opens to the public)

#56 Randall’s Island (1936 Jesse Owens wins the Olympic trials)

#338 A New Deal For New York: Murals, Music and Theatrical Mayhem (1936 Orson Welles stages ‘Voodoo Macbeth’)

#227 The Hindenburg Over New York (1937 The zeppelin crashes in New Jersey)

The Secret Origin of Comic Books (1938 – Action Comics debuts)

#96 The Cloisters and Fort Tryon Park (1938 – Cloisters Museum opens)

#364 The Very Gay History of Fire Island (1938 – The Great Hurricane of 1938 prompts rebuilding)

#459 Moses vs. Bard: The Battle for Castle Clinton (1939 Moses proposes a bridge)

#49 LaGuardia Airport and Early New York Flight (1939 New York Municipal Airport opens)

#288 The World of Tomorrow: The New York World’s Fair of 1939

#72 Rockefeller Center (1939 Opens to the public)

#176 Billie Holiday’s New York (1939 – Billie Holiday sings “Strange Fruit”)

#424 Kosciuszko! The Man. The Bridge. The Legend. (1939 The original bridge opens)

#24 The Copacabana (1940 Club opens)

#345 LaGuardia’s War on Pushcarts (1940 Essex Street Market opens)

#411 Miss Subways: Queens of the New York Commute (1941 First winner announced)

#404 Nighthawks and Automats: The World of Edward Hopper (1942 Hopper paints Nighthawks)

#247 Rodgers and Hammerstein: The Golden Age of Broadway (1943 Oklahoma! opens on Broadway)

#381 The Wonderful Home of Louis Armstrong (1943 The Armstrongs move to Corona, Queens)

#423 Leonard Bernstein’s New York, New York (1943 Bernstein conducts with the New York Philharmonic for the first time)

NEW YORK POST-WAR

#13 Coney Island: 20th Century Sideshow (1944 Luna Park damaged in fire)

#154 New York in the Golden Age of Television (1947 – Howdy Doody first broadcast

#303 Building Stuyvesant Town (1947 First apartments opened)

#124 Idlewild/JFK Airport (1948 — New York International Airport opens)

#246 Tales from a Tenement: Three Families on the Lower East Side (1950s — The Epsteins move to Orchard Street)

#412 The New York Parking Wars (1950 Street parking legalized with alternate-side parking rules)

#299 The Promenade and Preservation of Brooklyn Heights (1950 Promenade opens)

#306 Just Desserts: The Origins of New York Cheesecake, Cannoli and More (1950 Junior’s opens for business)

#20 United Nations Headquarters (1952 Building Completed)

Two Stories of Historic Vaccines: The End of Polio and Smallpox (1953 Salk discovers the polio vaccine)

#85 Shakespeare in the Park (1954 — Festival founded by Joe Papp)

#398 Marilyn Monroe in New York (1954 Monroe moves to New York)

#416 Creating the East Village 1955-1975 (1955 Third Avenue El comes down in the Lower East Side)

#67 Guggenheim Museum (1959 — Upper East Side museum opens its doors)

#218 LincolnCenter and West Side Story (1959 — Groundbreaking and construction begins)

#77 Freedomland U.S.A.: New York’s Weirdest Theme Park (1960 – Park opens in the Bronx)

#61 Pan Am Building (1960 Construction begins)

RADICAL NEW YORK

#287 Greenwich Village in the 1960s

#200 Jane Jacobs: Saving the Village (1961 – The Death and Life of Great American Cities)

#447 Bob Dylan’s Greenwich Village (1961 Dylan arrives in New York)

#405 Mona Lisa at the Metropolitan Museum (1962 Mona Lisa visits New York)

The Destruction of Penn Station (1963 — Penn Station demolished)

#277 The New York Comedy Scene: A Marvelous History (1963 — Budd Friedman opens The Improv)

#33 The World’s Fair of 1964-65 (1964 World’s Fair opens)

#402 Treasures from the Worlds Fairs (1964 World’s Fair opens)

#346 The Beatles Invade New York (1964 Beatles arrive at JFK Airport)

#119 The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (1964 – Bridge opens)

#173 Ruins of the World’s Fair: New York State Pavilion (1964 – World’s Fair opens)

#62 Shea Stadium (1964 – Stadium opens)

#309 What Gets Saved? Landmarks and Historic Districts Explained (1965 New York’s landmark law is enacted)

#292 Sip-In At Julius’: Gay New York in the 1960s (1966 Mattachine Society engages in the ‘sip in’)

#217 Truman Capote’s Black And White Ball (1967 Ball is held at the Plaza Hotel)

#380 Dorothy Parker’s Last Party (1967 Dorothy Parker dies)

#155 Sesame Street to Seinfeld: NYC TV 1969-2013 (1969 – Sesame Street on the air)

#231 The Stonewall Riots (1969 Riots erupt in the early morning hours)

#236 Times Square in the 1970s (1970)

NEW YORK IN THE MODERN ERA

#68 New York City Marathon (1970 The first marathon)

#350 The World Trade Center in the 1970s (1973 Both towers open)

#104 CBGB & OMFUG (1973 Hilly Kristal opens club)

#438 The Ramones at CBGB: Revolution on the Bowery

#457 FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD (1975 Infamous New York Daily News headline)

#43 Studio 54 (1977 Disco opens)

#5 Blackout (1977 Blackout occurs)

#214 Bronx Trilogy: The Bronx Was Burning (1977 Game 2 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium)

#255 The Rescue of Grand Central (1978 The fate of Grand Central heads to the Supreme Court)

#248 Sitting Down with Roz Chast (1978 Chast begins working at the New Yorker)

#417 Walking the East Village 1976-1996 (1978 Club 57 opens)

#123 TRUMP (1978 — Trump develops Grand Hyatt Hotel)

#210 Digital City: New York and the World of Video Games (1978 Space Invaders takes New York by storm)

#111 Subway Graffiti 1970-1989 (1980s – Koch cracks down on subway graffiti)

#151 The Limelight: Church, Nightclub and Mall (1983 Limelight Club opens)

#319 The Tale of Charging Bull and Fearless Girl (1987 Charging Bull created)

#393 Capturing History: An Interview With Ric Burns and James Sanders (1999 New York: A Documentary Film debuts)

Hurricane Sandy Update (2012)

#175 Bowery Boys 2014 Year In Review (2014)

#229 LIVE IN BROOKLYN! The Bowery Boys: Ten Years of Podcasting (2017)

#391 A Walk Through Little Caribbean

#413 The New Storytellers: Landmarks, Diners and Everyday New Yorkers

#444 New York’s Classic Mom-and-Pop Shops (with New York Nico)

#448 Inside the Memory Palace with Nate DiMeo

#453 All The Beauty In The World: Guarding the Met with Patrick Bringley

#456 Walking New York: Manhattan History on Foot with Keith Taillon

Tags Wall Street

Neighborhoods

Remembering the General Slocum disaster, one of the greatest tragedies in NYC history

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date June 14, 2025
10 Comments on Remembering the General Slocum disaster, one of the greatest tragedies in NYC history

Listen to our podcast on the General Slocum Disaster:

The General Slocum Memorial Fountain is one of the sole reminders of one of New York City’s darkest days, and it’s not a very awe-inspiring memorial.

This is no dig at the custodians of Tompkins Square Park, where the memorial has been on display since 1906, nor at Bruno Louis Zimm, the fountain’s sculptor whose creation presents two children in idyllic profile, next to an engraving: “They were Earth’s purest children, young and fair.”

Its left side unveils its more tragic context: “In memory of those who lost their lives in the disaster to the steamer General Slocum, June XV MCMIV.”

The fountain, while charming and tranquil, is inadequate in expressing the grief and horror that filled New Yorkers on June 15, 1904, when, during a church-sponsored day trip headed for the Long Island Sound, the General Slocum steamboat caught fire and sank in the East River, killing more than a thousand passengers, mostly women and children.

