Author: GY

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Know Your Mayors Queens History Religious History

Mayor Walter Bowne and his very exceptional family story

New York City has a new mayor — Eric Adams! So we think it is time that you Know Your Mayors, becoming familiar with other men who’ve held the job, from the ultra-powerful to the political puppets, the most effective to the most useless leaders in New York City history.

This longtime feature of this website is being rebooted with new articles and newly researched and refreshed earlier entries in this series. Check back every other week for a new installment. Read past articles here.

Mayor Walter Bowne
1829-1832 (four one-year terms)

Walter Bowne, mayor of New York City from 1829 to 1832, was born in Flushing in 1770, many years before the region would erupt into a revolutionary war.

But his story really begins well over a century before. Walter would not have been mayor if not for the distinguished reputation of his family name.

On the 300th anniversary of the Flushing Remonstrance, the US Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp.

A Flushing Revolution

The Bowne family first settled in Flushing (then Vlissingen or Vlishing), Long Island in the 1660s when the region was a part of the Dutch empire, an outpost of New Netherland.

Yet Thomas Bowne, his son John Bowne and their clan were English, and this area of Long Island had been long settled by Quakers.

The Bownes were entering into a religious powder keg. Already by 1657, director-general Peter Stuyvesant considered the religious enclave “a threat to the peace and stability of the colony and probably out of their minds as well,” writes Russell Shorto in The Island At the Center of the World.

The Long Island Quakers responded with an extraordinary document that year called the Flushing Remonstrance, asserting their freedom to worship under Dutch standards of tolerance and “the law of love, peace and liberty.” This only infuriated Stuyvesant further.

By 1662 the home of John Bowne had become a central meeting place for the area’s Quaker population. Stuyvesant had him arrested and deported to Amsterdam — despite the fact that he was English and Holland was not his country of origin.

However Bowne successfully petitioned the Dutch West India Company and in the end, by 1664, he was allowed to return to Long Island.

Stuyvesant, meanwhile, was severely reprimanded and ordered to be more tolerant. (Fortunately for Peter, the English took New Amsterdam that very year so he didn’t have to officially tolerate anybody anymore.)

Bowne House, 37-01 Bowne Street, Flushing, Queens County, NY. Image courtesy Library of Congress

The Kings of Queens

The Bownes would become this region’s [i.e the region that would become Queens] most prosperous and politically important families. John Bowne’s home, built in 1661, still stands, one of New York’s oldest and most valuable historic places, a genuine treasure of preservation.

Thanks to John’s battle for religious freedom, the family name would also become a standard bearer for liberty in the years leading up to the American Revolution. Although applying that reputation more broadly is trickier. (For instance John Bowne “owned at least two slaves and an indentured servant.“)

Later descendants would become known as early American abolitionists including Robert Bowne, a contemporary of Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, who helped to form the Manumission Society of New York and later the African Free School.

But Robert would be better known for a publishing firm he established in 1775 — the financial printing house Bowne & Co, today New York’s oldest operating business under the same name.

All of this is to say — when Walter Bowne was appointed by the Common Council in 1839 to be the mayor of New York City, he brought with him the burden of high expectations.

Portrait of Walter Bowne, dated 1833, by Robert Walter Weir. Courtesy City Hall Portrait Collection

Walter’s Rocky Start

Walter Bowne was of the genteel class which participated in politics during this period. He had also at one time been the Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall, the rising Democratic machine. So when he was first appointed mayor, serving in the year 1829, he was very much considered a machine politician.

But he was almost a one-and-done mayor. Tammany had narrowly lost the majority of Council members in 1829, placing a second year for Tammany’s leader as mayor in doubt. (Mayors were appointed for one-year terms at this time.)

But then Bowne made a controversial power move. According to Gustavus Myers’s A History of Tammany Hall:

“[In December 1829] Fourteen Aldermen and Assistants were opposed to Bowne and thirteen favored him. There was but one expedient calculated to re-elect him, and to this Tammany Hall resorted.

Bowne, as presiding officer of the Council, held that the Constitution permitted him to vote for the office of Mayor. “I will persist in this opinion even though the board decide against me,” he said.

To prevent a vote being taken, seven of Bowne’s opponents withdrew on December 28, 1829. They went back on January 6, 1830, when Tammany managed to re-elect Bowne by one vote. How this vote was obtained is a mystery.“

Bribery was almost certainly involved in this sudden reversal of Bowne’s fortune.

