Author: Bowery Boys

Who watches the Watchtower?


Brooklyn Heights remains today a neighborhood underscored with the industry of religion. However, unlike its halcyon days of the 1800’s, when the Congregationalist churches of Henry Ward Beecher and Richard Salter Storrs Jr. became centerpieces of society, the 20th century brought in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose ownership and development of prime Heights real estate has been a point of controversy since the beginning.

Charles Taze Russell formed the Bible Student movement, a subset of the Protestant movement that disavows one of Christianity’s prime tenets (belief in the Trinity), in Pennsylvania but uprooted it in 1908 to settle in the heart of Brooklyn Heights, partially to take advantage of New York’s ports for distribution of their publications.

Under the auspice of Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, Russell began publishing religious literature for the group. With his death in 1916, the group splintered into further permutations, with the ones most affixed to the Heights and Russell’s original vision settling on the name Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1931.

After World War II, the group rapidly expanded into the heart of the Heights, demolishing many brownstones (including the former homes of Beecher and Washington Roebling) and constructing dormitories for their membership. Although they certainly haven’t been the most calamitous figure in the neighborhood (see Robert Moses and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway), their buildings are often bland or occasionally eyesores.

Their presence in the neighborhood is on the wane, however. Of the over thirty buildings they own in Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO, they have either sold or are in the process of selling several of them, including the historic Hotel Bossert and the Standish Arms Hotel, for many decades used as a dormitory for its Watchtower employees.

Even they aren’t immune to New York’s most predictable transformation; their bible shipping plant on Furman street was sold for $205 million and transformed into the luxury condo park One Brooklyn Bridge.

Apparently, however, if you live in the neighborhood, you’ll still experience the Witnesses’ tried-and-true door to door antics.

Approximately 3,000 Witnesses live and work in Brooklyn Heights. The Witness community is mostly self-sufficient, with food shipped in from upstate farms, meals served in residence halls, and in-house services — including the making of furniture and detergent — mostly provided by their church. Their buildings are connected by underground tunnels, so most of their daily activities goes by Brooklyn Heights residents unnoticed.

This Times article gives a clear overview of life inside the Watchtower complex. Here’s a page from a Jehovah’s Witness tract that was most likely produced at the Brooklyn Heights publishing plant:

Categories
Podcasts

PODCAST: Henry Ward Beecher and Plymouth Church

We’ve never done such a saucy show — full of sex, lies, and petticoats. Meet Henry Ward Beecher, Brooklyn Heights’ most notorious resident, and find out about the fascinating and provocative history of the church that turned him into a national celebrity.

Listen to it for free on iTunes or other podcasting services. Or you can download or listen to it HERE

This statue of Beecher sits in Columbus Park in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall. The figure was designed by John Quincy Adams Ward (best known for his George Washington in front of Federal Hall) and dedicated in 1891, just four years after Beecher’s death. The pedestal here is no less austere; it was designed by Ward’s frequent collaborator Richard Morris Hunt, who had recently worked on a significantly bigger pedestal — for the Statue of Liberty.

Beecher with sister Harriet Beecher Stowe and patriarch Lyman Beecher:

A depiction of one of Plymouth Church’s ‘slave auctions’.

The Beecher-Tilton sex scandal electrified the public’s curiousity and filled newspapers with illustrations such as these:

The bold and provocative Victoria Woodhull:

Plymouth Church then:

Plymouth Church today:

Compare the Beecher statue above with the one that sits on the grounds of Plymouth Church. This one was created by Gutzon Borglum — you might know him for that little rock carving he did called Mount Rushmore. The copper bas-relief nearby of Lincoln is also by Borglum.

Know Your Mayors: William Jay Gaynor

Our modest little series about some of the greatest, notorious, most important, even most useless, mayors of New York City. Other entrants in our mayoral survey can be found here.

Walk from Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge, take the first ramp off the bridge, turn right to Cadman Plaza, and you will run smack dab into a marble slab and the stoic bust (see below) of William Jay Gaynor, mayor of New York City from 1910 to 1913. Very few mayors are honored with statuary in this city, especially a mayor with so short a term in office. Gaynor’s term represented a shakedown of traditional New York Tammany politics, a true bureaucratic reform movement.

But Gaynor is perhaps best remembered as being the only New York mayor to become target of an assassination attempt and to eventually die of his injuries.

