In this special episode, we look at the history of New York City as seen through one corner of the Lower East Side. Created by the intersections of several streets, this is a place that has gone by many names — in the past and even today.
At its center is Seward Park, the first municipal playground in the United States, and Straus Square, named for Nathan Straus, philanthropist and co-owner (with his brother Isidor) of Macy’s department store.
Straus Square — with the 1953 war memorial and the Forward Building looking down from above.
Those looking for delicious food may go to Little Fuzhou, an eastern extension of Chinatown located along East Broadway. Trendy artists and influencers instead spend their weekends in Dimes Square, just one block (and seemingly one world) away.
The intersection of Division and Canal, with the glamorous Nine Orchard (aka the old Jarmulowsky Bank Building). Photo by Greg Young
But throughout New York’s history, people have come here for community, shared values and even intellectual enlightenment.
As Rutgers Square, this area became a small portion of a large German immigrant community called Kleindeutschland. In an inconceivable historical moment, a statue was almost raised here — to William ‘Boss’ Tweed, leader of Tammany Hall.
By the late 19th century, this place was the center for American Jewish culture, with a line of cafes serving religious thinkers, political activist and stars of the Yiddish stage.
Tribute to the old tenement blocks in a Seward Park mosaic.
East Broadway became a Yiddish publishers’ row, hosting newspapers and magazines from a host of perspectives.
In 1912 the Jewish Daily Forward, the nation’s most well-known Yiddish paper, built “the Lower East Side’s first skyscraper,” a landmarked building that was once the beating heart of the neighborhood. The paper’s long-running column “A Bintel Brief” illuminated the everyday stories of people in the neighborhood.
A hidden 1920s cinema treasure. Photo by Greg Young
In the 20th century it became the southern edge of Loisaida, the Puerto Rican Lower East Side.And thanks to a mid-century housing boom (fueled partially by the labor unions firmly rooted to this place), some also called it Cooperative Village, with hundreds of old, deteriorating tenements replaced with new high rises.
But we call it our old home. For it was here — call it what you will — that the Bowery Boys Podcast was created 15 years ago this year.
From the window of Wu’s Wonton King, the former location of the Garden Cafeteria. Photo by Greg Young
And so to wrap up our 15th anniversary celebration — and to set up our big 400th episode — we take a fond look at the section of New York City which taught us to love local history.
PLUS: We’re join by staff members of the Forward, celebrating its 125th year of publication. Forward archivist Chana Pollack joins us along with Ginna Greenand Lynn Harris, hosts of the the newspaper column-turned-podcast version A Bintel Brief.
LISTEN NOW: THE CHANGING LOWER EAST SIDE
Photograph by Lewis Hine, taken March 1913. The caption: “Waiting for the “Forwards” – Jewish paper – at 1 A.M. Group includes boys 10 years old. Taken on steps of the Forward Building at 1:15 A.M. just as the papers were being issued.”
Listen to A Bintel Brief on the same podcast players where you found our show. And if you have a quandary for Ginna and Lynn, email them at bintel@forward.com or leave a voice message at (201) 540-9728
Here are a few of our favorite episodes of A Bintel Brief:
Necktie workshop in a Division Street tenement, taken by Jacob Riis, 1889. (Library of Congress)A model of a playground used in the design of Seward Park. (Library of Congress)A rather unrecognizable view of Seward Park, taken between 1900 and 1910. (Library of Congress)Seward Park and the new library (NYPL)Lawn-tennis and volley-ball games as played by girls in the William H. Seward Park, 1905 clipping (Courtesy New York Public Library)Just a’swingin’ in Seward Park, between 1910 and ca. 1915, Library of Congressbetween 1910 and ca. 1915, Library of CongressSeward Park with the Forward Building, taken November 9, 1940 (Dept of Records)Overhead view of the district, 1940 (NYC Dept of Records)
FURTHER LISTENING
After listening to this show on Seward Park, head over to one of these older podcast to follow the various histories briefly mentioned this week:
What happens when P. T. Barnum, America’s savviest supplier of both humbug and hoax, decides that it is time to go legit? The result is one of the greatest concert tours in American history.
The Gilded Gentleman hosts this special presentation from the Bowery Boys podcast, recorded in 2020. Listen to it here or subscribe to The Gilded Gentleman on your favorite podcast player:
If you’ve seen the film musical The Greatest Showman, you’ve been introduced to Jenny Lind, the opera superstar dubbed the Swedish Nightingale. And you also know that Barnum, taken with the Swedish songstress, brings her to New York to begin a heavily promoted American debut.