An investigating committee into the events of January 6 was formed to inquire about this mystery, but as the committee was comprised of those who favored Bowne, no proof was ever discovered of such bribery.

This image of the Brooklyn Navy Yard in the 1830s illustrates the types of pier infrastructure New York was using in these days. From the book Views in New York and its Environs, 1831.

Water and Docks

Bowne’s priorities were pure infrastructure. New York was in the middle of a water crisis with the growing city requiring more supply than its current local wells, cisterns and fresh water ponds could provide.

“We have the opinion of two prominent Civil Engineers that the Byram, Rye and Wompia Ponds will afford such supply,” the mayor declared, then casually mentioning the “Bronx, Saw Mill and Croton rivers” as other options.

But New York was waylaid by funding such a water project at this time, and Bowne was unable to get anything of immediate significance done by the time he left office in early 1833.

Two years later the Great Fire of 1835 underscored the urgency of an improved water system. The Croton Aqueduct system, bringing New York much needed water, finally opened in 1842.

New York’s other great priority was the Erie Canal which had opened in 1825.

Bowne was driven to action by the revered Henry Rutgers who died in Bowne’s first year in office. Rutgers had written to Bowne “expressing great anxiety lest our harbor, which has scarcely an equal in the world should be injured” by the continued building of wooden and dirt piers — ill-equipped to handle the growing international trade.

Under Bowne, work began on constructing an overall improvement of the waterfront for industrial use, with sturdier piers of stone and new warehouses.

This foresight would eventually benefit to growing steamship trade and another transportation revolution arriving soon — industrial railroad freight.

The Cholera Breeders in New York and Vicinity, n.d. (National Library of Medicine via the Merchant’s House)

Cholera Crisis

The ill-preparedness of New York for the full implications of trade were in full effect in 1832, when a major cholera epidemic came to the city.

The state of New York already had a quarantine hospital in Staten Island in place for arriving ships coming through the Narrows. But this did not prevent the disease from coming into the city from other directions.

According to Bowne House historian David Silvernail, “the [cholera] outbreak started in surrounding areas and to prevent it from reaching the city, Walter decided to enact a quarantine for all ships and carriages attempting to enter the city. This included all of the products and people on board.”

Bowne’s quarantine required that all ships keep at least 300 yards from the city’s ports. And carriages arriving from the north were stopped 1.5 miles from the city limits. 

Under Bowne the city also engaged in a vigorous clean-up of its streets (although as Bowne House historian Silvernail reveals, the efforts were inadequate):

“Bowne’s well-meaning attempts to prevent a cholera outbreak failed, and hundreds of New Yorkers died of the disease,” according to NYC Parks. “It was not until 1883 that the German physician Robert Koch discovered that cholera spreads through contaminated water or food.”

The Bowne House, photographed in 2018 (Station1, courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

A Lasting Landmark

Bowne left office in early January 1833 and, among other things, became the president of 7th Ward Bank of New York City. At times he also retired to his summer home in Flushing, the location of which is today’s Bowne Park. Bowne died in 1846.

New York enjoys many locations associated with the Bowne family. On top of Bowne Park and the Bowne House — both perfect places to visit this fall — Bowne & Co. Stationers provides a glimpse into America’s printing legacy in a rustic shop at the South Street Seaport.

Categories
Podcasts True Crime

Historic Heist: The Great Bank Robbery of 1878

PODCAST The thrilling tale of a classic heist from the Gilded Age, perpetrated by a host of wicked and colorful characters from New York’s criminal underworld.

Jesse James and Butch Cassidy may be more infamous as American bank robbers, but neither could match the skill or the audacity of George Leonidas Leslie, a mastermind known in his day as the ‘King of the Bank Robbers’.

On October 27, 1878, Leslie’s gang broke into the Manhattan Savings Institution and stole almost $3 million in cash and securities (about $71 million in today’s money), making it one of the greatest bank robberies in American history. 

This epic heist, which took three years to plan, was only the greatest in a string of high-profile robberies planned by Leslie and perpetrated by a rogue’s gallery of New York thieves and fences.

Many details of the crime remain a mystery, and the legend of Leslie has been immortalized — with some mixture of truth and fiction — in Herbert Asbury’s classic The Gangs of New York.

