The stunning colors of autumn are upon us, and  you can appreciate the full glory of fall within the limits of New York City, accessible by public transportation. In past years, I’ve focused on the spectacular leafy vistas at Woodlawn Cemetery, Wave Hill and the New York Botanical Garden, as well as Sailors Snug Harborin Staten Island.
But Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery offers the colors of fall in a most mysterious, gothic setting, thanks in part to its age (opening in 1838). Its rambling ‘rural cemetery’ design presents a surprising adventure, with a variety of trees changing different hues at different intervals.
I was there this weekend working on a segment of the next episode of The First and was utterly distracted by the beauty.  Take a look at some of the pictures I took — covering only a small area of the grounds — and plan a visit in the next couple weeks before the leaves are gone.Â
Grab a map at the gate and go on a hunt for the cemetery’s most famous residents — Henry Ward Beecher, Boss Tweed, Peter Cooper (his gravesite is the first picture below), Horace Greeley, James Gordon Bennett, Jean-Michel Basquiat and many, many more.
This is a special preview for the new Bowery Boys spin-off podcast series The First: Stories of Inventions and their Consequences, brought to you by Bowery Boys host Greg Young.
01: The first Ferris Wheel was invented to become America’s Eiffel Tower, making its grand debut at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. The wheel’s inventor George Washington Gale Ferris was a clever and optimistic soul; he did everything in his power to ensure that his glorious mechanical ride would forever change the world.
That it did, but unfortunately, its inventor paid a horrible price.
FEATURING a visit the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island, one of the most famous wheels in the world, and a trip to one of Chicago’s newest marvels — the Centennial Wheel at Navy Pier.
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.
Please visitour page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too — Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far. And the best is yet to come!
The star of the show — George Washington Gale Ferris:
… and the Ferris Wheel at the World’s Fair!
Courtesy Chicago History Museum
Some intriguing finds I made while researching at the Chicago History Museum and the National Archives:
The telegram from Luther Rice to George Washington Ferris that was read on the show:
This was also featured on the show — the passionate letter from Ferris, asking Rice to join the project
Images of wheel construction courtesy Scientific American.
Courtesy Scientific AmericanCourtesy Scientific AmericanCourtesy Scientific AmericanCourtesy Scientific American
New York Times, May 13, 1894 — This article mentioned the plan to move the Ferris Wheel to New York (but the plan fell through)
Arriving at the end of the month — a brand new podcast series from Greg Young of the Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast. ‘The First: Stories of Inventions and their Consequences’ explores the people and circumstances around the creations of every day objects and ideas of the modern world.
Even the most ordinary invention often has an extraordinary reason for being. Â This is the history of our technological world, one item at a time. Â Hopefully you’ll never look the same way at objects that you’ve taken for granted in your life.
— The First begins on October 28. Bowery Boys subscribers will get a sneak preview of their show in their podcast feeds but you’ll want to subscribe directly from iTunes as well. The first episode will be up at other streaming servers shortly.
— The First will be released every two weeks on alternating weeks with the Bowery Boys. Â Subscribe to both and you’ll have a new history podcast to listen to each week!
— The blog for The First is still under a bit of construction but if you want a clue to the subject of the first episode, check out the rough version of the blog here.
If you’re heard the Bowery Boys’ latest podcast Ghosts of the Gilded Age, then you’ve heard the trailer for The First. If you haven’t gotten to that yet, then you can listen to the trailer here. Enjoy!
We are very pleased to announce the very first Bowery Boys podcast spin-off series — a new show called The First: Stories of Inventions and their Consequences.
As the name implies, this will be a series about the history of inventions, but not those flash-bang EUREKA! Thomas Edison-with-a-lightbulb moments. The firsts in human history are never so perfectly defined or picture perfect.
You know the man who made the first phone call, but do you know who he was calling?
The First, brought to you by Greg Young of the Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast, is a look at the history of inventions and innovations at the so-called ‘moment of impact’, focusing less on iconic inventors and more on the forgotten geniuses and everyday people who were responsible for bringing us the tools of the modern world.
The show will also highlight those that were first affected by these inventions — for better or for worse. New technologies and ideas might have made the world a different place, but they did not always make them a better place.
You may know the names of those who invented the camera, but do you know those who were first photographed?
From the automobile to the rocket ship, from chewing gum to the TV dinner, from the first face in a photograph to the first voice on the telephone. These are the stories of the First.
In addition, where possible, these stories will always feature the original words of the subjects themselves — telegrams, journal entries, diaries, court testimonies, newspaper interviews.
The official trailer for The First will be introduced at the end of the next Bowery Boys episode (which just happens to be our 10th annual Halloween special)!
Grab yourself America’s first TV dinner (a Thanksgiving meal) and tune in.
The First artwork is designed by Thomas Cabus, an award-winning designer who has worked on projects for the New York Road Runners, the New Orleans Film Festival and Circle of 6.
PODCAST The trials and tribulations experienced by the Bronx through the mid and late 20th century.
In the third and final part of our Bronx history series, we tackle the most difficult period in the life of this borough — the late 20th century and the days and nights of urban blight.
The focus of this show is the South Bronx, once the tranquil farmlands of the Morris family and the location of the first commuter towns, situated along the new railroad. By the 1950s, however, a great number of socio-economic forces and physical changes were conspiring to make life in this area very, very challenging.
Construction projects like the Cross Bronx Expressway and shifts in living arrangements (from new public housing to the promise of Co-Op City) had isolated those who still lived in the old tenements of the South Bronx. Poverty and high crime rendered the neighborhood so undesirable that buildings were abandoned and even burned.
Mainstream attention (from notable television broadcasts to visits by the President of the United States) did not seem to immediately change things here. It would be up to local neighborhood activists and wide-ranging city and state programs — not to mention the purveyors of an energetic new musical force — to begin to improve the fortunes of this seemingly doomed borough.
FEATURING an interview with Inside Out Tours founder and chief tour guide Stacey Toussaint about the new Bronx renaissance.
ALSO: Appearances by Howard Cosell, Sonia Sotomayor, Robert Moses, Grand Wizzard Theodore, and Jimmy Carter!
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.
Please visitour page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too — Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far. And the best is yet to come!
Construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway required the mass expulsion of residents from their homes
Lehman College
From this overhead view, you can see the areas of the city about to be wiped away by expressway construction. And you can also observe the powerful impact public housing has already had on the landscape
NYU Furman Center Archives
Life on Arthur Avenue, 1940. The Italian sector of the Bronx would only grow larger in the mid 20th century as more Italians from southern areas of New York City migrated to the Bronx
Stieglitz, C.M./Library of Congress
The scene on Macombs Road, 1964
Macombs Rd., Bronx / World Telegram & Sun photo by Phil Stanziola.
Yankee Stadium in 1969
Photo by AP Images
Scenes from the South Bronx, early 1970s, from photographer Camilo J. Vergara, courtesy Library of Congress
Overlooking a portion of the Bronx River, 1970
Camilo J. Vergara photographer/Library of Congress
Camilo J. Vergara/Library of Congress
Camilo J. Vergara/Library of Congress
Camilo J. Vergara/Library of Congress
The view from Hunts Point, 1970
Camilo J. Vergara/Library of Congress
East 167th Street, South Bronx, 1973, Camilo J. Vergara/Library of Congress
Members of the Reapers gang clean up a lot in the South Bronx, 1972. Photo by Life Magazine photographer John Shearer. Check out the rest of the photos in this series here.
John Shearer Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
The termination point of the Third Avenue El (around 147th through 149th) which was torn down in 1977.
Jack Boucher photographer
Insanity: One of dozens of fires that occurred in the aftermath of the blackout of 1977.
AP Photo/HG
A child’s baptism at St. Jerome’s Church in the South Bronx
Photo by Susan Lorkid Katz/MCNY
June 1977.
Courtesy AP
An abandoned building on Charlotte Street was turned into an art project by John Fekner, Broken Promises/Falsas Promesas, 1980
Planting a community garden in a vacant lot, 1980s
A current exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York celebrates the photography of Mel Rosenthal in their show In The South Bronx of America, running until October 16
Mel Rosenthal/MCNY
Mel Rosenthal/MCNY
Mel Rosenthal/MCNY
And now a few videos — both of actual events and dramatized, highly exaggerated depictions of the Bronx.
The infamous video from the 1977 World Series between the Yankees and the Dodgers, with Howard Cosell running play-by-play for both the game and the drama outside the stadium.
A film about DJ Kool Herc made in the 1980s
Dramatic video from ABC News of the Bronx as it looked in 1982
A news report about Fort Apache, police precinct in the Bronx. This uses documentary footage (albeit with dramatic music).
Later the film Fort Apache: The Bronx dramatized the events at this police precinct:
The trailer from the exploitation film ‘1990: The Bronx Warriors’ made in 1982
Was there an estate in New York ever as beautiful as Morrisania, nearly 2,000 acres that hugged the Harlem River until it opened out into the turbulent East River as it coursed past small islands and flowed into the Long Island Sound?
A property that varied from western hills looking over the river to the rolling spread of Manhattan below, to eastern marshes and flatlands suitable for farming.
Today’s Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania is only a small portion of the original property owned by the Morris family since the 1670s, during the dawning years of British dominance in the New York region.
Vestiges of the old estate still existed well into the 20th century, including their old well (pictured below in 1910)
The original parcel, purchased by Welsh captain Richard Morris, was only 500 acres, a part of original land settled by Bronx namesake Jonas Bronck.
When Richard died, brother Lewis Morris (for reasons that will soon be evident, let’s call him Lewis I) moved from the West Indies to claim the property. He would be one in a succession of Lewis Morrises to live here and place an imprint on what would some day contain much of the South Bronx.
The Morris family was feisty, business savvy, well connected, extremely aristocratic and entirely unoriginal with names. Another Lewis Morris (Richard’s son, or Lewis II) became the governor, at separate times, of both New York and New Jersey. Yet another Lewis (Lewis III) became a powerful New York justice. His son Lewis Morris (Lewis IV) was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Below: Morris farm houses, still standing in 1920
If you haven’t gleaned it already, the clan carried themselves like some kind of royal family. They were, artificially at least, as were many families in the New World who quickly made fortunes here and staked claims in manners similar to what their forebears were accustomed to in Europe. Over the decades, the Lewises would blend by marriage into other elite, bold-faced families to form a tangled ball of interlinked faux American royalty.
Morrisania for most of the 18th century resembled a miniature British kingdom, with a spread of small farms, dairies and cattle pens operated by those leasing from the Morris family, a proper workaday serfdom common for the era. However, during the early decades, the land was even worked with slave labor, although the practice was phased out in later generations.
Below: The Lewis G Morris house which stood at Montgomery Avenue and 176th Street at late as 1905 (the date of this image)
Museum of City of New York
When Lewis 3passed in 1762, this massive property was split in two. West of the small babbling Mill Brook (honored today with a playground and a housing development) belonged to Lewis IV and his brothers, but the more bucolic eastern side fell to Lewis III’s second wife Sarah and eventually her only son. That’s right, Gouverneur Morris (pictured below).
Gouverneur fled his home during the Revolutionary War, but his mother Sarah stayed behind. During this time, the rich farmland was vandalized and the family’s voluminous library, one of the largest collections in North America at the time, was ransacked.
Gouverneur was quite busy in the late 18th century doing things like penning the Constitution and being minister to France in the midst of their bloody revolution. But wherever he traveled, he always felt a closeness to Morrisania.
After the war, while Gouverneur was in France, Lewis Morris (the fourth one, Gouverneur’s half brother) offered up the family estate of Morrisania be used as the site for the new American capital. One can just imagine the history of New York had Congress taken him up on that offer!
The former mansion of Gouverneur Morris which sat near the waterfront in the Bronx until the 1900s.
Museum of the City of New York
In 1798, when Gouverneur returned from France and claimed the property for himself, he built a new home here (the one pictured above) and filled it with all his gathered French finery. Perhaps no household was more beautiful — or as pretentious — as Morris’ new manor.
Gouverneur, of course, facilitated the growth of New York with his roles in the development of both the Commissioners Plan of 1811 and the Erie Canal. His old farms, however, were technically part of Westchester Country. In the 1840s, his son Gouverneur Morris Jr. emulated New York’s former estate owners and began to develop his property for commercial and residential use.
Below: The village of Morrisania, an original ‘commuter’s town’ for those who worked in the city of New York down south.
MCNY
Chief among these decisions was becoming vice president of the New York and Harlem Railroad (eventually to be owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt) and allowing the railroad to cut through the old property. Townships formed around the railroad station, include one small village named for the old manor, Morrisania. That village is the root of today’s neighborhood of the same name.