But the film sidesteps many of the more fascinating details. Lind was greeted like a queen and rock star when she arrived at the Canal Street dock despite most New Yorkers having never heard her sing.
Jenny Lind / New York Public Library Digital Collection
Her stage was Castle Garden, the former fort turned performance venue that sat in New York harbor, connected to the Battery by a small bridge.
The concert proved legendary. And Lind proved herself an enterprising businesswoman, bending even the will of a profiteer like Barnum. Her financial arrangement for the tour would influence 170 years of musical performances and cement her reputation as one of the greatest vocalists of the 19th century.
LISTEN NOW — JENNY LIND AT CASTLE GARDEN
The concert as depicted in a lithograph by Nathaniel Currier/New York Public Library
New York Public Library Digital Collection
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
We are now producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every other week.
We’re also looking to improve and expand the show in other ways —
publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we
can only do this with your help!
We are now a creator on Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators.
Please visit our page on Patreon
and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our
expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are six different
pledge levels. Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.
In late December 1954 Marilyn Monroe came to New York City wearing a disguise.
Monroe — by then the biggest movie star in the world — came to the East Coast to reinvent herself and her career. The year 1955 would be a turning point in her life and it all played out on the streets of the city.
She intended to spend the rest of her life here.
It was a year of discovery — exploring the city, working on her craft and generally being the toast of the town.
In particular she came to New York to become a better actress via the Actors Studio and the influence of Lee Strasberg. But she also managed to see the most glamorous corners of New York and eventually — she fell in love.
Contemporary portrayals of her life have focused on the most salacious, most intimate details of her biography. Many tend to rob her of her personal agency. But in this show we hope to show a very different side to Monroe’s life. And a deep connection with New York City that never left her.
Marilyn Monroe overlooking Park Avenue from the roof of the Ambassador Hotel at Park and 51st. (The hotel was demolished in 1966). From here you can also see the Racquet and Tennis Club (1918) and the Lever House (1952). Photograph by Ed Feingersh, taken 1955.
FEATURING: New York in the 1950s with Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, Marlene Dietrich and many others.
PLUS: As an extra treat we’ll be joined by Alicia Malone of TCM (and Tom’s co-host on “The Official Gilded Age Podcast”) and author of the 2021 book Girls on Film: Lessons from a Life of Watching Women in Movies
Alicia Malone/TCM
LISTEN NOW: MARILYN MONROE IN NEW YORK
FURTHER READING
Lois Banner Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox Isaac Butler The Method: How The Twentieth Century Learned to Act Carl E Rollyson Marilyn Monroe: A Life of the Actress Donald Spoto Marilyn Monroe Gloria Steinem and George Barris Marilyn: Norma Jeane Anthony Summers Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe Elizabeth Winder Marilyn in Manhattan: Her Year of Joy Donald H. Wolfe The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe
Have you listened to The Gilded Gentleman’s recent episode on the story of Emily Post. No? Where are your manners?!
In July of 1922, an unassuming book with a rich blue cover landed on bookstore shelves. Titled simply Etiquette by a moderately successful writer named Emily Post, the book went on to become a cornerstone of America’s social fabric and a true cultural cornerstone.
Now, 100 years later, Emily’s original book has been entirely rewritten by her great-great-grandchildren for a new generation while maintaining the spirit and philosophy of Emily Post’s original intentions.
Join The Gilded Gentleman for this unique look at just who Emily Post was, why she chose to write the book at all and how it has evolved — and yet in some ways — stayed the same since it was first published.
Carl will be joined by Lizzie Post, Emily Post’s great-great-granddaughter and co-author of the new edition, to take a look at Emily and etiquette, then and now.
Listen today and subscribe to The Gilded Gentleman Podcast to catch up on all his shows.
Beware! The ghosts and goblins of the Hudson River Valley have been awakened from their dark slumber.
In this year’s annual celebration of New York urban legends and folktales, we journey up the Hudson River to explore the region’s spookiest stories.
Tales of mystery and the supernatural have possessed the villages and towns of the Hudson River Valley since ancient times, when native tribes whispered of strange places and odd islands one simply didn’t visit.
When Dutch settlers arrived in the 17th century, they brought their own mythology, populating the dark mountains with evil, mischievous creatures. These stories have carried over into modern times and continue to fascinate (and terrify) the residents of this beautiful area of New York State.
The Hudson Highlands, a mountainous range which vexed early settlers and inspired a host of strange stories.
Greg and Tom put on their most menacing and spooky voices to tell several stories of the region including:
— A ghost-filled mansion in Nyack, New York that holds a unique place among all American supernatural sites. For the house is legally haunted.