It wasn’t supposed to play like this at all. Tammany Hall, entering the dusk of its influence by the early 20th century, thought they had a ringer with Gaynor, a state Supreme Court justice for 14 years chosen to run by still-powerful political machine. One of his opponents — William Randolph Hearst — an early admirer who warned Gaynor to publicly reject his corrupt Tammany sponsors.

Hearst needn’t have worried. Once elected, Gaynor flummoxed his Democratic forebears by eshewing the usual political favors to Tammany cronies and actually hiring qualified individuals in chosen fields. His swiftly became no one’s pawn.

Gaynor continued to live in Brooklyn — 20 Eighth Avenue in Park Slope, to be precise. On his first day of work, he actually walked from home, over the Bridge, and right into City Hall.

While vacationing on the ocean liner SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, a disgruntled city employee James J. Gallagher, fired from his job on the docks, took out his frustration on Gaynor, shooting him through the back of the neck. Gallagher claimed, “He took away my bread and meat. I had to do it.” Really, James?

Unbelievably, a photographer for the New York world William Warnecke happened to catch the incident, which quickly became one of the most startling photographs in the short history of photo-journalism:

Gaynor recovered somewhat, although the bullet would remain lodged in his throat, and his entire term of mayor, he would remain weakened and haggard. He would even use the injury as a reason to get out of discussing delicate subjects, saying, “Sorry, can’t talk today. This fish hook in my throat is bothering me.”

The brush with death, paired with his remarkable house-cleaning at City Hall, quickly transformed him into a popular leader, with talk of even running for president. Tammany wouldn’t help him with another term for mayor, naturally, but he was immediately nominated as an independent.

Somebody should have told Gaynor, however, that he should have avoided ocean liners. On Sept. 4 1913 he boarded the ocean liner Baltic for yet another oceanic vacation and six days later was found dead on a deck chair, his body finally giving in to lingering internal injuries. Curiously, Gaynor’s would-be assassin Gallagher had died just a few months prior — at an insane asylum in Trenton, New Jersey.

The New York Press ran a further appreciationof the Gaynor monument itself. Or maybe you’d like to read his extravagent obit from the New York Times.

Who is Agent 355?

We can’t leave the world of Revolutionary War New York behind without finally exploring one of its captivating mysteries — the identity of agent 355.

The Culper Ring was George Washington‘s clandestine spy network that operated in the streets of British occupied New York. As we mentioned in last week’s podcast, operatives would communicate with Washington using an elaborate set of codes, a seemingly nonsense collection of letters and numbers that could be decoded once the message was successfully delivered.

Many of Washington’s operatives have been identified. However, one remains a mystery, a nameless woman known only by the codename 355. Her only appearance in coded documentation is in the missive: “I intend to visit 727 (code name for New York) before long and think by the assistance of a 355 (code for ‘woman’) of my acquaintance, shall be able to out wit them all.”

She was believed to be within an important Tory family in New York, who could maneuver through offices and courtyards of New York’s British society gleaning information which she would pass along via a bevy of secretive methods. It is speculated that 355 passed along critical information that eventually exposed the treason of Benedict Arnold and later assisted in the arrest of British intelligent officer John Andre.

But wait, it gets far more romantic. She was rumored to be the lover of fellow spy Robert Townsend and pregnant with his child when she was captured — I’ve even read that Arnold himself ratted her out — and thrown aboard the notorious prison ship HMS Jersey in New York harbor. She delivered the child — a boy, Robert Townsend Jr — but died aboard the fetid conditions on the ship.

Sadly, it all may be a little too good to be true. There was a Robert Townsend Jr., son of the famous spy, who eventually entered New York politics and was even involved in the very first incarnation of the Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial in Fort Greene. But genealogists have not been successful in tracing his lineage to a woman of any mysterious import.

The story of 355 was fleshed out in the 1940s by Long Island historian Morton Pennypacker, an early enthusiast of New York’s revolutionary spy ring. However it is unclear where Pennypacker got most of his information.

Personally, I choose to believe there was some beautiful spy, a Colonial era Jennifer Garner, slinking around the corridors of British officers. I mean, somebody rooted Arnold out, right? And John Andre really was captured.

The Culper Ring and Agent 355 have more recently inspired a comic book series from DC Comics. (A panel of which is on the left.)

R.I.P. St. Saviour’s?

St. Saviour’s Church, an historic cathedral in Maspeth, Queens, is being torn down by the city, but not without a fight. The website Queens Crap has been doing an excellent job detailing the futile efforts of preservationists, their battles with the city and, this week, the recent dramas as the city prepares to demolish it.