Gouverneur Junior was cut from the visionary mold that would define many in the 19th century. One pet project was the development of a port village along the old family property on the eastern shoreline, today’s Port Morris area.
Port Morris, pictured below in 1920, would become a chief location for manufacturing in the borough.
Given that Gouverneur Senior was partially responsible for Manhattan’s grid, it’s no surprise that a different grid patterns were adhered to the old Morris properties over the years. In emulating Manhattan’s pattern, all traces of the area’s early farm existence was eradicated.
The following years would hold many strange detours in the history of the South Bronx: opulent boulevards, the New York Yankees, 1970s urban decay. But the Morrises live on, if in name only.
However one lasting physical vestige to the Morris family still remains — St. Ann’s Church (pictured below) in the neighborhood of Morrisania, built in 1840 and the location of burials for members of the Morris family, including Gouverneur Morris and Lewis Morris (the fourth).
Portions of this article were taken from an earlier one that I wrote for this blog back in 2010.
PODCAST REWINDNew Yorkers are serious about their pizza, and it all started with a tiny grocery store in today’s Little Italy and a group of young men who became the masters of pizza making.
In this podcast, you’ll find out all about the city’s oldest and most revered pizzerias — Lombardi’s, Totonno’s, John’s, Grimaldi’s and Patsy’s in all its variations.
But if those are the greatest names in New York-style pizza, then who the heck is Ray — Original, Famous or otherwise?
NOW UPDATED with several minutes of new pizza history –– including an update on Totonno’s in Coney Island, the pizza war firing up underneath the Brooklyn Bridge and the story of Sbarro’s mall pizza domination.
A New York ‘pizza tree’ which ran in the New York Times in 1998, outlining the lineage of local pizza. (Read the entire article here, section F6, page 87.)
Courtesy New York Times
Below: The original Lombardi’s back when it sold a lot more than just pizza.
The 1988 issue of the trade journal Pizza Today, extolling the virtues of New York and one of its signature dishes.
PODCAST The story of how the Bronx became a part of New York City and the origin of some of the borough’s most famous landmarks.
In the second part of the Bowery Boys’ Bronx Trilogy — recounting the entire history of New York City’s northernmost borough — we focus on the years between 1875 and 1945, a time of great evolution and growth for the former pastoral areas of Westchester County.
New York considered the newly annexed region to be of great service to the over-crowded city in Manhattan, a blank canvas for visionary urban planners. Soon great parks and mass transit transformed these northern areas of New York into a sibling (or, perhaps more accurately, a step-child) of the densely packed city to the south.
The Grand Concourse embodied the promise of a new life for thousands of new residents — mostly first and second-generation immigrants, many of them Jewish newcomers. The Hall of Fame of Great Americans was a peculiar tourist attraction that honored America’s greatest. But the first time that many outside New York became aware of the Bronx may have been the arrival in 1923 of New York’s most victorious baseball team, arriving via a spectacular new stadium where sports history would frequently be made.
By the 1930s Parks Commissioner Robert Moses began looking at the borough as a major factor in his grand urban development plans. In some cases, this involved the creation of vital public recreations (like Orchard Beach). Other decisions would mark the beginning of new troubles for the Bronx.
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.
Please visitour page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are five different pledge levels (and with clever names too — Mannahatta, New Amsterdam, Five Points, Gilded Age, Jazz Age and Empire State). Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far. And the best is yet to come!
The burial vault of the Van Cortlandts was actually contained within the newly formed park. And it’s still there.
Courtesy New York Park Service
NYU’s former University Heights campus (now the home of Bronx Community College) contains one unusual tourist attraction — the Hall of Fame of Great Americans
Louis Risse’s vision of the Grand Concourse in 1892 obviously did not imagine automobiles using the boulevard.
MCNY
Kingsbridge Road near the Grand Concourse, 1890. It was originally a dirt road of course.
MCNY
The New York Botanical Garden inaugurated Bronx Park and created another reason for New Yorkers to head up to the vastly evolving area up north.
A romantic depiction of the Lorillard snuff mill on the Bronx River. The building is still on the river, contained within the Botanical Garden.
By Frederick Rondel, Jr., courtesy MCNY
Jerome Park Reservoir, opposite a set of homes, pictured here in 1920 and (below) 1936.
MCNYMCNY
The unveiling of the Heinrich Heine monument in today’s Joyce Kilmer Park on the Grand Concourse.
MCNY
Lavish apartments like the Roosevelt (pictured here in 1924 and in 1937) were able to attract New Yorkers escaping the overcrowded Lower East Side.
MCNYMCNY
Fordham Road in 1930 with the Grand Concourse East Kingsbridge Road steaming by.
Photo by William Roege (1930)
A Yankee Stadium postcard circa 1945
Courtesy MCNY
Ruth was so integrally a part of the Bronx and Yankee Stadium that when he died in 1948, his casket was taken to the stadium where tens of thousands of people came to pay their respects.
A few selections from our Instagram account of things we discussed on this week’s show:
In 1910, D.W. Griffith made one of first films ever produced in Hollywood, CA, appropriately called In Old California. Before then, film production companies were scattered throughout the United States, with two of the most successful based here in New York City.
The American Vitagraph Company, originally located at the Morse Building on 140 Nassau Street, made film shorts on the roof before moving to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Midwood in 1906. Vitagraph is best known for producing a five-part serial on The Life of Moses strung together to make what some call the first ever feature length motion picture.
More influential, however, was probably Edison Studios, the film company owned by inventor Thomas Edison. With principal studios in the New Jersey town West Orange — and original laboratories in Menlo Park (now Edison, NJ) — Edison eventually set his sights on a Manhattan studio.
He initially moved into the heart of the city in 1901, in a studio at 41 East 21st Street. Such a move made sense at the time; movies were only a few minutes long, essentially just filmed sequences of activities, and had no sound. A small studio smack in the center of New York would not have been disturbed by the bustle of the city.
With the growth into narrative films — longer movies with elaborate sets and casts — Edison needed to expand into a larger space and in 1908 moved production to a warehouse in the Bronx, at Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place, sandwiched between the Grand Concourse and the New York Botanical Garden.
“The Edison Studio is said to be one of the finest and largest of its kind in the world,” reported [the theatrical trade paper]The Dramatic Mirror. “The building itself is 60 by 100 feet, built of concrete, iron and glass. The scenic end of the studio, corresponding to the stage in a theatre, except that it is not raised is 60 by 60 feet and 40 feet high. Here the scenes for film productions that cannot be made with natural outdoor backgrounds are painted and set.”