— The unsettling tale behind those mysterious ruins known as Bannerman Castle
— A ghastly death in the Colonial-era Catskills leads to a disturbing life sentence and the appearance of several hellish creatures
— The secrets of Kingston’s Old Dutch Church and an entity which may trapped beneath its holy steeple
PLUS: Who is the Heer of Dunderberg? And why should you run shrieking in fright if you happen to see him on a cold, stormy evening?
LISTEN NOW: GHOST STORIES OF THE HUDSON RIVER
Cheryl Crow and Bat Damon wishes you a happy Halloween!
In Superman #42 the Man of Steel and Lois Lane investigate various urban legends in the Hudson River Valley.
Image courtesy Green-Wood CemeteryPhotos by Greg YoungPhotos by Greg YoungBannerman Castle, photo by Greg Young
Kington’s Old Dutch Church:
FURTHER LISTENING
Catch up on past ghost story podcasts here and then take a trip to the Hudson River Valley (under less spooky circumstances) by re-visiting our trilogy from earlier this year.
The Electoral Commission held a secret session in the Supreme Court to resolve the contested 1876 presidential election on February 1877. (From the Everrett Collection)
You may have heard about the messy, chaotic and truly horrible presidential election of 1876, pitting Democrat Samuel Tilden and Republican Rutherford B Hayes. But did you know that New York City plays a huge role in this moment in American history?
Tilden, the governor of New York, was a political superstar, a reformer famous for taking down Boss Tweed and the corrupt machinations of Tammany Hall. From his home in Gramercy Park, the extremely wealthy governor could kept himself updated on the election by a personal telegraph line.
In a way, the presidential election came to him — or at least to his neighborhood. The Democratic national headquarters sat only a few blocks south, while the Republican national headquarters made the Fifth Avenue Hotel (off Madison Square) its home.
The crowd in front of the New York office on the night of the Tilden-Hayes election, 1876 (NYPL)
All this would have made the 1876 national election somewhat unusual already — New York City seemed to be at the center of it — but the strange series of events spawned by a most contentious Election Day would send the entire country into pandemonium.
Not only was democracy itself on the line, but the fate of Reconstruction was also at stake. As were the rights of thousands of Black Southerners.
How did shadowy events which occurred at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in the early morning hours of November 8, 1876, change the course of American history? How did a flurry of telegrams and months of political chicanery cause an end to the country’s post-Civil War ambitions?
FEATURING: A visit to Tilden’s mansion on Gramercy Park, now the home of the National Arts Club!
Listen now: Samuel Tilden and the Presidential Election of 1876
By One Vote: The Disputed Presidential Election of 1876 by Michael Fitzgibbon Holt Centennial Crisis: The Disputed Election of 1876 by William Rehnquist Contesting Commemoration: The 1876 Centennial, Independence Day, and the Reconstruction-Era South by Jack Noe Fraud of the Century by Roy Morris Jr. The Republic for Which It Stands – The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 by Richard White Rutherford B. Hayes by Hans L. Trefousse
On the 160th anniversary of the killing of Phillip Barton Key, I’m reposting this article from 2014 which originally ran on the 100th anniversary of Daniel Sickle’s death.
We don’t have large, parade-like funeral processions marching up the avenues as they once did during the Gilded Age and in the early years of the 20th century.
These events were times of public mourning and a bit of festivity. Most often they involved the passing of a well-connected political leader or a popular entertainers. They were somber and reverent affairs; afterwards the saloons along the side streets benefited graciously, tributes and toasts into all hours of the night.
Library of Congress
1914
On May 8, 1914, New Yorkers filled the streets — from Fifth Avenue up to St. Patrick’s Cathedral — to mourn the passing of Daniel E. Sickles, one of the city’s most heralded war veterans.
Having marshaled up volunteers in New York in the early days of the Civil War, Sickles distinguished himself as a bold and commanding general, gathering military promotions through sheer ambition. (He was one of the few commanders in Abraham Lincoln’s army without a West Point education.)
During the Battle of Gettysburg, Sickles was severely injured and had his right leg amputated. (Below: Sickles in 1862.)
He spent his years after the war polishing his war credentials and maneuvering from one political appointment to another. Sickles belatedly received the Medal of Honor and, situated from his home at 23 Fifth Avenue, was acclaimed in later life in one of New York’s greatest living veterans.
Sickles’ military career, however, was built as an exercise in reputation rehabilitation. When the war with the South arrived, he saw an opportunity to change the conversation about himself. His bravery in service to the Union, never questioned, served a dual purpose for Sickles. Today we might call this “re-branding.”