This tragedy was the single deadliest event in New York City history until September 11, 2001.

This disaster virtually wiped out the German presence on the Lower East Side—entire families perished, many of whom had just gotten a foothold in New York a generation before. In a single morning the lights of Kleindeutschland, New York’s Little Germany, permanently faded.

The boat had been chartered by St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church* for their yearly day trip excursion to the Long Island Sound. The East River was filled with excursion steamers such as the General Slocum and its sister ship the Grand Republic (a vessel with a doomed story of its own).

It was a chance for the congregation to briefly break out of the crowded Lower East Side to enjoy a day in the sun. Among the passengers was the Liebenow family, which consisted of parents and their three daughters, Anna, Helen, and Adella, along with several aunts and cousins.

A postcard featuring General Slocum from the Museum of the City of New York collection.

The Slocum left the pier shortly before 9 a.m. and began its slow crawl up the East River.

Captain William Van Schaick had been principally concerned that morning with one turbulent spot up the East River, a dangerous confluence of waters known as the Hell Gate. It had already sunk hundreds of vessels as far back as the seventeenth century. By 1904 it was still a dangerous pass, but on this day, the Hell Gate would not be the problem.

About 30 minutes into the voyage, a child noticed that a small fire had started in the lamp room below the main deck.

A crewman tried to stamp it out, throwing charcoal on it in an effort to contain it. But the flames only grew larger.

Crew members grabbed a firehose—only to find it rotten to the point that it burst wide open. These were not men trained for emergency situations; once they realized the hoses were useless, they simply gave up.

Civilized behavior soon gave way to panic as the flames quickly spread through the lower levels of the steamer, fire jumping from passengers’ clothing to hair.

Families moved away from the flames only to find themselves pressed up against the boat’s railings as panicked crowds pushed forward in search of fresh air. Children lost hold of their parents, never to see them again.

Crowds surged toward the Slocum’s six lifeboats and attempted to hoist them down. But they wouldn’t budge—somebody had wired them to the wall.

The life preservers, never properly inspected, were filled with rotten cork, and several exploded into dust. They were not only useless—they were actually dangerous. Panicked parents strapped preservers to their children and tossed them overboard, only to watch in horror as they sank from sight.

Below deck, passengers were burned to death—huddled in groups and trapped in corners. Smoke choked many, causing unconsciousness; many were trampled underfoot.

Some jumped into the violent waves. “There was little hope that any of the children who jumped overboard could be saved,” reported the New York Evening World. “The current all along the course taken is on a section of the river where not even a strong swimmer can breast the currents. Scores of little ones were sucked in by the whirlpools in Hell Gate.”

Greenwich Village Society of Historic Preservation

Crowds formed along the shores, and their attention was drawn by the billowing smoke, fire, and horrifying spectacle before them. The captain managed to steer the boat toward North Brother Island, where nurses, doctors, and even patients from the smallpox hospital ran to the water to rescue and attempt to revive those who had washed ashore.

Bodies on the shore of North Brother Island

The Slocum eventually floated out into the Long Island Sound, puffing clouds of cork dust into the air, while leaving a trail of tragedy in its wake.

Just after noon, the burning vessel sank, a single paddle box and a smokestack jutting out of the water.

By the final count, 1,021 people perished in the General Slocum disaster that day, making it the deadliest single event in the city’s history up to that date. In the weeks following the disaster, the streets of Kleindeutschland—today’s East Village—were filled with mourners. The community attended funerals in the homes of those who had perished and held solemn processions through the streets.

A mass funeral through the streets of the Lower East Side — “burial of the unidentified”

The Liebenow family was hit particularly hard. The entire Liebenow family died in the disaster—all except baby Adella (pictured below), just six months old at the time of the tragedy.

Two years later, now only two-and-a-half years old, Adella was hoisted to a podium here in Tompkins Square Park. She stood before a community that hadn’t yet fully recovered—would they ever?—as she tugged at a cloth to unveil the General Slocum Memorial Fountain.

No, the fountain is not perfect. How could it be?

But why hasn’t this tragedy been better memorialized? It’s such an important event in the city’s history, and yet so many don’t know its whole story. There are a few theories about this, many having to do with the anti-German sentiment that cropped up a decade later at the beginning of World War I.

Or was it the social class of the victims that caused it to recede from memory? Adella, who died in 2004, 100 years after the disaster, believed that this might be the case. To a crowd at a 1999 commemoration of the tragedy, she said, “The Titanic had a great many famous people on it. This was just a family picnic.”

*St. Mark’s is located on East 6th Street, between First and Second Avenues, in the heart of New York’s first and largest German neighborhood. A plaque honoring the victims hangs in front.

There’s also a monument to the victims at a cemetery in Middle Village, Queens

The above is an excerpt from our book The Bowery Boys Adventures In Old New York, now available at bookstores everywhere.

Listen to our podcast on the General Slocum Disaster here:

Tags East Village, General Slocum, Hell's Gate, Tompkins Square Park

Newspapers and Newsies Podcasts

The Trial of John Peter Zenger: New York and the Birth of the Freedom of the Press

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date May 16, 2025

A long, long time ago in New York — in the 1730s, back when the city was a holding of the British, with a little over 10,000 inhabitants — a German printer named John Peter Zenger decided to print a four-page newspaper called the New York Weekly Journal.

This is pretty remarkable in itself, as there was only one other newspaper in town called the New York Gazette, an organ of the British crown and the governor of the colony. (Equally remarkable: Benjamin Franklin almost worked there!)

But Zenger’s paper would call to question the actions of that governor, a virtual despot named William Cosby (at right), and in so doing, set in motion an historic trial that marked a triumph for liberty and modern democratic rights, including freedom of the press and the power of jury nullification.

This entire story takes place in lower Manhattan, and most of it on a couple floors of old New York City Hall at Wall Street and Nassau Street. Many years later, this spot would see the first American government and the inauguration of George Washington.

But many could argue that the trial that occurs here on August 4, 1735, is equally important to the causes of democracy and a free press.

LISTEN NOW: THE TRIAL OF JOHN PETER ZENGER

CORRECTION: I can’t read my Olde English very well. In reading from a page of the New-York Weekly Journal, I inadvertently say ‘Fulgom Panagenics’ instead of ‘Fulsom Panagenics’. Fulgom is not a word, fulsom(e) is, meaning very complimentary or flattering.

The burning of John Peter Zenger’s ‘New York Weekly Journal’ in Wall Street on November 6, 1734.

A stained copy of the New-York Weekly Journal from 1733

Andrew Hamilton, the lawyer who saved the day in the John Peter Zenger trial. His eloquence and command of language helped win the day for lovers of free press.

Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller – Portrait of Andrew Hamilton (1808).

Tags colonial New York, Federal Hall, John Peter Zenger, lawyers, New York City Hall, William Cosby

Sports

Boston vs. New York: You think this is just about sports?

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date May 13, 2025
4 Comments on Boston vs. New York: You think this is just about sports?

Here’s a fun article I wrote back in 2012 that may find new meaning for many of baseball fans this week. Again, happy to take any corrections on any particular sports statistics! – Greg

When again we see New York Knicks face off against the Boston Celtics this weekend, the beast of an old rivalry will continue to roar, the latest configuration of a fierce competition between two of America’s greatest cities.

While the rivalry between Boston and New York primarily manifests within the world of sports — the venue of modern warfare — it echos a spirit of competition that has existed between the coastal cities for over two centuries. But how did it begin?

The cultures of the cities which would become Boston and New York were drastically different from the very start. Boston, after all, was founded in 1630 by Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, a society based on specific religious values, with little tolerance for variation. New Amsterdam, New York’s pre-cursor, developed as a company town in the 1620s and was quite renown for being notoriously value-less, relatively speaking.