Its glass enclosure was especially revolutionary for the day, allowing for a diversity of film presentations. Â Of a film called While John Bolt Slept, the clearly-not-unbiased Edison Kinetogram journal said in 1913: “The scene in the tenement alley is a wonderful example of the realistic effect which can be obtained in the Studio. Even the ‘fan’ of long standing would hardly believe that the scene was done under the great glass of the Bronx Studio.”
Inside the Bronx Edison Studios:
It was at this new Bronx studio in 1910 that Edison’s company produced one of its greatest works, the very first film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Shot in a week — rather lengthy for a film shoot in those days — the loose adaptation featured Charles Ogle as the famed monster.
Believe it or not, the film began production on January 17, 1910, and was released by March of that year! Since there just weren’t that many movies houses in 1910, a film release constituted about 40 copieswhich were distributed around the country, then returned several months later.
The film was reportedly lost forever before a single negative was found and restored in the 1970s. I present to you the Bronx-made psycho-horror masterpiece in all its glory:
Unfortunately this glorious studio was destroyed long before the film industry moved out to California, gutted by fire on March 28, 1914. The glass ceiling, shattered during the blaze, proved quite a danger to fire fighters. Â Two men were cut by flying glass though no one was seriously injured, a miracle considering that over a hundred actors had been working there the previous night.
“Thousands of dollars worth of cameras, scenery, costumes and properties were burned, as was all the film so far used in the making of a spectacle to be called The Battle of Mobile Bay.” Other films worth $100,000 including original films of Mayor Gaynor and Andrew Carnegie, stored in fireproof vaults, were saved.”
Edison was not alone in finding inspiration in the Bronx. Â Biograph Studios briefly (from 1913 to 1915) opened a studio at East 175th Street and Marmion Avenue just north of Crotona Park.
The building would later claim a greater connection to Hollywood int the 1935s when it was transformed into Gold Medal Studios, an early film and television production company. (Below: The unspectacular exterior)
Truly exciting for residents of the Bronx was that these studios often plucked random people off the street to serve as extras in their films.
This article reprinted from a blog posting on January 10 2011.
Nobody remembers the Bronx World’s Fair of 1918 or, more precisely, the Bronx International Exposition of Science, Arts and Industries. Nor should they really. Modest in scale and only partially completed, the exposition failed to bring the world marvels on the scale of the elevator (from the 1853 Crystal Palace exposition) or the television set (from the 1939-40 World’s Fair in Flushing-Meadows).
It was, in most aspects, a flop. But something very magical — and very nostalgic — arose in its place.
The fair was twenty years in the making, opening on June 29, 1918, two decades after the Bronx had become an official borough of New York. While many areas of the Bronx (as the Annexed District) were already part of New York as early as 1874, it wasn’t until consolidation that Bronx leaders began shaping a new character for this former section of Westchester County.
But in a sense, the fair was 300 years in the making. It was initially planned as a commemoration of the first European settlement in the Bronx. (NOTE: The park was supposed to open in 1917, although I’m still not sure which measure they’re using to get 1617 as a date of settlement; Jonas Bronck, considered the ‘first’ settler, arrived in 1638.)
The fair was developed on the old grounds of the William Waldorf Astor estate in the neighborhood of West Farms, just to the south of Bronx Park.
From the caption: “Bird’s-Eye View of the Bronx International Exposition Grounds showing the wonderful location in the heart of the great city, and transportation facilities, with railroads, subway and elevated lines, surfactelines and automobile boulevard at the very door. The Bronx River, providing anchorage for small craft, forms the western boundary of the exposition grounds.”
Courtesy OutdoorAfro.com
The fair was meant to attract foreign trade to this country after the war. It was to be a Bronx show-and-tell. “The exposition will bring hundreds of thousands of visitors, who will have the chance to see the Bronx at its very best. There is no reason, it is said, why a certain percentage of those newcomers might not become interested in real estate.” [source]
From a 1917 advertisement in Billboard Maazine attempting to drum up exhibitors.
Below: Grand plans indeed. What the Bronx fair was supposed to look like.
Courtesy New York Tribune
The fair opened almost one month late, having already been delayed a year due to the war. Even still, when it did open, most of its buildings were yet to be completed. Most would never be finished. “[T]here are only a dozen buildings and a number of concessions including a restaurant, a roller coaster, a centrifugal swing and a nonsense house,” giving it “the impression of a mini-Coney Island.” [source] [source]
Over the coming weeks, fair attendees would attend such free attractions as Madame Torelli’s Comedy Circus, the Lunette Sisters aka “the whirling Geisha Girls,” and performances by the world’s greatest high-diver Kearney P. Speedy. And there was some kind of “monkey cabaret” as well.
One of the Exposition’s most popular attractions was a small submarine called the Holland, the very first commissioned by the United States Navy.
From the Private Collection Of Ric Hedman
The fair was ‘international’ in the sense that only one country (Brazil) actually showed up to exhibit anything.
After all, it was entirely unrealistic to expect exhibitors while a war was raging in Europe. By August, the only headlines coming out of the International Exposition were related to swimming and diving. (“HAWAIIANS REPEAT TRIUMPHS IN TANK.”)
Most the fair’s more serious fare took a backseat to the amusements, as this advertisement from September 1918 indicates. The Exhibition Hall was eventually turned into a skating rink. Although one could enjoy cooking demonstrations and a fine exhibition of hardware:
By the following year, it was decided to just dispense with the serious stuff entirely. Well before the fair, there had been much talk of turning the Astor property into an amusement park. After the Exposition ended, that finally came to fruition — as Starlight Park.
Thousands of children descended upon Starlight Park during the summer, one of the popular attractions in the Bronx in the 1920s.
One of the park’s centerpieces was a giant stadium called the Coliseum which held up to 15,000 people, often there to cheer on New York’s premier soccer team, the New York Giants, who made Starlight their home from 1923 to 1930.
By the 1930s, most of the rides had closed, but the pool was still a popular draw. The park became a magnet for the area’s working class families, who enjoyed sunbathing, picnicking and, if they stayed after dark, moonlight dancing to live big band music. One of the very first Bronx radio stationsWKBQ also made Starlight its broadcasting home in 1931.