Today, protesters delay the demolition, as does the fear of asbestos. An eleventh-hour grant may save part of the building, but its old tower bell has mysteriously vanished.

The church was built in 1847 by Richard Upjohn and features artifacts — possibly even burials — tying back to the Revolutionary War.

It’s rare to see a ‘city vs. history’ battle play out quite so vividly these days. Thanks to Queens Crap and Forgotten NY for keeping it front and center.

Categories
Podcasts

PODCAST: Life in British New York: 1776-1783

Join us as we stroll through the streets of revolutionary New York, examining what it would have been like to be a New Yorker under British rule.

Listen to it HERE:

New York as it looked during British occupation (i.e. before various lower Manhattan landfills!)

The HMS Jersey, docked right off the show of Brooklyn, and home to the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers and prisoners

The horrible conditions of the prison ships, as hinted at in this illustration

The Prison Ships Martyrs Monument in Fort Greene, honoring the thousands who died nearby off the shore of Brooklyn

The mystery of George Washington’s Culper Ring spy gang has inspired more than a few romantic tales:

George Washington jubilantly returns to the city

Fraunces Tavern, site of George Washington’s farewell speech to the Continental Army

Fraunces Tavern today:

Want to peek inside the tomb buried underneath Fort Greene’s Prison Ships Martyrs Monument? How about a map of the communication lines between the various spy factions of the Culper Ring?

Categories
Uncategorized

Name That Neighborhood: Fort Greene

Some New York neighborhoods are simply named for their location on a map (East Village, Midtown). Others are given prefabricated designations (Soho, Dumbo). But a few retain names that link them intimately with their pasts. Other entries in this series can be found here.

The Brooklyn neighborhood of Fort Greene gathers some of the borough’s best known riches within its boundaries, including Brooklyn’s tallest building the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the park in which the neighborhood gets its name — Fort Greene Park.

However, if I’m being critical, the neighborhood should probably be called Fort Putnam, not Fort Greene.

As you’d expect, this area was the location of a vital Revolutionary-era fort used by the Americans to defend themselves from encroaching British forces. Shaped like a traditional five-pronged star, the fort was named after Rufus Putnam, a general whose claim to fame would actually come post-war, as the head of the Ohio Company, which purchased and settled the territory of Ohio.

Below: An old map of Fort Putnam and Wallabout Bay

Fort Putnam was one of three forts in close proximity to create a (what would be unsuccessful) defensive barrier. One diamond-shaped fort called Fort Box (named after major Daniel Box) sat smack near the border of today’s Cobble Hill. The third fortification — get ready to be confused — was Fort Greene. The first Fort Greene, also a star shaped fortification, sat between Box and Putnam.

This fort was named after major general Nathaniel Greene, who would become one of the war’s most successful officers and essentially Washington’s most trusted adviser. Greene did oversee the construction of Fort Putnam, so figure in his post-war fame into the equation, and it will not be a surprise to discover that the fort was renamed Fort Greene for its potential use during the War of 1812.

Many old fortifications were refitted in 1812 in case of another British invasion, including the first Fort Greene (now called Fort Masonic). The British did attack Washington D.C. and Baltimore during the War of 1812, but never bothered to make it up to New York harbor this time around.

And just in case you’re interested, during the War of 1812, Fort Box was renamed Fort Fireman.

A neighborhood soon developed around Fort Greene, and by 1847 the fortification was replaced by a park — Washington Park — to be later replaced by the rolling, monument bedecked, Olmstead-and-Vaux designed Fort Greene Park in 1864.

Tying the park back to its Revolutionary War past is its crowning monument, the Prison Ship Martyr’s Monument(at right), honoring those who died in British prison ships kept not that far from here in Wallabout Bay (that’s basically the small bay between the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges on the Brooklyn side).

Categories
Podcasts Revolutionary History

PODCAST: The British Invasion: New York 1776

It’s 1776 and revolution is in the air. Join the Bowery Boys as we tackle the British invasion and takeover of New York City.

Listen to it for free on iTunes or other podcasting services. Or you can download or listen to it HERE

Worked-up New Yorkers, rushing down to Bowling Green to rip down the statue of King George

British troops march on New York, Sept. 15, 1776

A ghastly woodcut displaying the Great Fire of 1776

A depiction of the hanging of Nathan Hale:

Map of the Battle of Harlem Heights (click on map to see detail):

And finally, courtesy of the website of Columbia University:

From past blog entries:
Find out what really happened to that statue of King George.
And last fall we found some modern patriots wrecking havoc downtown.