The Puritans, with a moral superiority that paralleled national antagonisms, believed a distasteful mix of cultures, an abhorrent godless mixture festered there in New Amsterdam. As a secular development, New Amsterdam fostered a policy of religious freedom far more in keeping with modern American ethics than the stringent, finger-pointing Puritans. Many so-called heretics fled the Puritans and were granted haven by the Dutch.

The Puritans were fortified by their connection to England, while New Amsterdam was a rowdy outpost of a faltering world power. By 1644, Massachusetts had created a powerful alliance with other colonies, allowing England a stronghold in the New World.

New Amsterdam, meanwhile, deteriorated as the Dutch focused on warfare with the Lenape and encroaching colonies such as Swedish. Peter Stuyvesant arrived in 1647 to shape up the Dutch town, but by then motions were already in place to drive them out entirely.

By 1664, the Dutch were thrown out of New Amsterdam and the defeated city was renamed New York, part of a larger British colony named for the Duke of York. Boston, for its part, became the premier British bastion, capital of the Dominion of New England, and a place many believed chosen by God (the storied ‘City Upon a Hill’) as a shining beacon of humanity. Boston was right to have an attitude.

Even as New York and Boston became competing ports in the British era, the Massachusetts city always had the edge.

America has benefited from Boston pride. The opening salvos of American independence were born from clashes between Boston citizens and British soldiers, rebellion in the form of bloody clashes (the Boston Massacre) and economic unrest (the Boston Tea Party).

As colonists rose up against British oppression during the Revolutionary War, they could look to the Boston battle at Bunker Hill as an example of victory and perseverance.

Bostonians celebrated Evacuation Day on March 17 because the British were booted from there in 1776 and never returned. New Yorkers celebrated the same holiday on November 25 because the British kept that city for most of the war and weren’t expelled from it until 1783.

Both cities struggled for economic footing after the war. Both had sophisticated ports and bustling harbors ready to send and receive shipping vessels, manufacturing plants rivaling anything overseas, and a growing class of wealthy old-family elites. In Boston, they were the Brahmins and went to Harvard. In New York, they were Knickerbockers and turned to Yale or Princeton. (Columbia was not quite in their league yet.)

Below: Boston in 1873

But only one city had access to a river inland, a point made explicit with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. Suddenly, New York became a gateway into the expanding American west. Not only would New York traders and merchants grow rich and form a nouveau upper-crust (thriving in the wake of men like John Jacob Astor), the canal would siphon away much of Boston’s livelihood, one ship at a time.

Bostonians were not pleased. The founder of Boston’s first daily newspaper saw a diversion of goods to New York as ‘evil‘ and recommended the city jump on a newfangled transportation idea just debuting in England — the steam-powered railroad. Within a few years, train tracks stretched down the old Boston Post Road (almost, but not quite, to New York) in an effort to connect Boston to the waters of the Hudson River.

Or as author Eric Jaffe observes: “…the goal of everyone involved in Boston’s railroad system at the time was clear: to move Manhattan toward the [Massachusetts] Bay along the highways of the future.”

The two cities remained locked in quiet, but stiff, competition throughout the 19th century, not only in industry and trade, but in intelligentsia, literature, politics and social ‘quality’.

The dynamics of both cities changed with the immigration boom that began in the late 1840s. Soon, one fifth of the populations of both cities would be Irish.

The culture of Boston was greatly affected, perhaps more that any American city, by these new Irish arrivals, but it was New York that felt the most weight. By 1860, with New York as the biggest city in America, even the city of Brooklyn had a greater population than Boston.

Bostonians had their legendary, steely pride for their city — in many ways, America’s first, greatest city — but New York was a powerful, untouchable metropolis by the time of the Gilded Age. Despite its grime and squalor, despite its sinful and corrupt reputation (or perhaps because of it), New York had bested Boston to become the biggest, richest, most powerful city in America by the time of the Civil War.

Below: New York City in 1873 (from George Schlegel lithograph)

And so it was that, in the late 19th century, an apparatus arose for which the undercurrent of rivalry between the cities could take a more explicit, more robust form — sports.

Universities already organized sports teams — with accompanying rivalries of their own — and now, in the post-war era, professional teams began sprouting up in a wide variety of games.

The first sports leagues formed in the Northeast, thus it was natural that teams from Northern and Rust Belt cities would often clash.

The first organized baseball league principally concerned New York and Brooklyn teams. (Don’t even get me started on the New York/Brooklyn rivalry!) Teams wouldn’t truly take on defined regional characters until the formation of the National League in 1876, which included the Boston Red Stockings, a precursor of the Sox, among its original teams.

The two baseball franchises that would cement the Boston-New York conflict were born in the 20th century. The Boston team came first, in 1901, with the inauguration of the American League, but were not referred to by their distinctive bold-colored foot coverings until 1908.

In 1904, the Boston team was declared champion of the American League. However, National League teams looked down upon the ‘inferiority’ of the younger American League teams, and thus, what might have been the first World Series — between the Boston Red Sox and National League victors the New York Giants — never occurred.

The Giants were considered New York’s principal baseball franchise and even spawned a successful soccer team. (They frequently played a soccer spinoff of the Boston Beaneaters.)

By this time, another New York team limped into the city in 1903 — the Highlanders, who later changed their name to the New York Yankees.

In 1918 came an event that changed the fortunes of the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees forever. Red Sox star Babe Ruth was traded to the New York Yankees during the off-season 1919-1920, allegedly because Sox owner Harry Frazee was looking to finance his Broadway musical offering No No Nanette. (That’s the popular legend, although many believe the trade was to finance another, equally ridiculous production called My Lady Friends.)

Whatever the origin of the ‘Curse of the Bambino’, it had a psychological effect on fans and players on both sides. Boston, once the league’s most successful squad, didn’t win another World Series until 2004, while the Yankees, well, changed sports history with 27 World Series victories.

The deep animosity spilled over into other sport match-ups. In basketball, the New York Knicks pale under the legacy of the Boston Celtics, simply put the best basketball team in history.

In hockey, the Boston Bruins and New York Rangers became the first two American teams to play each other for the Stanley Cup in 1929. The Bruins cleaned the ice with the Rangers.

But it’s in football that the two cities have had some truly dramatic clashes. The New York Giants football team, hardly a threat when they first formed in the late 1920s, were a force to be reckoned with by the time they first met the Boston Patriots in 1960.

Notably, when the Boston team changed its name to the New England Patriots and moved to Schaefer Stadium in Foxborough in 1971, the first game they played was against the Giants.

The Giants and the Patriots have met in the Super Bowl just once before — and notably so — in 2008. New York was the victor, in one of the greatest upsets in sports history. This Sunday, Boston seeks revenge. As you sit through a halftime show with Madonna (a New Yorker in her formative years), ponder upon the weight of history hanging over both teams.

To sports fans: I welcome any clarification of details if I’ve gotten something wrong!

Tags Boston, Erie Canal, Irish, New York Giants, New York Yankees, Sports

Neighborhoods Podcasts

Hell’s Kitchen: New York’s Wild West

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date April 9, 2025
8 Comments on Hell’s Kitchen: New York’s Wild West

Courtesy of Garland County Historical Society and Butler Center Books

PODCAST Hell’s Kitchen, on the far west side of Midtown Manhattan, is a neighborhood of many secrets. The unique history of this working class district veers into many tales of New York’s criminal underworld and violent riots which have shaken the streets for over 150 years.

This sprawling tenement area was home to some of the most notorious slums in the city, and sinister streets like Battle Row were frequent sites of vice and unrest. The streets were ruled by such gangs as the Gophers and the Westies, leaving their bloody fingerprints in subtle ways today in gentrified buildings which at one time contained the most infamous speakeasies and taverns.

We break down this rip-roaring history and try to get to the real reason for its unusual name!