Sadly, Starlight met with a rather ungracious fate. The park was slowly demolished over the years and by 1940 it was permanently closed, transformed into a city truck facility. Fire in the late 1940s destroyed any remaining vestiges of the park, and its memory was completely wiped away by expanses of the Cross Bronx Expressway.
Today there’s a children’s playground at around the spot of the old exposition called Starlight Park.
Below: Strike up the band! Conductor V. Bavetta provides musical accompaniment to the visitors of Starlight Park
Courtesy Library of Congress
NOTE: Clips of this article originally appeared in my old 2009 post about Starlight Park.
PODCAST The tale of America’s most infamous political machine and the rise and fall of its flamboyant William ‘Boss’ Tweed. (Episode #86)
You cannot understand New York without understanding its most corrupt politician — William ‘Boss’ Tweed, a larger than life personality with lofty ambitions to steal millions of dollars from the city.
With the help of his Tweed Ring’ the former chair-maker had complete control over the city — what was being built, how much it would cost and who was being paid.
How do you bring down a corrupt government when it seems almost everybody’s in on it? We reveal the downfall of the Tweed Ring and the end to one of the biggest political scandal in New York history. It begins with a sleigh ride.
ALSO: Find out how Tammany Hall, the dominant political machine of the 19th century, got its start — as a rather innocent social club that required men to dress up and pretend they’re Native Americans.
A grand selection of illustrations of William Tweed and his Tweed Ring (in particular Peter Sweeny, New York mayor A. Oakey Hall, New York governor John Hoffman and Richard ‘Slippery Dick’ Connelly), as drawn by Thomas Nast, the Harper’s Weekly cartoonist who is perhaps most responsible for stirring up anger against New York’s corrupt political system.
These represent Nast’s work from between 1870 to 1876.. All are in the public domain and many are drawn directly from the New York Public Library public domain archives.
August 26, 1871
September 16, 1871
September 23, 1871
September 30, 1871
October 21, 1871
“The Tammany democratic tiger. The repudiation democratic tiger. Mr. [Sam] Tilden has consented, and to the end must be the mere “figure-head” of that Democratic tiger.”
DUMBO, for Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass — a stretch to create an geographic acronym if there ever was one — is not the only neighborhood named by a bridge which passes by, through, or over it. It might be obvious but the neighborhood of Kingsbridge in the Bronx is named for an actual bridge, and the King’s Bridge at that.
The Spuyten Duyvil Creek, that short, narrow span of water that separates the far north edge of Manhattan from the west side of the Bronx, has vexed travelers for hundreds of years, due to choppy waters and devilish legends. One translation of its name has traditionally been ‘Devil’s Spout’. Folklore sent Anthony Van Corlaer to his death here. (Listen to our oldHaunted Tales podcastfor more information.)
Below: Marble Hill in the year 1900, an undeveloped parcel of land which was cut from Manhattan via a canal and eventually joined the mainland.
In the past 150 years, the course of this waterway has been re-routed, shut off and landfilled to accommodate needs of Harlem River shipping traffic. In fact the neighborhood of Marble Hill, once a part of Manhattan island, has been affixed to the Bronx by drilling a canal though its southern part (in 1895), then filling in the Spuyten Duyvil to its north (in 1914). This disembodied nub of Manhattan is still administratively considered part of the island.
But it’s not Marble Hill we’re looking at here, but rather the neighborhood to its east, Kingsbridge. Way before the Spuyten Duyvil was filled in, the creek posed a challenge for early Dutch farmers wishing to transport their wares into the city markets. However it was narrower than trying to attempt a crossing of the far-broader Harlem, and many farmers used their own boats to get across.
The rebuilt King’s Bridge in 1856
Courtesy NYPL
The earlier inhabitants of the land, the Lenape, simply used canoes when they wished to pass across it; it was at this spot that a well-trodden Indian trail led into the wilderness beyond. By the time of the Dutch, this path had been turned into a workable road. It would eventually become part of the Boston Post Road — appropriate the mail delivery route — which led into New York to the south and up the Albany to the north.
In 1669, in those tentative years of England’s early occupation of the former New Netherland colony, one enterprising Dutch farmer Johannes Verveelen set up a pay ferry service, at the area of the former creek today situated at 231st Street and Broadway— both to serve those who didn’t have their own vessels and to monetize those who had previously preferred their own.
This would be fine for awhile, until greater number of travelers to and from New York on the post road commanded that a more permanent solution be found.
The first Frederick Philipse (formerly Flypsen)
Enter wealthy adventurer and servant to the crown Frederick Philipse. The enterprising and ambitious Dutchman (his original name was Flypsen) came to New Amsterdam in the 1650s and stayed for the transition into New York. He then married into money and soon became the wealthiest man in town, thanks partially to the slave trade.
He soon acquired an estate (or rather, “hunting ground”) encompassing land between the Spuyten Duyvil creek and the Croton River further upstate.
He built a lavish home here — the Manor of Philipsburg — with breathtaking views of the Hudson.
Several buildings from the original Philipsburg Manor property still stand in the Hudson River Valley, including the Philipse Manor Hall, built in 1682.
Photo courtesy CUNY
As author Stefan Bielinski explains, Philipse “was essentially a merchant with mercantile liaisons extending to several continents, but although he had acquired land for speculative purposes, he also hoped to one day generate the flour, grain, and other products which his own ships would then carry to the worldwide marketplace.” Of course he would “generate” these goods with the help of slave labor.
This land once had been owned by Lenape and later by Adriaen van der Donck, the Dutch lawyer who apparently met an unfortunate end. Now these thousands of acres were part of a wealthy lord’s estate, part of a vast area that would later become the western Bronx and Yonkers.
Of course, in the southern part of his estate, there was that pesky road — that former Lenape road — that abutted his property, heavily trafficed with people crossing at the creek. No matter. In 1693, he built a bridge — the King’s Bridge as it was “established by royal grant“ — and charged a fee, payable to the crown.
Internet Book Archive
The bridge was the only legitimate way to cross the river, the only way to deliver goods to Manhattan from the mainland. Naturally this monopoly was soon poorly received by local farmers who wanted to sell their bounty in the profitable New York markets down south.
Philipse’s toll bridge can be seen as a physical representation of the later unrest between England and the colonies. Philipse and his descendants were faithful to the English; his great-grandson would still own the property during the Revolutionary War and would flee when the British were kicked out in 1783.
A plaque on nearby St. Stephen’s United Methodist Church commemorates both Verveelen’s ferry service and the site of the original King’s Bridge. Pictured here in 1932.