Categories
Neighborhoods

Name That Neighborhood: Murray Hill

Some New York neighborhoods are simply named for their location on a map (East Village, Midtown). Others are given prefabricated designations (SoHo, DUMBO). But a few retain names that link them intimately with their pasts.

Murray Hill is one of Manhattan’s quieter neighborhoods, extending on the east side from 42nd street to 34th street — or even down to 28th street, depending on who you speak to. Its eastern border bleeds into Kips Bay. Its one of downtown Manhattan’s most obvious hillsides, with its most dynamic centerpiece being the buildings along Madison Avenue, including the gorgeous Morgan Library & Museum.

The Murray of Murray Hill was the successful Quaker merchant Robert Murray who bought this quiet hillside in 1762 and built a spacious home here, which he named Inclenberg, installing a large porch that looked out over the East River. Walk up the hilly part of any street between 33rd and 39th (the land where the farm approximately stretched out) and look east, trying to imagine the buildings melting away and an unobstructed view of the river emerging.

The pride of Murray Hill, however, is not Robert, but his wife Mary Lindley Murray. She was probably looking from her porch on September 15, 1776, when the British landed at Kip’s Bay in their eventual takeover of New York. Just a few days prior, Mrs. Murray had entertained the young commander George Washington, whose bedraggled Continental Army, under the command of general Israel Putnam, was heading out of town on the west side (along a path which is today the West Side Highway). With a superior British force in hot pursuit, they would have been easily captured and the American revolution effectively dissolved.

However, as the legend goes, many lives were saved that day and the fate of the Army spared because of a little gracious hosting. As the British force assembled, Mrs. Murray invited the officers, including General William Howe, up to her house for a spot of “cake and wine.” Her charms — and those of her daughters Savannah and Beulah — must have been irresistable, for the officers stayed for over two hours, while the rebel American forces escaped up to Harlem Heights.

While eventually some of Washington’s army would be captured nearby, the bulk of the forces were spared, simply because of the delay brought on by courteous party hosting.

What makes this story all the more compelling is that Mary probably differed politically from her own husband (away in London on business at the time of the invasion) who was a Loyalist to the crown. However members of her own clan, the Lindleys, fought with the Continental Army and Mrs. Murray was clearly sympathetic to the American cause. Of course, her real motives might have been altogether indifferent to the war entirely; regardless, she is undoubtedly one of New York’s great hostesses.

Today, the neighborhood has the unique distinction of having a drag king entertainer named after it.

Categories
Revolutionary History

What’s your favorite Nathan Hale death spot?

22nd September 1776: British soldiers preparing to hang the American patriot and spy, Nathan Hale (1755 - 1776). Before his execution Hale declared that 'I only regret I have but one life to lose for my country'. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)


Nathan Hale was a 21 year old Connecticut native who volunteered for George Washington’s Continental Army and stayed behind in New York after the Army’s retreat in September 1776 in order to gain intelligence from the British. Hale was unfortunately caught — in Flushing Bay, Queens — brought to Manhattan and hanged, though not before delivering his elegant last words, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”

He may have had only one life, but he appears to have three separate locales in Manhattan which claim to be the spot he died.

— A plaque at 65th and 3rd Avenue placed by the New York Historical Society seems to be pretty definitive, being the most recent and shining with that NYHS seal of approval. (The plaque indicates Hale was hung at a place actually on 66th Street.)

— The Daughters of the American Revolution, however have a plaque at the Yale Club on 44th and Vanderbilt Avenue, proclaiming the same thing

— Meanwhile, a statue of Nathan Hale standing right in front of City Hall was once proclaimed to be the spot. Back in Revolutionary War days, this was a grassy commons where many public displays were held, so on the surface it seems a possibility

And those are just the theories that haven’t been dismissed. Previous speculation to Nathan’s hanging spot have include East Broadway on the Lower East Side, the intersection of Madison and Market streets, and somewhere along “the Brooklyn shore.”

Pictured: In 1917, a soldier in World War I regalia salutes Hale’s statue in City Hall

Categories
Podcasts

PODCAST: Katz’s Delicatessen

We stop for a nosh at three Jewish culinary stalwarts of the Lower East Side — Katz’s Delicatessen (a movie-friendly dining experience), Russ and Daughters (a tale of herrings and girl power) and the Yonah Schimmel Knishery (and its surprising connection to Coney Island).