The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!

Starting this month, we are doubling our number of episodes per month. Now you’ll hear 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!

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.

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!

The mysteries begin over 200 years ago when ordered avenues and streets could scarcely be imagined, and the shoreline was a ragged coast.

The Dutch later called it the Great Kill District, for the creek which emptied into the Hudson River (North River) at 42nd Street. As you can see from this diagram the shore was evened out with landfill to create 12th Avenue although the inward dip at 43rd Street is still visible on a modern map.

A map (drawn by John Bute Holmes) of the original estate borders of Bloomingdale from the late 18th century. The jagged shore line would later be filled in to make the blocks between 11th and 12th Avenues.

The Ninth Avenue barricades made by rioters in the area of Hell’s Kitchen during the Civil War Draft Riots.

The Orange Riot of July 12 from Eighth Avenue south from 25th street, an 1871 image from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.

Bad boys: Some Hell’s Kitchen ruffians show Jacob Riis how to rob people who have passed out.

An intriguing shot of 58th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues

Jacob Riis’ photograph of the Hell’s Kitchen tenement and the remains of Sebastopol (the rocks), 1890

Street vendors under the 9th Avenue Elevated Railroad

The Hartley House, a settlement house for the Hell’s Kitchen community. on West 46th Street

At the recreation pier — a public swimming hole at West 51st Street and the Hudson River.

The later configuration of the Gophers. Owney Madden is on the back row, fourth from the left. A very rough and dangerous gang, but don’t they clean up nice?

Owney Madden, the king of the Hell’s Kitchen speakeasy racket.

A couple spectacular shots of 1938 slum clearance — eliminating the tenements of 37th Street.

Wurts Brothers. Museum of the City of New York

Businesses on West 52nd Street, facing into DeWitt Clinton Park. It’s likely that William Hopper & Sons Truckmen at no. 626 probably traces itself back to the original Hopper land owners. Photograph by Charles von Urban

The entrance to DeWitt Clinton Park (at 54th Street) in 1936

Most of the pressures faced by the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood came from its perimeter with dramatic changes to the waterfront to its west, Port Authority/Lincoln Tunnel to its south, Madison Square Garden/Times Square to its east and Lincoln Center/Columbus Circle to its north.

Below: The West Side Highway and piers 95-98, looking west from a roof on West 54th Street

The Port Authority Bus Terminal in 1950, at West 40th and 41st Streets and 8th Avenue.

Wurts Brothers, courtesy Museum of the City of New York

The 8th Avenue Madison Square Garden, as seen in 1935.

A mural from 1974 — “The Neighborhood Belongs to the People Not Big Business.”

Tags gangsters, Hell's Kitchen, Owney Madden, Podcasts, Port Authority, prohibition, tenements, waterfront

The Immigrant Experience Women's History

Where They Lived: Remembering the victims of The Triangle Factory Fire

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date March 25, 2025
4 Comments on Where They Lived: Remembering the victims of The Triangle Factory Fire

Today marks the 114th anniversary of the Triangle Factory Fire. For information on commemorations and other activities, visit Remember the Triangle Coalition.

For stories of the struggles faced by employees of the shirtwaist industry, check out our 2020 show on the Shirtwaist Strike of 1909:

And for more information on the Triangle Factory Fire itself, return again to one of our earliest shows:

On this day in 1911, late in the afternoon, fire swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, located on the upper floors of a ten-story building near Washington Square Park.

Due to odious practices by the factory’s supervisors, the doorways were blocked and the fire escapes were in poor shape.

Hundreds of employees, mostly young immigrant women, scrambled to escape by any means necessary.

When the fire was finally extinguished, 146 workers had been killed in the blaze. Many, fearing death by the flames, leaped to the street below to the horror of onlookers who had stumbled over from the park.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is one of the most horrible tragedies in American history, both an indictment on New York sweatshop industries and the lack of any oversight about safety in high rise buildings. Many building regulations that keep us safe today were directly put in place due to these events.

From the New York Tribune the following day:

——–

Remembering Them

But on this anniversary I wanted to focus on the people who died at the Triangle Factory that day. Can we imagine something about them by looking at where they lived?

Thanks to the research of Michael Hirsch and the Kheel Center at Cornell University [found here], it’s possible to actually come up with a map of the homes of all 146 victims of the Triangle fire.

It would look something like the map below. Just zoom into it to look at the individual sites and take a look at which neighborhoods and boroughs that were most affected:

NOTE: The addresses are accurate, but a few of the points are approximately placed. In a few cases, the streets no longer exist, so I placed the points in close vicinity.

A Lower East Side Tragedy

To nobody’s surprise, the neighborhood most devastated by the tragedy is the Lower East Side (The east side above Houston Street — i.e. today’s East Village — didn’t take that new designation until the late 1950s.) There doesn’t seem to be a block in the neighborhood with an empty home that day one hundred years ago.

A few years before the Triangle fire, the Lower East Side had experienced an even more ghastly tragedy — the explosion of the General Slocum paddle steamer on June 15, 1904.

Among the 1,021 victims of that horrific event, most lived in this neighborhood and specifically in the German area of Kleindeutschland. As the victims were mostly women and children, the disaster effectively marked the end of the German enclave here.

New York wouldn’t see such a large loss of life until September 11, 2001. [There’s a Bowery Boys podcast on this subject, recorded on its 110th anniversary.]

The deaths of the 146 garment workers on March 25, 1911, did not produce the same effect to the neighborhood, but certainly the loss was gravely felt in tenements and houses throughout the city. The map shows that the disaster’s immediate impact reverberated even into the other boroughs.

East vs. West

Of the 146, most all of them were born in three countries — Italy, Russia or Austria. A handful were born in the United States, presumably the children of first generation immigrants.

So it’s no surprise most of them found homes in the Lower East Side, still the heart of immigrant life in the early 20th century. But I really didn’t expect it to be so decisive.

Outside of a small cluster of people who lived in Greenwich Village close to the factory, there were no victims who listed addresses anywhere on Manhattan’s west side — not in Hell’s Kitchen, the Upper West Side, or anywhere else.

Yorkville and Beyond

I’m fascinated by those who lived further out, near the growing German neighborhood of Yorkville on the Upper East Side, for instance.

A great many took streetcars and elevated trains into work from Brooklyn and the Bronx, and some might even have taken advantage of the new subway (although in 1911, its route was very limited).

No surprise that none of them lived in Queens; the ethnic neighborhoods of that borough would really flourish after the 1920s.

And then there’s young Vincenza Billota, a 16 year old girl who lived out with her uncle in Hoboken, NJ — the only one of the victims to commute into the city.

Her uncle came in from New Jersey that night to identify Vincenza who burned alive inside the factory. He identified her because her shoes had recently been repaired; he recognized the cobbler’s work.

*From 1909, the caption reads “Tenement dwellers dropping clothes from fire escape for Italians on East side.”* Library of Congress

Missing Tenements

There’s something moving about finding and identifying the homes of the victims.

Most of these people had no solid roots, no property they owned. Only an address, a home they most likely shared with family members and other tenants.

Every year on the anniversary of the fire, the sidewalks outside these addresses are marked with chalk, the names and ages written on the ground as a yearly reminder. You can look at a photo array from the 2011 chalk excursions here.

They didn’t live in fabulous Beaux-Arts mansions or apartment buildings.

Their homes were tenements, most overcrowded and poorly maintained.

Thus, many of the actual buildings themselves are gone. In the cases of the victim’s homes on Monroe Street, even most of the street itself is gone, replaced with more modern housing projects.

*135 Cherry Street, the home of fire victim Rose Cirrito. The photo is from 1939 (courtesy NYPL); the entire row of buildings was later demolished.*

509 East 13th Street was the home to two Italian girls, Antonietta Pasqualicchio and Annie L’Abate, and an older Italian woman Annina Ardito, who all lost their lives that day. But that building has been replaced with a modern apartment.