Museum of City of New York
Many decades later, a mild form of protest was practiced by neighboring farmers Benjamin Palmer and Jacob Dyckman, who built the aptly named wooden-plank Free Bridge in 1758, at around 226th and Broadway, with funds contributed by other perturbed locals.
This rebellion was celebrated with a wild feast, an ox roast, “thousands from the city and country …. rejoiced greatly.”
Palmer was the man responsible for developing City Island just three years later. Dyckman attempted to profit from the bridge by building a nearby tavern, later sold and known as Hyatt Tavern. The bridge was burned down by British soldiers in 1776, but they left the tavern still standing.
Below: Map showing the location of the King’s Bridge approximate to where the Free Bridge (or Dyckman’s Bridge) was. Â
Excerpt from the Battle Of Fort Washington Map By Sauthier showing original course of Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and locations of King’s Bridge, Dyckman’s Bridge, and Marble Hill area then part of Manhattan
As for the King’s Bridge, according to author Stephen Jenkins, it had fallen “into disuse, the gatekeeper gave up his position, and Colonel Philipse [great-grandson of Frederick] had to advertise for a new lease; from this time forth, it was virtually a free bridge also.”
It too was eventually destroyed — by Washington’s forces, as they fled in 1776 — but was rebuilt after the war, as was the Free Bridge. The pictures of the King’s Bridge you see in this post are of the rebuilt bridge.
The community that developed around King’s Bridge, losing the space and the apostrophe, was officially part of Yonkers until the city of New York annexed it in 1874, years before the creation of the Bronx borough.
A map from 1867 showing King’s Bridge in the southern portion:
With the filling in of Spuyten Duyvil Creek in 1914, the city not only created this strange quirky place called Marble Hill, they also apparently buried the bridge without dismantling it. It may still technically exist under the roadway at 230th Street and Broadway. Is this a historic legend or does a little piece of old New York still reside in the neighborhood of Kingsbridge?
This article is based on an article I wrote back in 2010. You can see the original here.
We’ve received such an overwhelming positive response to our Bronx history podcast — and we’re just at Part One. You may know a few things about 20th century Bronx history, but it’s so important to familiarize yourself with the early stories as well. Almost all of these stories figure into the creation of the modern Bronx and will help shape the borough’s future.
But there’s need to wait for us to release Part Two next week. There are many institutions in the borough where you can experience the early history of the Bronx firsthand. May we suggest planning an afternoon adventure around a visit to these places? (NOTE: It’s always a good idea to call ahead before planning a visit. Some of these locations often host private events.)
For reasons which will become obvious, late summer and autumn are the perfect times to visit some of these sites. You’ll see why many people consider the Bronx to be the most beautiful borough in New York City.
Start an exploration into Bronx history here, a non-profit organization located in the Valentine-Varian House, the oldest farmhouse in the Bronx (from 1758). As is the way with historical homes, this structure once owned by the family of New York mayor Isaac Varian and Bull’s Head Tavern owner Richard Varian was actually moved to its present location in the Williamsbridge Oval back in 1965. Inside you’ll find a complete display of exhibits and examples of colonial life in the Bronx.
LOCATION 3266 Bainbridge Avenue, Norwood, the Bronx WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT SOON A special exhibition (open until October 9) explores the history of Westchester Town, one of the earliest settlements in the region. We recommend pairing a visit to the home with a trip to New York Botanical Garden, just a short walk down Mosholu Parkway. HOURS AND ADMISSION Saturday 10AM-4PM; Sunday 1PM-5PM, $5 per adult, $3 for students, children and seniors HOW TO GET THERE BY SUBWAY — The D train to East 205th Street or the 4 train to Mosholu Parkway
Few places in New York feel as authentically connected to the era of the Revolutionary War as the old 1748 home of the Van Cortlandts, sitting within the family’s former estate in the park named after them. Depending on the time you get there — call ahead just to be sure they’re open — you’ll take a guided tour (perhaps even with a costumed guide) or have the opportunity to explore the house yourself.
LOCATION 6036 Broadway, Van Cortlandt Park, the Bronx WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT SOON The park is popular with joggers and sports fans, so you may want to join in the fun after a visit. Plan a trip here on the same day you go to Wave Hill. HOURS AND ADMISSION Tuesday-Friday 10AM-4PM; Saturday and Sunday 11AM-4PM, $5 per adult, $3 for students, children and seniors, free on Wednesdays HOW TO GET THERE BY SUBWAY — The 1 train to the last stop West 242nd Street
This is your home now! Well you can at least fantasize that this sumptuous 1843 mansion — and its 1927 companion Glyndor — is yours as you stroll the property, looking out at the splendid view of the Hudson River and the Palisades. The feeling of calm and isolation  you get from an afternoon here is almost impossible to find in the five boroughs.
LOCATION 649 W 249th St, Riverdale, the Bronx WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT SOON They encourage you to take your shoes off and walk in the grass. The already-gorgeous surroundings become even more extraordinary starting in the early fall. Perfect day-trip with the Van Cortlandt House Museum (see above) HOURS AND ADMISSION Tuesday-Sunday 9AM-5:30PM; $8 per adult, $4 for students and seniors, $2 children +2 (Parking is available) HOW TO GET THERE BY SUBWAY — The 1 train to the last stop West 242nd Street. A free Wave Hill shuttle van meets passengers on the west side of Broadway in front of Burger King (!) at 10 minutes past the hour, from 9:10am to 4:10pm. The shuttle van returns visitors to Broadway in front of Burger King, departing Wave Hill’s front gate on the hour, from 10am until 5pm. (You can also get here via Metro-North Railroad. See website for more information.)
This remains one of the strangest literary landmarks in New York City. Positioned in charming Poe Park, right off the Grand Concourse, the cottage has lost all of its original context but none of its allure. Standing on the porch, the more creative among you may be able to close your eyes and imagine the dark, sullen worlds the poet was able to conjure from here. (A few of his most famous poems were written at the cottage, and the short story “Landor’s Cottage” is believed to be heavily inspired by this place.)
LOCATION 2640 Grand Concourse, Fordham Manor, the Bronx WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT SOON Fall is always the best time experience anything Poe-related.  You’re also a short walk to the culinary delights of Arthur Avenue. HOURS AND ADMISSION Tuesday-Friday 10AM-3PM; Saturday and 10AM-4PM, Sunday 1PM-5PM, $5 per adult, $3 for students, children and seniors HOW TO GET THERE BY SUBWAY — The D train to Kingsbridge Road lets you off right at the park, however the 4 train to Kingsbridge Road will also get you there too.