For in the years preceding the Civil War, the young politician was also known as a cold-blooded murderer who held a unique distinction in the history of legal proceedings.
From the New York Times, February 28, 1859
1859 In April of 1859, New York Congressman Daniel Sickles became the first person in history to ever be acquitted of a crime due to temporary insanity.
The crime in this case was the February murder of Philip Barton Key II, the son of Francis Scott Key, author of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the national anthem of the United States.
Their lives almost resemble an episode of House of Cards. Key had been having a very open affair with Sickles’ wife Teresa. (Pictured below)
Daniel, however, was something of an epic rake himself. With no thought to his own or his wife’s reputation, Sickles was once passionately obsessed with the New York prostitute Fanny White, going so far as to take her into the Albany assembly chamber for a tour. There were even rumors that some of Sickles’ campaign election costs were covered by White.
But Key was hardly a wallflower; the famous son was a charming widower who bewitched the women of Washington DC with his intelligence, elegance and wealth. He and Teresa met in 1857 and began their affair soon after, meeting often once a day and openly flirting with each other at a society balls. (Below: An illustration of Key which ran in Harper’s Weekly in 1859.)
When Sickles did finally discover the affair, he was distraught and sickened, before turning violently angry.
On February 27, 1859, Sickles approached Key in DC’s Lafayette Square — a short distance from the White House –and shot him in the groin.
“You villain, you have dishonored my house, and you must die!” Sickles reportedly said.
He shot Key again in the chest and would have shot him directly in the head had the gun not misfired.
Said the New York Times the following day, “The vulgar monotony of partisan passions and political squabbles has been terribly broken in upon to-day by an outburst of personal revenge, which has filled the city with horror and consternation.”
The condition of Sickles’ mental state during and following the murder would be closely dissected in court. A colorful swath of testimony described Sickle as everything from disturbingly serene to a raging lunatic.
According to authors Michael Lief and H. Mitchell Caldwell, “These conflicting stories may be exaggerations on the part of creative witnesses, or they may be evidence that Sickles was driven to the edge, past the breaking point, entirely out of his mind.”
One of the lawyers who helped craft the insanity defense was Edward M. Stanton, later to be Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War. Their defense of temporary insanity — never successfully tried in a U.S. court — was sprung upon the jury, nested within an extravagant bed of prose, classical quotations and moral quandary.
“It is folly to punish a man for what he cannot help doing?” asked associate defense attorney John Graham. Apparently so, it seems, for in April, a jury acquitted Sickles, taken with the plight of a man wronged by his unfaithful and deceitful wife. (His attorneys did a spectacular job of burying Sickle’s own unfaithfulness and deceit.)
Above: 23 Fifth Avenue, the home of Daniel Sickles and the location of his death on May 5th, 1914 (images courtesy New York Public Library)
1914 Fifty-five years later, Sickles’ many legitimate accomplishments (and, let’s be honest, his relentless self-promotion) assured that this unusual crime was rendered a footnote when he died on May 5.
His New York Times obituary is an extraordinary bit of word play: “Philip Barton Key … paid attention to Mrs. Sickles, and Sickles shot and killed Key on the street in Washington D.C. on February 27, 1859.”
The focus then turns on Sickles’ “gracious” forgiveness of his wife: “I am not aware of any statute or code of morals,” said Sickles to his critics, “which makes it infamous to forgive a woman….I shall strive to prove to all that an erring wife and mother may be forgiven and redeemed.”
In reality, the two never reconciled. Teresa died in 1867 at age 31, her reputation destroyed. A few years later, Sickles became the ambassador to Spain, returned to his legendary womanizing and eventually married a well-connected daughter of a Spanish official.
He spent his final years at his Fifth Avenue home nearly bankrupt, his only means of support coming from his children and his now-estranged second wife. “[S]everal attempts were made to seize the art treasures in his Fifth Avenue home because of debt,” noted the Times.
Below: Daniel Sickles at a 1913 Gettysburg reunion, accompanied by his live-in secretary Eleanora Wilmerdirg
In the heart of Greenwich Village sits the Jefferson Market Library, a branch of the New York Public Library, and a beautiful garden which offers a relaxing respite from the busy neighborhood.
But a prison once rose from this very spot — more than one in fact.
While there was indeed a market at Jefferson Market — dating back to the 1830s — this space is more notoriously known for America’s first night court (at the Jefferson Market Courthouse, site of today’s library) and the Women’s House of Detention, a facility which cast a gloom over the Village for over 40 years.