Listen to it here or download it from iTunes and other podcast services:

Listen to it for free on iTunes or other podcasting services. Or you can download or listen to it HERE

Inside Katz:

The Lower East Side pushcart and vendor street culture, from the start of the century…

… as late as 1941, on Broome Street. (pic courtesy Charles W Cushman Photography Collection).

The Pickle Civil War!

It’s odd to hear people speak passionately about pickles, as if they’re a lifestyle. But that’s how people talk about Guss Pickles, the self-proclaimed ‘largest pickle emporium in the world’ and an institution of the Lower East Side since 1910.

But as you shall see, those calling themselves the ‘largest’ and that store currently sitting in the Lower East Side are actually warring factions, wielding their pickles like scabbards engaged in a years-long battle for pickle dominance.

Pickles were a popular snack in New York as far back as Dutch New Amsterdam. They’re New York’s first portable food — long before the knish and the hot dog — and fairly easy to produce.

With the huge immigrant boom in lower Manhattan, young men in hopes of making a few bucks would operate a pushcart through the streets selling their wares. In the crowded blocks of Jewish Lower East Side, dozens of pushcarts occupied the streets, competing for customers with sidewalk stands and, for those lucky enough to have the money, actual stores!

(Check out this short silent film demonstrating the daily grind of a pushcart operator.)

Dozens of vendors at the turn of the 20th century sold pickles in the Lower East Side. Izzy Guss, an immigrant from Russia who arrived here in 1910, had a pushcart and sold produce. But he specialized in pickles. Although the competition was fierce — the area around Essex and Ludlow even called the Pickle District — Guss eventually bought his own store on crowded Hester Street in 1920, and there, in wooden barrels lining his store front, mastered his recipe for what has become the New York City pickle.

Guss’ Pickles are a New York legacy, but a war has brewed for over a decade about who currently holds the mantel of that legacy. Guss eventually bought some pickles from the Lebowitz family-owned United Pickles company. When Guss died in 1975, the business was sold to the Baker family who, in 2004, then sold it to new owner Patricia Fairhurst, who currently runs the the current Lower East Side location on Orchard Street.

However, Andrew Leibowitz of United Pickles lays claim to purchasing the actual Guss trademark from the Bakers when he sold the shop to Fairhurst. According to the Villager, the Bakers claim that Fairhurst ‘bought a lease, not a trademark’ and that they are the rightful owners of the Guss branding.

Confused? There are apparently two strains of Guss pickles in the universe. Leibowitz alledgedly has hold of the name, but Fairhurst lays claim to the original recipe.

In 2007, the controversy spread to Whole Foods, which began selling Leibowitz’ Guss pickles, which Fairhurst claims are not true Guss pickles.

Just to add to the pickle madness, a third claim to the Lower East Side pickle throne has emerged on Essex Street. The Pickle Guys, with their gallons of freshly made pickles, is operated by former employees of Guss pickles. They too may have a legitimate claim in Manhattan’s pickle heirarchy. Chowhound provides a taste test between Guss’ and Pickle Guys’ creations.)

I have a feeling that like the American Revolution, this will not be resolved until blood — or spilted pickle juice — is flowing through the street.

‘Most Wanted’: Robert Moses vs. Andy Warhol

Above: a hilariously hideous Robert Moses mosaic, on the sidewalk at Flushing Meadows

Robert Moses wanted the World’s Fair of 1964 in Flushing Meadows to be a family affair with little controversial material. Not surprisingly this meant few displays for American art.

So how did an Andy Warhol mural get plastered on the New York State Pavilion, one of the most conspicuous buildings at the fair?

The Pavilion was designed by Philip Johnson, also the designer of Museum of Modern Art’s midtown galleries and also the head of architecture and design there. Johnson was an admirer of Warhol’s ever since the Museum of Modern Art’s pivotal December 1962 show on pop art, where its very merits were dissected by critics.

Johnson commissioned Warhol and other pop artists to create work for the exterior of the pavilion, and the result was ‘Thirteen Most Wanted Men’, blown-up mugshots of the FBI’s most wanted list.

One week before opening to the public, Johnson informed Warhol that the governor objected to the piece, because it just happened to feature mostly Italians and officials feared it would offend Italian visitors.