Sometimes you learn more about the great figures from the past by seeing how they’ve chosen to spend eternity. Woodlawn Cemetery, which opened in 1863 and was specifically notable for its access to the new railroad, is the final resting place of moguls, robber barons, politicians, socialites and musicians. A stroll along Woodlawn’s paths will tell you more about human vanity and the urge to preserve personal legacy than any college psych class.  (Above: the plot for members of the Van Cortlandt family — THE Van Cortlandt family — is relatively modest.)
LOCATION 517 E 233rd St, Woodlawn Heights, the Bronx WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT SOON There are an abundance of intriguing public programs planned for the next couple months. Our favorites — a concert by the Bardekova Quintet on September 25 and a special walking tour on October 9 called “Shuffle Along and the Stories of Black Broadway.”  Visit their website for more information. HOURS AND ADMISSION Monday-Sunday 8:30AM-4:30PM, free, no bicycles HOW TO GET THERE BY SUBWAY – The 4 train to Woodlawn Station or the 2 or 5 trains to E 233rd Street
The Bartow-Pell Mansion, tracing its lineage back to the original Pell family, may not have the breathtaking view of the Palisades that Wave Hill has, but it has something else equally lush — an extraordinary formal garden in the back. This lovely and occasionally surreal feature has only been part of the house since 1916. It makes a perfect addition to the family home, originally constructed between 1836 and 1842.
LOCATION 895 Shore Road North, Pelham Bay Park, the Bronx WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT SOON This is the 100th anniversary of that garden, and a new exhibit celebrating its centennial pairs the formal beauty with strange and unusual pieces of modern art. If you go this weekend, you’ll be able to pair your experience here with a trip to Orchard Beach, which closes for the season on September 11. HOURS AND ADMISSION The house – Wednesday, Saturday-Sunday Noon-4PM, $5 adults, $3 seniors and students, free for kids under 6. The gardens — open daily, free, from 8:30AM to dusk. HOW TO GET THERE BY SUBWAY – The 6 train to the Pelham Bay Park station, then transfer to a #45 bus. More information here.
This lovely and strange little museum is tucked away off the main road and feels like a old ship in a bottle, dusty and preserved. If you can time your visit to City Island to coincide with its opening hours, it’s well worth a visit. You may think you’re in a small town in Maine! (But then again, the whole island often feels like that.)
LOCATION  190 Fordham Street, City Island, the Bronx WHY YOU SHOULD VISIT SOON If you’re clinging on to the last scraps of summer, then a visit to City Island — and its delicious eateries on the southern point — will provide you with the inspiration you need. HOURS AND ADMISSION Saturday and Sundays only, from 1PM to 5PM. Also by appointment. HOW TO GET THERE BY SUBWAY – The 6 train to the Pelham Bay Park station, then transfer to a #29 bus to City Island.  More information here.
PODCAST A history of the land which would become the Bronx, from the first European settlement to its debut in 1874 as New York’s Annexed District.
The story of the borough of the Bronx is so large, so spectacular, that we had to spread it out over three separate podcasts!
In Part One — The Bronx Is Born — we look at the land that is today’s borough, back when it was a part of Westchester County, a natural expanse of heights, rivers and forests occasionally interrupted by farm-estates and modest villages. Settlers during the Dutch era faced grave turmoil; those that came afterwards managed to tame the land with varying results. Speculators were everyone; City Island was born from the promise of a relationship with the city down south.
During the Revolutionary War, prominent families were faced with a dire choice — stay with the English or side with George Washington’s Continental Army? One prominent family would help shape the fate of the young nation and leave their name forever attached to one of the Bronx’s oldest neighborhoods. Sadly that family’s legacy is under-appreciated today.
By the 1840s, Westchester County was at last connected to New York via a new railroad line. It was a prosperous decade with the development of the area’s first college, a row of elegant homes and some of its very first ‘depot towns.’ Two decades later, the future borough would even cater to the dead — both the forgotten (at Hart Island) and the wealthy (Woodlawn Cemetery).
The year 1874 would mark a new chapter for a few quiet towns and begin the process of turning this area into the borough known as the Bronx.
FEATURING: Many places in the Bronx that you can visit today and experience this early history up close, including Wave Hill, Pelham Bay Park, Woodlawn Cemetery, City Island and more.
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In this 1896 Robert Bracklow photograph, a solitary woman stands by the Bronx River, looking almost completely unchanged from how it would have looked when Jonas Bronck saw it.
Museum of the City of New York
A 1914 illustration recounting the tale of Jonas Bronck:
Museum of the City of New York
Another book illustration, this one of the massacre of Anne Hutchinson and her family.
NYPL
The Split Rock as it appeared in 1910, with a memorial plaque to Anne and her family and no highways anywhere around it. The rock today has no plaque but the impression of one can still be seen.
Courtesy MCNY
An auction map of the Bronx from 1910, highlighting the area of Throg’s Neck which gets its name from Throckmorton or Throgmorton.
NYPL
The King’s Bridge from an 1856 illustration.
NYPL
The town of Westchester in the East Bronx, pictured here in 1872. Throg’s Neck is in the lower portion of the map. Today’s neighborhood of Soundview comprises the green portion.
NYPL
The village of Morrisania, pictured here in 1860, which arose from land owned by the Morrises after the railroad encouraged a row of ‘depot towns.’
MCNY
St Ann’s Episcopal Church in Morrisania, where both Lewis and Gouverneur Morris (and Gouverneur’s wife Ann) are buried.
Courtesy MCNY
A view of St. Ann’s today:
The Van Cortlandt Mansion then (in 1906)…
And today (featuring George Washington’s room):
The old City Island monorail from 1910
LOC
The old City Island Bridge, the only way on or off the island that’s not a boat. That remains true to this day, although the bridge is much sturdier-looking today!
MCNY
The old City Island Cemetery with Hart Island in the distance.
Breathtaking Wave Hill and the grounds which provide an unbelievable view of the Hudson River and the Palisades.
Here’s Tom, getting a peek inside George M Cohan’s mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery:
Jerome Park Racetrack where the Belmont Stakes were first run in 1867.
From Harpers Weekly, 1886:
The former (awkward) location of Edgar Allan Poe’s cottage. It has since been moved to the Grand Concourse.