Family and Friends

To grasp a disaster of this magnitude — at a vantage over one century later — you have to deal with it in generalities.

The victims were mostly girls, mostly immigrants, mostly uneducated.

However, by singling out a particular address, the individual tragedies come into focus. And oddly, you get to place that person’s life next to what inhabits that address today.

In the case of the Lower East Side, some of these places are now restaurants, bars and luxury condos.

143 Essex Street was the home of two victims — two teenage brothers Max and Sam Lehrer from Austria. Both had arrived in the United States via Ellis Island in 1909; another Austrian, Sigmund Freud, also arrived at Ellis Island that year.

Young Jennie Stellino had lived in New York since she was 12 years old; she died in the blaze at age 16. She walked to the factory every day from her home at 315 Bowery, one of the few with a fairly easy commute.

Jennie survived the blaze but died from her burns three days later. Decades later, the building at that address became internationally renown for the tenant at its ground floor, CBGB’s.

I’m not sure there’s even a 35 Second Avenue anymore. The street is inhabited by a diner and a few bars today; the Anthology Film Archives sits across the street.

But it was the home to three women who lost their lives that day — Catherine Maltese and her two daughters.

________________________________________________________

For stories of the struggles faced by employees of the shirtwaist industry, check out our 2020 show on the Shirtwaist Strike of 1909:

And for more information on the Triangle Factory Fire itself, return again to one of our earliest shows:

This is an expanded version of an article which ran on this website on the 100th anniversary of this Triangle Factory Fire.

Tags fire, Lower East Side, Triangle Factory Fire, Washington Square

Landmarks Podcasts

The Return of the Waldorf Astoria: Grace, Glamour and International Intrigue

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date January 17, 2025
6 Comments on The Return of the Waldorf Astoria: Grace, Glamour and International Intrigue

PODCAST A star of the New York City skyline is reborn — the Waldorf Astoria is reopening in 2025!

And so we thought we’d again raise a toast to one of the world’s most famous hotels, an Art Deco classic attached to the Gilded Age’s most prestigious name in luxury and refinement.

Now, you might think you know this story — the famous lobby clock, Peacock Alley, cocktail bars! — but do we have some surprises for you.

The Waldorf Astoria — once the Waldorf-Astoria and even the Waldorf=Astoria — has been a premier name in hotel accommodations since the opening of the very first edition on 34th Street and Fifth Avenue (the location of today’s Empire State Building).

But the history of the current incarnation on Park Avenue contains the twists and turns of world events, from World War II to recent diplomatic dramas. In essence, the Waldorf Astoria has become the world’s convention center.

Step past the extraordinary Art Deco trappings, and you’ll find rooms which have hosted a plethora of important gatherings, not to mention the frequent homes to Hollywood movie stars.

But its those very trappings — some of it well over a century old — that finds itself in danger today as recent changes threaten to wipe away its glamorous interiors entirely.

LISTEN NOW: THE RETURN OF THE WALDORF ASTORIA

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!

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.

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!

The original Waldorf-Astoria which once sat at 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. The first hotel, the Waldorf, is the shorter one facing 33rd Street.

Park Avenue at nighttime, 1937. Seen here: 515 Mad. Ave, Gen. Electric, the Waldorf Astoria, the Chrysler Building, the Chanin Building, and the New York Central Building.

A 1931 postcard announcing the debut of the Waldorf Astoria with the Chrysler in the background.

Marilyn Monroe at the Waldorf, her home in 1955. Here she is at the April In Paris ball with her then-husband Arthur Miller.

marilyn-monroe-1957 — Courtesy New York Daily News

And at another function, this time chatting with Eartha Kitt.

From our Instagram page:

An extraordinary relic — the Waldorf-Astoria clock from the 1893 Worlds Fair. #boweryboys

A photo posted by Gregory Young (@boweryboysnyc) on Jul 16, 2016 at 6:23pm PDT

Interior of the Waldorf-Astoria, still in Art Deco glamour. #boweryboys

A photo posted by Gregory Young (@boweryboysnyc) on Jul 16, 2016 at 6:33pm PDT

Tom at Cole Porter’s piano at the Waldorf-Astoria. #boweryboys

A photo posted by Gregory Young (@boweryboysnyc) on Jul 18, 2016 at 3:13pm PDT

More information here on the Historic District Council’s efforts to help save the interior decor of the Waldorf Astoria.

CORRECTION: There are a few classic photographs of Marilyn Monroe at the Waldorf-Astoria; however the one that Greg described on the show is actually taken at the Ambassador Hotel, a couple blocks north of the Waldorf. (It was torn down in the 1960s.)

Tags classic hotels, empire state building, landmarks, Podcasts, Waldorf-Astoria

American History

Terror Spree: Harvard professor bombs U.S. Capitol, shoots JP Morgan

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date December 6, 2024
3 Comments on Terror Spree: Harvard professor bombs U.S. Capitol, shoots JP Morgan

In the early days of July 1915, the United States was preparing for a subdued celebration of America’s 139th Independence Day.

It was hardly a festive time. War was still raging in Europe, and America was debating its entry on the side of Britain, Italy and France.

The deaths of 128 Americans aboard the RMS Lusitania on May 7 had forced the U.S.’s hand, some thought. President Woodrow Wilson pressed Germany for an apology while not yet calling for war. His Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan thought even that too harsh; he resigned in protest from Wilson’s cabinet in June.

The headlines were dire as it seemed the entire world would soon be caught in the maelstrom of the Great War.

And then, right before midnight, July 2, 1915, a bomb went off at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

It exploded in an empty reception area. “The explosion was a loud one and shook the entire building, breaking transoms and shattering plastering, ” said the Sun. Windows and mirrors were smashed, but the only bodily harm it caused was throwing a watchman from his chair.

The Sun: “Some persons in the crowd which had gathered around the Capitol were inclined to believe that the bomb had been placed by some war fanatic as an act of resentment against the United States government.”

Below: The Capitol reception room after the explosion

They were right. And Eric Muenter wasn’t done.

Before newspaper readers in New York City would find out about the bombing, its instigator would have already arrived in their city, with a roster of further crimes on his mind.

Muenter (pictured below), a former professor at Harvard University*, was a German sympathizer angered at American intervention in the war. He spread his vitriol wide, preparing to target private businessmen personally funding war efforts. In fact targeting one of America’s most wealthy financiers — JP Morgan Jr.

Below: Muenter after he was captured

Following his sabotage at the Capitol, Muenter fled to New York on the morning of July 3 to wreak further chaos. He had a makeshift headquarters at the Mills Hotel (Seventh Avenue and 36th Street) where he had stored dozens of sticks of dynamite and fuses. At the port of New York, he managed to sneak aboard the SS Minnehana, an ocean liner filled with explosives destined for England, and install a time bomb to detonate onceÂ the ship was at sea.

Minnehaha-01 — Courtesy Library of Congress

It’s at this time that a similar time bomb was placed at New York Police Headquarters at 240 Centre Street. The device here was later believed to be from the same batch of dynamite as Muenter’s. If he was involved, you have to admit he was incredibly efficient with his time, for by 8 am, he had boarded a train, headed to Glen Cove, Long Island.

Below: New York’s Inspector of CombustiblesÂ with Muenter’s steamer trunk filled with dynamite. (Courtesy Glen Cove Heritage)

JP Morgan Jr. had been in control of his father’s banking empire since the elder’s death in 1913. The son embodied America’s involvement in the Great War in the years before the U.S.’s official entry. He facilitated an unprecedented loan of 500 million dollars to the Allied countries, backed by a consortium of over 2,000 American banks. The loans would soon grow to almost 3 billion dollars.

This made the financier both a symbol of American beneficence for some and a target of unwanted intervention for others. New York was a great stew of European diversity in the 1910s, and the far-away war often played out in the streets of New York, especially in German communities.