Warhol, however, knew very well that Moses was behind the objection. And it may not have been anything to do with the content. Andy was becoming a polarizing figure by this time. This was the year Warhol would make his move from artist to icon, the year he opened the Factory, the year he filmed such provocative movies as ‘Blow Job’ and ‘Taylor Mead’s Ass’, and the year his studios were raided by police and his work confiscated for its offensive content. Andy Warhol was anything but family friendly in 1964.

So his mural was literally whitewashed. Warhol intended to replace it with a new design: 25 silkscreen panels of Robert Moses’ face in a Joker-like grin. Unsurprisingly, Johnson did not think this appropriate for the main pavilion of Moses’ fair.

A vestige of Warhol’s Moses can be found in a mosaic in Flushing Meadows.

By the way, Warhol later claimed in his biography that he was happy that his art was painted over at the pavilion: “Now I wouldn’t have to feel responsible if one of the criminals ever got turned in to t he FBI because someone had recognized him from my pictures.”

Categories
Amusements and Thrills Podcasts

PODCAST: The New York World’s Fair of 1964-65

Come with us as we jettison ourselves into the future as it was seen in the past — namely the 1964-65 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens. Fans of Robert Moses, 1960s space-age optimism and really, really large tires should take special note to listen.

Listen to it HERE:

The Johnson Wax Pavilion, surrounded in examples of ’64 loopy, futuristic architecture.

The Port Authority Heliport, where guest could fly in via helicopter from Manhattan, is one of the few buildings still standing today. It is now Terrace On The Park. (Courtesy here).

Piecing together the heavy US Steel-created Unisphere.

The New York State pavilion — Tent of Tomorrow! — as it looked then:

And today.

The New York City Pavilion featured the city of New York in miniature. Called the Panorama, it’s still thriving at the Queens Museum and is regularly updated to reflect the changing city. One significant difference: as a memorial, the World Trade Center remains standing in downtown Manhattan.

Many attractions from the World’s Fair now make their home in other parts of the world. The Uniroyal tire ferris wheel, for instance, now sits in Allen Park, Michigan, without its seats.

Another favorite, the world’s largest cheese, naturally still makes its home in its home state of Wisconsin.

The famous Belgian Village, with the park’s defining snack being sold just the left of the picture (i.e. the Bel Gem Waffle).

Dupont’s zippy musical ‘The World of Chemistry’ didn’t quite make it to Broadway.

I highly, highly recommend a few website for some further information about the World’s Fair. NYWF64 has a exhaustive description of almost every pavilion, including a great many we didnt mention, like The Underground Home, Sinclair’s Dinoland, and the Lunar Fountain.

Jeffrey Stanton has an excellent site about it as well.

The World’s Fair tire pic is from a great page by Modern Mechanix featuring magazine photos from the beginnings of the fair.

A few months ago we wrote about the Singer Bowl, a World’s Fair auditorium that later become the Billie Jean King Tennis Center, home of the U.S. Open.

Find all of our Robert Moses coverage here.

Categories
Podcasts

PODCAST: The Museum of Modern Art

Above: Guests admire a strange piece by Martin Puryear

The biggest surprise behind the revolutionary creation of the Museum of Modern Art is that the characters who put it together were almost as colorful as the modern art they championed. Tag along as we peek behind the canvas of New York’s oldest temple of avant garde. PLUS: we debut our first Bowery Girl!

Listen to it for free on iTunes or other podcasting services. Or you can download or listen to it HERE

The star of our show, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller

The playful — and temporary — Dan Perjovschi….

…And a wider view of the large exhibit space he doodled in

A view of Richard Serra, from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden

Still on exhibit — Helvetica

An outdoor film exhibition in the sculpture garden, as seen from the street outside, from 2007

Thanks to our special guest, correspondent and Bowery G’hal Kari Hoerchler. Here’s her bio:

On November 6, 1985, during a class trip to the Art Institute of Chicago, Kari Hoerchler had an up close and personal opportunity to ask Andy Warhol to name his favorite artist. The plaid-clad schoolgirl was ceremoniously snubbed. Scarred for life, Kari became obsessed with solving the mysteries contemporary artists present both in fiction and reality. Today, she supports friendlier artists with frequent trips to New York studios, Chelsea galleries and MoMA museum membership. Kari also enjoys visiting European art museums. In spring 2007, she wrote a city guide to Budapest for eurocheapo.com and has written hundreds of hotel reviews for the site since 2003. Kari is currently writing a science-fiction farce including a fictional representation of a female Rockefeller of the future.

Kari at MoMA:

Tom returns to the podcast next week!