Almost immediately after the original courthouse (designed by Frederick Clarke Withers and Calvert Vaux) opened in 1877, it was quickly overburdened with people arrested in the Tenderloin district. By 1910 a women’s court opened here, and by the Jazz Age, the adjacent confinement was known as “the women’s jail.”
When the Women’s House of Detention opened in 1931 — sometimes referred to as the world’s only Art Deco prison — it was meant to improve the conditions for women who were held there. But the dank and inadequate containment soon became symbol of abuse and injustice.
In this special episode — recorded live at Caveat on the Lower East Side — Tom and Greg are joined by Hugh Ryan, author of The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison to explore the detention center’s place in both New York City history and LGBT history.
How did the “House of D” figure into the Stonewall Uprising of 1969? And what were the disturbing circumstances surrounding its eventual closure?
FEATURING: Stories of Mae West, Stanford White, Alva Belmont, Mayor Jimmy Walker, Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin and — Tupac Shakur?
LISTEN NOW: THE HISTORY OF JEFFERSON MARKET AND THE WOMEN’S HOUSE OF DETENTION
Historic American Buildings Survey, Photocopy, c. 1880, Courtesy of New-York Historical Society, New. York Public LibraryThe courtroom and House of Detention, 1938, New York Public LibraryThe Women’s House of Detention. Courtesy the New York Daily News ArchivesMargot Gayle with an image of the building she would help save. New York Public Library Digital Collections
Photos of the current Jefferson Market Library
Photo by Greg YoungPhoto by Greg YoungPhoto by Greg Young
FURTHER LISTENING
The subjects of these episodes are featured on this week’s episode. So check them out after listening to the current show:
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
We are producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every other week. We’re also looking to improve and expand the show in other ways — publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!
We are creators on Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators.
Please visit our page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are several different pledge levels. Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.
Join Tom Meyers and Greg Young as they celebrate their 15th year of making the Bowery Boys Podcast with a special live podcast recording at Caveat on the Lower East Side.
Mark your calendar for Thursday, September 1, 2022 at 7pm.
Index cards. Levers and buttons. Wheels and wires and paper. Stone-gray mechanical boxes and intricate machines of gears and pulleys.
It was these things — and probably a lot of coffee — that kept New York City operating before the advent of computers. From the subway to the Wall Street trading floor, life functioned in America’s fastest city with the help of analog devices.
It’s a celebration of the thousands of workers in countless occupations who moved information before computers and smartphones changed everything. Jobs that have mostly become obsolete, along with the technologies which once seemed so indispensable — from the typewriter to the transistor radio.
An introductory display basically unpacks the functions of a modern cellphone, visualizing them into the everyday objects of the 20th century.
The vast exhibition inside explores a number of different industries and the technologies that kept them in operation. What’s truly startling is how all these devices — from the Linotype and teletype machines to even the bulky ticker tape devices — were once considered truly cutting edge.
What have we lost when we lose stuff like this? Most everything in this gallery is today had been replaced by computers. By phone apps even!
The Museum of the City of New York has graciously offered a 2-for-1 discount code for Bowery Boys listeners and readers. Get your tickets online and use code ANALOGCITYBB to get two-for-one admission.
Just a few months ago, most of the remaining phone booths were removed from the streets of New York City, oft neglected, a nostalgic victim of our increasing use of cellphones.
For almost a century public phones have connected regular New Yorkers with the world. Who doesn’t have fond memories of using a payphone with gum on the earpiece and extremely vulgar messages written on the box? Putting in quarters!
Well this news got us thinking about how the telephone has helped change New York overall.
Ever since Alexander Graham Bell brought his first model telephone to Manhattan 145 years ago, the telephone has helped us make plans, share urgent news, and has even allowed people to move away from each other – but still feel close.
This is a national story of course, one of patents and mergers, of Bell Telephone’s monopoly over the business for over 100 years. But it’s local too; the tales of sassy operators, big shiny Art Deco towers and the ever-changing New York phone number.
FEATURING The story of Antonio Meucci, the Italian immigrant who invented a version of the telephone …. before Bell.
PLUS: We let you in on a little secret. The classic New York City phone booth is not quite gone. We’ll tell you where to find one.
LISTEN NOW: NEW YORK CALLING
The Museum of the City of New York has graciously provided an offer code for Bowery Boys listeners and readers to visit their newest exhibition Analog City. For a 2-for-1 admission, use the discount code is ANALOGCITYBB when you buy your tickets online here. Offer good through December 31, 2022.