Morgan Jr had his recently-built summer home in Glen Cove, a palatial manor called Matinecock Point (pictured below). This was Muenter’s destination.

The assailant arrived, armed with two revolvers and a set of dynamite in his pocket, during an opportune breakfast meeting; the Morgans just happened to be entertaining the British ambassador Sir Cecil Spring-Rice.

At the door, Muenter pulled a gun on Morgan’s butler who, quickly thinking, directed the intruder down an opposite hall then shouted in the other direction for the Morgans to hide. The family scattered throughout the house.

Eventually, for the safety of their children, the Morgans did appear at the second floor landing and lured Muenter to them.

“Now Mr. Morgan I have got you.” he said reportedly.

His wife Jane attempted to leap in front of the gunman but was harshly shoved out of the way. Muenter then shot Morgan twice and prepared to fire again from the second pistol.

Fortunately Morgan had actually fallen into the gunman, pinning him to the floor. This allowed time for Mrs. Morgan and the children’s elderly nurse to finally apprehend the shooter. The fact that Spring-Rice, the British ambassador, also personally assisted in the capture of the shooter seems especially notable.

His plan thwarted, Muenter reportedly exclaimed, “Kill me! Kill me now! I don’t want to live any more. I have been in a perfect hell for the last six months on account of the European war.”

Originally giving his names as Frank Holt, it was soon discovered that the assailant was in fact Muenter, the former Harvard professor. In 1906, he was accused of poisoning his pregnant wife. Most likely, he did indeed kill her, for he disappeared from campus, changing his name to avoid arrest and had apparently spent years cultivating this new identity.

Once in custody on Long Island, Muenter spilled the beans. “I wanted to attract the attentions of the country to the outrages being committed by those who are sending the munitions of war to the Allies.” [source]

Below is a fragment of a letter Muenter wrote to his father-in-law while in custody. “I learned to my sorrow that Mrs. M[organ] was hurt,” it begins.

On July 5th the explosion at New York Police Headquarters went off, following another explosion at the home of Andrew Carnegie. Nobody was hurt in these blasts. These similar explosions were later declared unrelated to the Muenter incident itself, but it grimly reinforces the danger New Yorkers faced during wartime, even so far away from the battlefields.

Morgan quickly recovered from his injuries although the attack had a chilling effect among the residents of Long Island’s Gold Coast. Security was quickly beefed up at Matinecock Point and at the estates of other wealthy financiers associated with the Morgan bank loan.

Below: Muenter in custody

On the evening of July 6, Muenter leaped to his death from his cell at Nassau County jail in Mineola. While it was but a short drop, he had jumped head first, crushing his skull.

The death was so bizarre and sudden — it actually made a loud, deafening thud — that investigators initially believed that he had placed a blasting cap in his teeth to hasten his demise.

But the reign of terror wasn’t over. The time bomb that Muenter had placed aboard the SS Minnehaha did eventually explode while the ship was in the Atlantic. While it caught the ship ablaze, fortunately the ship was able to reroute to Halifax, and the fire was safely put out.

For more information on this spellbinding case, I highly recommend this excellent write-up by Daniel E. Russell for Glen Cove Heritage.

NOTE: Original version of this story featured the mugshot of another bomber Alexander Burkman. It’s been corrected to include the proper mugshot.

*Press reports initially thought he was from Cornell.

Originally published July 2 2015

Tags explosions, J.P.Morgan, Long Island, terrorism, Washington DC, World War I

Christmas Podcasts

The Radio City Rockettes: New York City’s Dancing Queens

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date November 29, 2024
14 Comments on The Radio City Rockettes: New York City’s Dancing Queens

Back when the Rockettes were the Missouri Rockets.

The Rockettes are America’s best known dance troupe — and a staple of the holiday season — but you may not know the origin of this iconic New York City symbol. For one, they’re not even from the Big Apple!

Formerly the Missouri Rockets, the dancers and their famed choreographer Russell Markert were noticed by theater impresario Samuel Rothafel, who installed them first as his theater The Roxy, then at one of the largest theaters in the world — Radio City Music Hall.

The life of a Rockettes dancer was glamorous, but grueling; for many decades dancing not in isolated shows, but before the screenings of movies, several times a day, a different program each week.

There was a very, very specific look to the Rockettes, a look that changed — and that was forced to change by cultural shifts — over the decades.

This show is dedicated to the many thousands of women who have shuffled and kicked with the Rockettes over their many decades of entertainment, on the stage, the picket line or the Super Bowl halftime show.

This show is a re-edited and remastered version of our 2014 show with a new introduction — in honor of the upcoming 100th anniversary celebration of the dance troupe which would become the Rockettes.

LISTEN NOW: THE RADIO CITY ROCKETTES

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Share your love of the city’s history with a Bowery Boys Walks gift certificate! Our digital gift cards let your loved ones choose their perfect tour and date.

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The first New York home of the Rockettes (as the Roxyettes) was the Roxy Theatre, almost as large as Radio City Music Hall and located just nearby. (MCNY)

Radio City Music Hall, which opened in 1932, was quickly transformed into the world’s largest movie house after a notorious opening night. It would be here that the Rockettes would perform a few times a day, seven days a week, for over fifty years. (NYPL)

The Rockettes, 1935, in a ‘Cavalcade of Color,’ choreographed and directed by Leon Leonidoff. The constant high-kicking routines required great athleticism, precision and balance. (MCNY)

The Rockettes in 1937, beauty in duplication. (Courtesy the Rockettes)

In 1939, the Rockettes gave salute to the Gay Nineties in these extravagant costumes. (Courtesy the Rockettes)

Faces of the Rockettes: A few of the dancers from the 1935 configuration.. These photos are by the Wurts Brothers, from the Museum of the City of New York Collection. You can see the complete group here. Unfortunately there are no names attached to the portraits but if any of these women look familiar, drop me their names in the comments section!

The Rockettes in the 1950s

In 1967, many Rockettes went on strike for a month to demand better wages to compensate for their vigorous schedule and unpaid rehearsal time. Needless to say, they got everybody’s attention.

Pam Palmer and Kim Heil, two Rockettes from the late 1970s. (Photo by Jay Heiser)

The Rockettes at a Fleet Week event in 2006. (Photo by Gabriela Hurtado)

Various newsreel footage of the Rockettes, including images of the troupe rehearsing on the roof of Radio City!

The Rockettes at the 1988 Super Bowl halftime show:

Tags Christmas, Podcasts, Radio City Music Hall, Rockettes

It's Showtime

The first Wizard of Oz adaptation blows into Columbus Circle

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date November 20, 2024
1 Comment on The first Wizard of Oz adaptation blows into Columbus Circle

The very first musical version of The Wizard of Oz opened at the Majestic Theatre (at 5 Columbus Circle) on January 20, 1903, after playing to enthusiastic audiences in Chicago.

L. Frank Baum wrote the book to the musical, based on his novel ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ which was published in 1900.

The temperatures were chilly that day, but New Yorkers were undeterred.

Or, as the New York Times observed: “With a dash of brilliant discovery ‘The Wizard of Oz’ last night discovered the north pole of the Broadway theatrical world in the Columbus Monument, at Fifty-ninth Street.

In a proximity as close as that of the Majestic Theatre frosts undoubtedly threaten, just as there is said to be a gathering chill in the theatres situated near the south pole in the Flatiron Building.”

The vaudeville act Montgomery and Stone played the Scarecrow and the Tinman.

Anna Laughlin, who played Dorothy, headed quickly to New York’s budding film business, starring in eighteen films between 1913-1915, many for the Brooklyn-based Vitagraph Company.

As for the Cowardly Lion, he was played by the handsome pantomimist Arthur Hill. He became so beloved in the role that he returned to the Broadway stage in other roles, always playing animals (including the wolf in a rendition of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’).