And finally — Gouverneur Morris’ mansion which — believe it or not — stood at the foot of St. Ann’s Avenue until the 20th century.
MCNY
We want to give a big thanks to the Bronx Historical Society, Wave Hill, Woodlawn Cemetery and St. Ann’s Episcopal Church for helping us with our research. Keep coming back to the blog throughout the month of September as we’ll have additional stories about these places and others.
This month America celebrates the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, the organization which protects the great natural and historical treasures of the United States. There are a number of NPS locations in the five borough areas. Throughout the next few weeks, we will focus on a few of our favorites.  For more information, you can visit National Parks Centennial for a complete list of parks and monuments throughout the country.  For more blog posts in this series, click here.
GOVERNORS ISLANDÂ NATIONAL MONUMENT NEW YORK HARBOR
Governors Island has now inched a little closer to becoming an actual exotic island.
The cone-like southern portion, a landfill addition once populated with former U.S. Coast Guard buildings and an airstrip, has now sprouted fanciful hills of various shapes and sizes, providing extremely unique views of the surrounding harbor. The Hills feel both ancient and new, barren of trees but shaped like ancient landmasses which have conveniently emerged from the water, just in time for summer. Palm trees would not feel out of place.
Graciously carved paths lead from the historic side of the island to these new topographical features, and along the way, you’ll be tempted to stop in the hammock grove or perhaps the urban farm with its tiny population of tiny goats.
The Hills are the latest addition to one of New York’s most secretive historical corners, a new diversion for an island blessed with so many unusual stories.
Of the three small islands that sit in New York Harbor between Staten Island and Manhattan, two of them (Ellis Island and Liberty Island) have been embedded into the American consciousness as icons of freedom and opportunity. The third, Governors Island, is often overlooked by both visitors and residents.
However, for much of the city’s history, this ice-cream-cone shaped island, separated from Brooklyn by the richly named Buttermilk Channel, has been critically important to the nation’s defense. Fortunately, its most treasured historical landmarks are still around more than 200 years after they were constructed.
In 1624, when the Dutch brought the first settlers to the New World to establish what would become New Netherland, they deposited eight men on this small island, which they named Noten (Nut) Island. It was a convenient spot, just a short rowing distance from the future settlements of New Amsterdam and Breukelen. But it would be the British who would give it the name Governors Island after taking charge of the colony in 1664, as the royal governors of the New York colony would indeed live here.
Governors Island in 1824, the harbor’s military sentry even in times of peace.
Courtesy Museum of City of New York
The island would be less hospitable to the British a century later, when in 1776 the Continental Army constructed earthen forts here to ward off British war vessels during the early years of the Revolutionary War. While its guns did scare off two British ships on July 12, 1776, the British succeeded in driving the Continental Army out of New York during the Battle of Long Island. They would occupy Governors Island—and all of New York—throughout the conflict.
In 1783, at the end of the war, the new Americans ushered the British out of the harbor with gusto. But fears of their return continued for decades afterward, presenting the young government
with the alarming thought of New York being recaptured.
A view of Castle Williams from the interior of the island.
And so, with tensions mounting in the run-up to the War of 1812, two very different fortresses were constructed here. Fort Jay, sitting on the site of the original Revolutionary War defense, was designed like a five-pointed star fort surrounded by a dry moat.
Castle Williams, sitting on the shoreline, was given an almost completely circular shape, punctured with openings for dozens of cannons. Both fortifications have survived and can be visited today, most likely because neither ever saw an actual battle.
Aware of the island’s strategic location for defending the nation’s most important city and harbor, the U.S. Army moved out to Governors Island in the 1830s, and would remain stationed there until 1965.
The shady lawn separating the officers homes from the administrative buildings.
During the Civil War, the forts were reworked into holding cells for Confederate soldiers, Union deserters, and criminals. Captured Confederate officers were held in relatively posh quarters at Fort Jay while regular soldiers were thrown into the much less comfortable prison at Castle Williams.
As Lower Manhattan developed skyward in the late nineteenth century, the close proximity of two military forts to the nation’s largest city was a bit, well, surreal. Meanwhile a sort of small-town life developed here on the island, and by the 1880s, rows of elegant Victorian brick houses were constructed for Army officers and their families. A genteel life among the cannons!
In the first years of the twentieth century, the island more than doubled in size —the “cone†was added to the ice-cream scoop—with landfill mostly taken from excavations of New York’s subway system, which opened in 1904.
Wright’s historic flight from Governors Island over the harbor to Manhattan.
Internet Book Archive
This new flat expanse, located so close to lower Manhattan, was an ideal spot for the city’s first airstrip. In 1909 Wilbur Wright lifted off here in his flying machine, coasting around the Statue of Liberty and later up the West Side as far as Grant’s Tomb. It seemed like such a logical base for air transport that in the 1930s Mayor Fiorello La Guardia tried to build the city’s first permanent airport there.
The gigantic Building 400 (later renamed Liggett Hall) was the largest military building in the world when it was completed in 1930. The structure separates the original section of the island from its twentieth-century addition and lends the island something of a college campus feel. You can easily imagine how charming it must have been in the 1940s—there’s even a playhouse where Irving Berlin debuted a revue in 1942 called This Is the Army. Of course, charming revues couldn’t mask a more harrowing reality: The island’s residents were fully engaged in fighting World War II.
The ‘new’ section of Governors Island does feature a few artifacts from the past.
In 1966, the island changed administrative hands, as the Coast Guard moved in and increased the population by nearly 4,000 people. The leafy lanes became ever more bucolic, as small-town amenities were added, including a bowling alley and a supermarket. Â By 1996, the Coast Guard had departed for roomier shores, leaving the island desolate.
Governors Island had been the property of the federal government since the early nineteenth century. When in 2008 the island was sold to New York City, many wondered what could possibly become of the now-abandoned settlement. That same year the island opened its shores on weekends to visitors—they were free to explore, often with great astonishment, some of the empty structures, as if they were wandering ancient ruins.
Today, after more than a decade of thoughtful preservation and promotion, thousands of New Yorkers enjoy the island during the summer, visiting the officers’ homes (now home to arts and music groups), newly landscaped parks (in the landfilled “cone†section), and weekend arts and food festivals.
And after all this time, Fort Jay and Castle Williams, now maintained by the National Park Service, still stand watch over the harbor. Oh, the things they’ve seen.