Some vintage educational films about ‘new’ telephone technology:
FURTHER LISTENING
After listening to New York Calling: A History of the Telephone, go back to these prior Bowery Boys podcast with similar themes
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
We are producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every other week. We’re also looking to improve and expand the show in other ways — publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!
We are creators on Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators.
Please visit our page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are several different pledge levels. Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.
In today’s episode, Tom discusses the vast span of New York history with filmmakers and authors Ric Burns and James Sanders, creators of New York: A Documentary Film.
Tom, Ric and James discuss the 8-part documentary (which aired on PBS in installments in 1999, 2001 and 2003) and its newly updated companion book, “New York: An Illustrated History” (Knopf, 2021).
What were the guiding themes of telling New York’s story, the greatest events and characters, and the challenges Burns and Sanders faced as they covered 9/11 and, for the final installments, COVID and other current events?
LISTEN HERE: An Interview with Ric Burns and James Sanders
The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is brought to you …. by you!
We are producing a new Bowery Boys podcast every other week. We’re also looking to improve and expand the show in other ways — publishing, social media, live events and other forms of media. But we can only do this with your help!
We are creators on Patreon, a patronage platform where you can support your favorite content creators.
Please visit our page on Patreon and watch a short video of us recording the show and talking about our expansion plans. If you’d like to help out, there are several different pledge levels. Check them out and consider being a sponsor.
We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.
It has become a name so associated with American sports and entertainment that you barely think about it.
In New York City, when you say you are going to The Garden, you aren’t going to see flowers. Most likely, you’re going to see the Knicks. Or possibly Billy Joel.
New York City’s many actual gardens — the ones with plants, not millionaire performers — are so diverse and numerous that they offer sensual and educational pleasures for people of all ages.
Madison Square Garden (MSG) traces its history back to almost 150 years ago to a vacated New York and Harlem Railroad train depot which once sat on the northeast corner of Madison Square. It was here that P.T. Barnum briefly set up a circus arena called the Great Roman Hippodrome.
But it was the site’s second impresario — bandleader Patrick Gilmore — who gave the site for his concerts a more fragrant sounding name in the Spring of 1875 — Gilmore’s Garden.
Four years later, the popular venue was renamed Madison Square Garden — “to please Mr. Vanderbilt,” according to the Brooklyn Union clip below. (That would be William Kissam Vanderbilt, the grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt.)
For more information on the history of Madison Square Garden, listen to our back catalog show on the many locations of this storied venue:
But even Gilmore’s was a rather late entry in New York City’s many well-known pleasure gardens, the name for an all-in-one entertainment space which traces back to the ancient Romans.
The pleasure garden become a key ingredient in the social world of New York City because of its popularity with the British during the Colonial period.
Here are a few of New York’s more notable ‘gardens’, taking root in the city even before the appearance of Madison Square Garden:
Bird’s eye panorama of Manhattan & New York City in 1873.
Spring Garden and Catiemuts Gardens
The first Colonial-era pleasure gardens in New York leaned upon the popularity of well-known gardens in England. For instance, the 1740 Spring Garden — located just south of today’s City Hall Park — was a nod to 17th century English pleasure gardens by that name.
According to author Hallie Alexander: “The Spring Garden tavern hosted balls, magic shows, tumbling acts, feats of strength (including a Female Samson), and musical concerts.”
Catiemuts Gardens was north of Spring Garden (at Park Row and Chambers Street). Like many early pleasure-garden proprietors, Catiemuts’ owner made sure to center his venue around a tavern, and entertainments were thusly invented to inspire the purchase of alcohol.
New York Public Library
Ranelagh Gardens
Londoners could enjoy the first Ranelagh Gardens in 1741, built on the site of the home of the 1st Earl of Ranelah in the neighborhood of Chelsea. In 1765, New Yorkers got their own Ranelagh.
According to William Harrison Bayles’s 1918 Old Taverns of New York: “It was said that the grounds had been laid out at great expense and that it was by far the most rural retreat near the city. Music by a complete band was promised for every Monday and Thursday evening during the summer season.”
And according to author Vaughn Scribner: “[The venue’s proprietor John] Jones took to the New-York Mercury to announce that, in addition to all the leisurely pleasures already available at Ranelagh, Jones would offer any customer who could pay the two shillings and three pence entrance fee a ‘Concert of Musick’ followed by a grand firework show.”
New York Public Library
Vauxhall Gardens
Vauxhall Gardens is one of London’s most historic public spaces and it was so renown back in the 18th century that it inspired several New York knockoffs, including one owned in 1767 by tavern owner Samuel Fraunces (before operating the more famous tavern which bears his name today.)