Among its admirers later that summer was the renown yachtsman Sir Thomas Lipton (pictured below), such a popular figure in 1903 that mobs arrived in Columbus Circle just to see his car pull up to the theater.

An ode to Lipton was performed by one of the chorus girls — Tommy! Oh! Oh Sir Tommy! You’re a dandy from your feet up — to his quite noticeable embarrassment.

Still, he came back to see the show a second time. Standing to give a speech, “[h]e may have intended to say more, but a misunderstanding about the calcium lights threw him suddenly into darkness, and he sat down.”

And yes, Sir Lipton founded the Lipton Tea Company.

The show was a blockbuster, running in New York for two whole years, eventually closing on the final day of 1904.

I believe ‘Wizard’ was the inaugural performance at the Majestic Theatre, which survived several decades — as the International Theatre, it even co-hosted the Academy Awards — until it was demolished in the 1950s.

The play was such a success that Baum was convinced to write a sequel called ‘The Marvelous Land of Oz’. From there, he went on to expand his Oz franchise for several more books, including beloved installments featuring Tik-Tok, the Patchwork Girl and Ozma.

On the occasion of its 225th performance, the management of the Majestic gave out souvenir, telescopic silver drinking cups, “in which the friends and well-wishers of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ may drink to that potentate’s long long life and prosperous reign.”

Clippings courtesy the New York Tribune/Library of Congress.

Tags Broadway, Classic Theaters, Columbus Circle, Thomas Lipton

Bowery Boys

Get Ready for Spring with Bowery Boys Podcast T-shirt and Mugs

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date November 17, 2024
1 Comment on Get Ready for Spring with Bowery Boys Podcast T-shirt and Mugs

The Bowery Boys Podcast merchandise store is back!

Celebrate your love of New York City and the Bowery Boys podcast by choosing something from our merchandise store at Podswag with goodies featuring the 15th anniversary Bowery Boys logo.

Tee-shirts just $25! In a variety of colors and sizes. There’s also water bottles and pint glasses.

And we know you like coffee so we have TWO styles of coffee mugs:

The Bowery Boys Five Points Enamel Mug

The Bowery Boys Eastern District Mug

You can purchase them here: the official Bowery Boys Podswag store.

Buy some cool stuff for you and your gang today. And thank you for supporting the Bowery Boys Podcast.

Shirts and logo designed by Thomas Cabus.

Tags Bowery Boys Store, T-shirts

Mysterious Stories Podcasts

Whatever Happened to Dorothy Arnold? A tale of New York’s most famous missing person

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date November 5, 2024
5 Comments on Whatever Happened to Dorothy Arnold? A tale of New York’s most famous missing person

PODCAST The mysterious disappearance of a young woman becomes one of the most talked-about events over one hundred years ago.

The young socialite Dorothy Arnold seemingly led a charmed and privileged life.

The niece of a Supreme Court justice, Dorothy was the belle of 1900s New York, an attractive and vibrant young woman living on the Upper East Side with her family. She hoped to become a published magazine writer and perhaps someday live by herself in Greenwich Village.

But on December 12, 1910, while running errands in the neighborhood of Madison Square Park, Dorothy Arnold — simply vanished.

In this investigative new podcast, we look at the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, from the mysterious clues left in her fireplace to the suspicious behavior exhibited by her family.

This mystery captivated New Yorkers for decades as revelations and twists to the story continued to emerge. As one newspaper described it: “There is general agreement among police officials that the case is in a class by itself.”

ALSO: What secrets lurk in the infamous Pennsylvania ‘House of Mystery’? And could a sacred object found in Texas hold the key to solving the crime?

This episode is a newly re-edited and re-mastered version of a show we recorded in 2016.

The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!

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.

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!

The photograph of Dorothy Arnold that was much reproduced in the press after her disappearance on December 12, 1910.

An example of a missing persons notice that was (eventually) distributed to police departments around the city.

On the day of her disappearance, Arnold bought chocolates at the Park & Tilford candy shop.

She was last spotted at a Brentano’s Book Store on 27th Street and Fifth Avenue. Here’s the interior of a New York Brentano’s store in 1925:

An extraordinary front page from the January 26, 1911, edition of the New York Evening World. Please note the other unusual headlines on the page:

A close-up of the insanely detailed illustration of her wardrobe:

From the Jan. 26, 1911, New York Tribune: “Miss Dorothy Arnold who has been missing from her home in this city since December 12.”

The New York Tribune, Jan 30, 1911: “Miss Dorothy H.C. Arnold who, it is now known, was seen near the 59th Street entrance of Central Park the evening of the day she disappeared.”

A Dorothy Arnold related headline, sitting next to a headline involving the captain of the ill-fated General Slocum steamship, which sank in 1904.

The event soon made newspapers across the country. This is from the front page of the Washington (D.C.) Times, January 29, 1911

From the Mt. Vernon Ohio newspaper, January 31, 1911

image_681x648_from_1269,326_to_2984,1960

image_681x648_from_1026,415_to_4616,3834

It even made the February 3, 1911, front page of the Missoula, Montana, newspaper!

A clue that went nowhere, in the February 4, 1911, edition of the Evening World:

A photo illustration of Dorothy Arnold and George Griscom — accompanied by yet another speculative headline — in the February 11, 1911, edition of the New York Evening World:

Even Griscom’s family was harassed by eager reporters. Here are his parents, captured on the Atlantic City boardwalk (February 13, 1911)

A headline from July 31, 1911, seems to question the motivation of Dorothy’s parents:

image_681x648_from_1066,1275_to_2699,2830

At other times, they went all in with unsubstantiated facts to sell newspaper such as this whopper from October 10, 1911.

Another false report of Dorothy found in a sanitarium, from February 7, 1912:

News of a blackmail from February 21, 1912, but in this case, the woman, Bessie Green, was later acquitted.

Dorothy Arnold was frequently brought up anytime a person went missing, as in this case in July 22, 1912 and another from December 8, 1913.

image_681x648_from_2022,735_to_5311,3867

Over five year after her disappearance, her name is brought up again in a possible unfortunate event described by the Rhode Island convict Edward Glennoris.

This podcast is inspired by an old paperback I found a long time ago called They Never Came Back by Allen Churchill which features the story of Dorothy Arnold:

Tags detectives, disappearances, mystery, Podcasts, society and customs

Gilded Age New York Mysterious Stories Neighborhoods Podcasts

The Recluse of Herald Square: The Mystery of Ida Wood

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date September 13, 2024
10 Comments on The Recluse of Herald Square: The Mystery of Ida Wood

Ida Wood had a secret. Born Ida Mayfield in New Orleans, Ida moved to New York in the 1850s and through her marriage to Benjamin Wood, publisher of the New York Daily News, she entered society.

By the 1870s and 80s, Ida’s name was found in the social columns of the city’s newspapers.

So why, in 1907, did Ida Wood cash in – withdrawing her fortune from the bank and then, along with her sister and daughter, retreat into a suite at the Herald Square Hotel… for decades?

This is the story of a Gilded Age belle turned recluse, who chose to withdraw from society while still living in the heart of it. It’s also the story of the fortune hunters who circled around her in her final years.

And most incredibly – it’s the story of what happened next.

LISTEN NOW: THE RECLUSE OF HERALD SQUARE

One of the only remaining images we have of Ida Wood.

“Ida Mayfield”, moved to New York in the 1850s and married publisher and politician Benjamin Wood in 1867. By the 1870s, her name appeared regularly in the society columns.

Ida’s husband, Benjamin Wood, publisher of the New York Daily News from 1861 until his death in 1900. He was also the brother of the notorious Civil War-era Mayor of New York, Fernando Wood. Upon his death, Ida took over editorial responsibilities for the Daily News.

The Herald Square Hotel around 1900. (Source: Beyond The Gilded Age) The hotel opened in the late 1890s. Ida, her sister Mary and daughter Emma, moved into a suite in on the hotel’s fifth floor in 1907. Ida would remain in the hotel until her death in 1932.

In 1964, The Recluse of Herald Square: The Mystery of Ida E. Wood by Joseph A. Cox was published by The Macmillan Company.

In the 1930s, Cox served as counsel for the Surrogate Court of New York County and charged with determining the legal identity of Ida E. Wood so that her estate could be distributed.

The book is out of print today, although you can read it for free here on Archive.org, and you may be lucky and find it in your library.

New York Daily News, Oct. 10, 1931. Not mentioned: The pouch had been sliced out of her dress while she slept by her nurse.

Brooklyn Times-Union, October 14, 1931. Ida was still very much alive.

The New York Times, March 13, 1932. Ida’s obituary ran at the top of Page One.

New York Daily News, August 24, 1934. By 1934, hundreds of Mayfields and Woods families were filing claims on Ida’s estate. More than 600 claimants would appear in court.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 3, 1937 More than 1,000 claimed a familial connection to Ida — mostly through the Mayfield side. Joseph Cox, working for the Surrogate’s Court, was assigned to find out who, exactly, Ida really was.

FURTHER LISTENING

After listening to this episode, dive into these past shows with similar themes and locations

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!

Stop reading here if you haven’t yet listened to the show.

At the end of the show, Tom mentioned another possible ending that was proposed by investigator Joseph Cox, author of “The Recluse of Herald Square: The Mystery of Ida E. Wood.”

Cox proposed in his final chapter that Ida, before leaving Massachusetts for New York, likely worked as a domestic helper. He theorizes that she could have become involved with a young man of the house, and could have found herself pregnant.

She could have returned to live with her family, secretly given birth to Emma, and then, through her own clever manipulation, had her parents’ names entered on Emma’s birth certificate.

In this scenario, however, Ida (or rather, Ellen) was very much the mother of Emma. Ellen then moved to New York with the child, whom she told Ben Wood was her much younger sister.

This, Cox believes, simply makes more sense. For why else would Ellen/Ida have taken on the young child? Why wouldn’t Emma have stayed with her mother in Massachusetts?

It’s pure speculation, but logical. However, the facts – and all the documents – secured by Cox showed Ida’s parents listed as Emma’s parents. And Ben’s letter to the priest also makes clear his position. So all the evidence points to Emma being Ida’s sister.

Was it all a cover up? We’ll never know.

Mysterious Stories Podcasts

The Ghosty Men: The Story of the Collyer Brothers

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date September 6, 2024
5 Comments on The Ghosty Men: The Story of the Collyer Brothers

You better clean your room or you’ll end up like the Collyer Brothers.

New York City, a city crammed of 8.6 million people. It’s filled with stories of people who just want to be left alone – recluses, hermits, cloistering themselves from the public eye, closing themselves off from scrutiny.

But none attempted to seal themselves off so completely in the way that Homer and Langley Collyer attempted in the 1930s and 1940s. Their story is infamous. In going several steps further to be left alone, they in effect drew attention to themselves and to their crumbling Fifth Avenue mansion – dubbed by the press ‘the Harlem house of mystery’.

They were the children of the Gilded Age, clinging to blue-blooded lineage and drawing-room social customs, in a neighborhood that was about to become the heart of African-American culture. But their unusual retreat inward — off the grid, hidden from view — suggested something more troubling than fear and isolation. And in the end, their house consumed them.

Listen Now: Collyer Brothers Podcast

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Homer Collyer, 1939

Langley Collyer, 1942, at his New York Herald Tribune photo shoot

The three remaining rowhouses developed by George J. Hamilton. The middle house gives you some idea of what the Collyer mansion looked like.

No littering in Collyer Brothers Park!

Silent footage taken outside the Collyer house, 1947

FURTHER READING

Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow
Out of this World by Helen Worden Erskine
Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost and Grail Steketee
Ghosty Men by Franz Lidz

FURTHER LISTENING

We’ve visited the back story of famous recluses in past shows with the story of Big Edie and Little Edie Bouvier (Grey Gardens) and the legendary film actress Greta Garbo:

And the story of changing Harlem is profiled in the biography episode of the great Madam C. J. Walker

Tags Collyer Brothers, Grey Garden, Harlem, New York Police Department, parks, racism

Podcasts Revolutionary History

Aaron Burr vs. Alexander Hamilton: The terrible consequences of an ugly insult

Post author By Bowery Boys
Post date July 10, 2024
2 Comments on Aaron Burr vs. Alexander Hamilton: The terrible consequences of an ugly insult

Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr met at a clearing in Weehawken, NJ, in the early morning on July 11, 1804, to mount the most famous duel in American history. But why did they do it?

This is the story of two New York lawyers — two Founding Fathers — that so detested each other that their vitriolic words (well, mostly Hamilton’s) led to these two grown men shooting each other out of honor and dignity, while robbing America of their brilliance, leadership and talent.

You may know the story of this duel from history class, but this podcast focuses on its proximity to New York City, to their homes Richmond Hill and Hamilton Grange and to the places they conducted their legal practices and political machinations.

Which side are you on?

ALSO: Find out the fates of sites that are associated with the duel, including the place Hamilton died and the rather disrespectful journey of the dueling grounds in Weehawken.

CORRECTION: Alexander Hamilton had his fateful dinner as the house of Judge James Kent, not John Kent, as I state here.

Alexander Hamilton, leader of the Federalists was a played out, stressed out, heavily in debt politician by June 1804. This is John Trumbull’s painting of Hamilton, completed almost over a year after the duel.

The Hamilton Grange, a beautiful home on the Hudson that Alexander only lived in for a couple years. (NYPL)

Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States, was a played out, stressed out, heavily in debt politician by June 1804. This is John Vanderlyn’s portrait of Burr from 1802.

View of the Weekhawken dueling grounds in 1830s. This area most likely still saw some duels at this period. Note the small monument/obelisk marking the spot allegedly where Hamilton fell. (NYPL)

Thomas Addis Emmet’s quaint depiction of the dueling grounds was created in 1881, long after the actual grounds were destroyed by railroad construction. (NYPL)

From the New York Tribune, July 1904, a look at the Hamilton bust that once sat in Weehawken. Several years later, vandals took the bust and hurled it off the cliff.

The William Bayard house in later years, with the lots surrounding it obviously sold and built up around it. (NYPL)

The Hamilton tomb at Trinity Church, picture taken in 1908, although it looks pretty much the same today! (Wurts Brothers, Courtesy MCNY)

Broadway and Wall Street. Tomb of Alexander Hamilton, Trinity churchyard.

Tags Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, Burr-Hamilton duel, Hamilton Grange, New Jersey, Podcasts, Richmond Hill, Trinity Church, Weehawken

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Listen to our podcast on the General Slocum Disaster:

Listen to our podcast on the General Slocum Disaster here:

LISTEN NOW: THE TRIAL OF JOHN PETER ZENGER

Remembering Them

A Lower East Side Tragedy

East vs. West

Yorkville and Beyond

Missing Tenements

Family and Friends

PODCAST A star of the New York City skyline is reborn — the Waldorf Astoria is reopening in 2025!

LISTEN NOW: THE RETURN OF THE WALDORF ASTORIA

LISTEN NOW: THE RADIO CITY ROCKETTES

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You can purchase them here: the official Bowery Boys Podswag store.

Buy some cool stuff for you and your gang today. And thank you for supporting the Bowery Boys Podcast.

PODCAST The mysterious disappearance of a young woman becomes one of the most talked-about events over one hundred years ago.

LISTEN NOW: THE RECLUSE OF HERALD SQUARE

FURTHER LISTENING

FURTHER READING

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!

Listen Now: Collyer Brothers Podcast

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