But the most famous, from 1771, was first owned by Jacob Sperry, a charming garden space around the area of today’s Astor Place. (In fact John Jacob Astor would eventually purchase the property for speculative development.)
The New York Evening Post, May 28, 1904 (via newspapers.com)
For the first two decades of the 19th century, it was one of the most popular attractions in New York City. Under the management of French proprietor Joseph Delacroix, the cultivated garden pathways were adorned with magical lanterns, accompanied by musicians nestled throughout the flora.
Bayles later wrote in 1918: “Vauxhall Garden was an inclosure said to contain three acres of ground, handsomely laid out with gravel walks and grass plots, and adorned with shrubs, trees, flowers, busts, statues, and arbors. In the center was a large equestrian statue of General Washington.
“All the town flocked to [Vauxhall]. It was to the New York of that day something like what Coney island is to the New York of today. The people of New York considered it to be about as gay a place of recreation as could be found anywhere.”
New York Public Library
Castle Garden
In 1824, the old Castle Clinton in the Battery was transformed into New York’s largest exhibition hall — Castle Garden.
While the Battery did provide the strolling pleasures of an actual garden — a visitors could enjoy refreshments at the beer garden — it was the performances within the building (which was later fitted with a roof) that really drew the crowds.
In 1850 Barnum would bring the Swedish songstress Jenny Lind to Castle Garden to universal acclaim.
For more information, check out our podcast from last year on this iconic moment in New York City entertainment.
Niblo’s Garden
The pleasure garden at the corner of Broadway and Prince Street changed theater history.
The site evolved from a simple garden in 1828 to a lavish destination for entertainment and delight thanks to Irish impresario and coffee house owner William Niblo.
From Bayles’ description: “The interior of the garden was spacious and adorned with shrubs and flowers; cages with singing birds were here and there suspended from the branches of trees, beneath which were placed seats with small tables where were served ice cream, wine negus and cooling lemonade; it was lighted in the evening by numerous clusters of many-colored glass lamps.”
Niblo greatly expanded his romantically lit garden (originally named San Souci) by taking over several surrounding lots and installing a theater and saloon. The venue was large enough that it hosted both large fairs and orchestral productions.
After a fire destroyed the stage in 1846, Niblo built bigger, becoming one of New York’s central performance spaces by the Civil War era with over 3,000 seats.
Operetta Research Center
And in 1866 it debuted a show equally as ambitious — The Black Crook, running five-and-a-half hours long and considered by many to be the first Broadway musical.
But by this time, the ‘garden’ of Niblo’s Garden had been greatly reduced, replaced by a luxury hotel — the Metropolitan.
For more information on the history of Niblo’s Garden, listen to this back catalog show on the history of this long-gone theatrical icon:
Palace Garden
Throughout the decades, New York society moved north up the island and so too did the pleasure gardens. The Palace Garden, at Sixth Avenue and 14th Street, situated its attractions nearby bustling Union Square.
From the New York Times, September 24, 1858
It might be hard to imagine a ‘festival of lanterns’ at that particular street corner today. Just a couple decades the avenue would be transformed by massive department stores, becoming the fashionable shopping district Ladies Mile.
In fact, the entire idea of a pleasure garden was evolving into something that was very much not a garden at all. With the arrival of Central Park in the late 1860s and the rising prices of real estate in high trafficked areas of Manhattan, the simple pleasures of the urban pleasure garden faded away.
But not the name! Pleasure gardens were associated with music and performance and so the ‘garden’ stuck around.
So despite hundreds of beautiful parks, botanical gardens and community gardens in the city, this is the location that is called THE GARDEN:
Members of AGBANY protest the demolition of Pennsylvania Station, 1962; Courtesy of David Hirsch
Sixty years ago today — on August 2, 1962 — the Action Group for Better Architecture in New York (AGBANY), a group of young architects and activists, held a most curious protest outside of Pennsylvania Station, the old train station designed by McKim, Mead and White.
“The best dressed picket line in New York City marched yesterday in front of Pennsylvania Station” wrote The Daily News the following day. “Some 250 architects, many right out the professions top drawer, carrie d placards protesting plans to demolish the cavernous old station to make way for an office building.”
David Haran/Getty Images
The New York Preservation Archive Project has an excellent write-up of the event. “That same day, AGBANY held a press conference at the Statler-Hilton Hotel [aka the Hotel Pennsylvania] across the street from the station. Between 150 and 500 marchers were reported to have attended the protest. Notably among them were Ray Rubinow, Jane Jacobs, and architect Philip Johnson.”
One year later, the demolition of old Pennsylvania Station began. While the group was not successful in saving the architectural masterpiece, their activism did significantly raise the profile of landmark preservation in New York City overall.
Flash forward sixty years.
A new $7 billion Penn Station rehabilitation project, endorsed by Governor Kathy Hochul, will bring several new towers to the area, eliminating historic — but non-landmarked — structures in the area, many dating to the era of the first Pennsylvania Station.
“The new towers would be among the tallest in New York City, exceeding 1,000 feet in height, though the final dimensions would be decided later. The project requires the demolition of many existing buildings, potentially including a 150-year-old Roman Catholic church, and would reshape the skyline of Manhattan between the Hudson Yards neighborhood to the west and the Empire State Building to the east.”
While few would advocate for completely sparing the fully subterranean station, many opposition groups believe there are much better ways of revitalizing the neighborhood than another group of glass office towers (which, it should be said, primarily benefits one developer).
Among the structures in peril include the Gimbels skybridge, an Art Deco treasure built in 1925 to link the old Gimbels department store.
And, whatever happens with the new plan, one historic structure has already succumbed to these plans — Hotel Pennsylvania, being slowly demolished, making way for supertall 15 Penn Plaza or PENN15 (which they should definitely not call it).
To catch up on the complete saga of Pennsylvania Station, listen to this trilogy of shows. Part Two (The Destruction of Penn Station) features more information on AGBANY’s protest:
Two books won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in History this year, underscoring the excellent offerings on the history shelf in 2021. They are two wildly different stories but they share a similar theme — the complicated relationship between the United States and foreign nations.
In Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America, a shocking murder leads to an historic American treaty and upends stereotypes about the interactions between American colonists and native tribes. In Cuba: An American Story, the epic birth of a country plays out in a constant stream of uprisings, sometimes invisibly steered by American interests.
Covered With Night A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America Nicole Eustace Liveright/WW. Norton
Three hundred years ago this year, the Great Treaty of 1722 was signed in Albany, bringing a momentary calm to the Five Nations of the Iroquois and to three British colonies — the Colony of Virginia and Provinces of New York and Pennsylvania.
“The debates, ideas and ideals that gave rise to the [treaty],” writes Nicole Eustace in Covered With Night, “together make up a founding American story that should be considered an essential element of the country’s legacy.”
And at the core of this story is a murder — the brutal death of the Seneca man Sawantaeny by the colonists John and Edmund Cartlidge during a contentious exchange of furs. There is a mystery here; both the intent and the order of violence between the brothers and the murdered man proves to be incredibly important.
But this is not story about bloodshed retaliation, but rather an observation of traditions and a debate between two nations about the proper execution of justice.
In today’s terms, the native village of Conestoga was not far from the growing port town of Philadelphia — about a day’s walk. But custom and language kept both communities as alien residents of the same land.
Eustace sifts through a threadbare record of ancient documents employing three centuries of accumulated knowledge about northeastern native tribes and a fresh understanding of colonial law to craft a remarkable tale. With well informed speculation at times (and a curious trick of present-tense writing), Eustace revitalizes a forgotten moment in American history in terms her modern audience will understand.
Cuba: An American History Ada Ferrer Scribner
In the beautifully told Cuba: An American History, Ada Ferrer manages a challenging task of epic narrative. Not only is her Pulitzer Prize-winning book an artfully fluid retelling of the history of Cuba, it’s also a sharp, insightful story of the love-hate relationship between the island country and its neighbor to the north.
Spain had already conquered the island (and slowly starved out the indigenous Taino people) by the time England arrived in the northeast United States and set up her colonies. In the mid 18th century, the respective colonies for both countries would be key agricultural producers, requiring hundreds of thousands of African slaves.
Following the American Civil War and the end of the slave trade in the United States, American Southern interests meddled in Cuban affairs to prolong the slave trade there. Meanwhile Cuban revolutionaries were already fighting to sever their connection with Spain; revolutionaries like José Martí often guided the struggle against Spain from his home in New York.
The Spanish-American War passed the island from Spain to the United States — for a time. Yet even with formal independence, the U.S. government kept a firm and often insidious control over the country’s leadership.
My favorite part of Ferrer’s Cuba — a feat of clear story-telling — involves the country’s transformation from a 1920s haven for hedonistic American partiers to an unstable place of cyclical change, often at the hands of the American-backed Fulgencio Batista. By the time Fidel Castro finally appears in the story, you feel the weight of a country beleaguered by foreign manipulation.