Who was this suave and mysterious Leslie? And how do you actually go about breaking into a bank in the 1870s? (Hint: Make sure you have a ‘little joker’ handy.)

Listen Now – The Great Bank Robbery of 1878

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 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.

New York Times, October 28, 1878
Front page of the New York Tribune, oct 28, 1878
Decatur Weekly Republican, oct 31, 1878
The New England Farmer, November 2, 1878
The Saint Paul Globe, Saint Paul, Minnesota, October 28, 1878
Glasgow Herald, Glasgow Scotland, October 29, 1878

The second Manhattan Savings Institution building, built in 1891 at Broadway and Bleecker Street, on the spot of their first bank — the one targeted by the Leslie gang.

Photo by Greg Young
Photo by Greg Young

The City Bank of New York which was robbed in 1831.

New York Public Library

A selection of tools found at a bank break-in in Montreal, 1875.

New York Public Library
Marm Mandelbaum, as depicted in Sins of New York: As Exposed by the Police Gazette by Edward Van Every

FURTHER READING

Herbert Asbury / The Gangs of New York
Jerry Clark and Ed Palattella / A History of Heists: Bank Robbery In America
J. North Conway / King of Heists
Richard S. Grossman / Unsettled Account
Stephen Jaffe and Jessica Lautin / Capital of Capitol: Money, Banking, and Power in New York City, 1784-2012
Geoff Manaugh / A Burglar’s Guide to the City 

Categories
Bowery Boys Bookshelf

The beauty and artistry of early American maps

1606 Jodocus Hondius/Septentrio America

HOLIDAY HISTORY GIFT GUIDE Each week for the rest of the year, the Bowery Boys will recommend a newly released book that you might like to include on your holiday wish list. For other book suggestions, check out other entries on the Bowery Boys Bookshelf.

Pretend GPS was never invented or that man never sent a satellite into order. Imagine going back to a time when people had no idea what continents looked like.

The glory of the most beautiful early maps is that they’re never 100% precise. Early cartographers carefully pieced together observations to create maps that were close to accurate. And where details were not known, artist inspiration filled in the blanks.

MAPPING AMERICA
The Incredible Story and Stunning Hand-Colored Maps and Engravings That Created the United States
Neal Asbury and Jean-Pierre Isbouts

When the great European colonizers first sent explorations out towards the New World, almost nothing was known of the Americas’ size and shape. With each expedition — from Christopher Columbus to Henry Hudson — a bit more of the puzzle was revealed.

In Mapping America, the colorful new history of map making by rare map collector (and radio host) Neal Asbury and National Geographic historian Jean-Pierre Isbouts, the continents reveal themselves slowly in wild and vividly flamboyant illustrations that resonate like the creation of literary fantasy.

1550 map of the Western Hemisphere by Sebastian Münster.

The maps beautifully presented in Mapping America are essentially souvenirs of colonization, and their ravishing and sometimes quizzical charms can belie the dominance of empire which produced them.

This is especially true of the marvelous Dutch maps of rival cartographers Jodocus Hondius and Willem Blaeu whose depictions of America were deeply detailed — to a point. (“Some of Hondius’s changes,” write the authors, “such as the depiction of the River May [in today’s South Carolina], were erroneous and would confound explorers for the next 150 years.”)

Robert Morden’s 1685 Map of the English Empire in North America

But as collected here, these maps can also feel stunningly revolutionary, watching the shape of the continents change (or rather man’s deduction of the continents’ shape) over time.

Mapping America begins in the 15th century and navigates through the history of map-making until the end of the Revolutionary War when cartographers made their first observations of the North American interior.

The maps range from just slightly inaccurate to completely wrong. The colors and artistry will make Google Maps look dull and depressing.

Willem Blaeu map of Virginia and the Southern east coast, 1649-55
Categories
Landmarks Mysterious Stories

New York City’s Most Famous Haunted Houses

Photo courtesy Staten Island Museum

For fifteen years now, The Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast has featured a special Halloween show focusing on some of New York City’s scariest tales. You can find our back catalog of ghost story podcasts here. 

Here’s a little tribute to some of our favorite haunted homes — which also just happen to be fascinating historic sites. (After all, isn’t that what we’re here for?)

NOTE: This article is an extensively updated version of a piece I wrote for Huffington Post back in 2012.

New York is a city of eight million stories, and many of them are about ghosts.

You can’t stroll down a sidewalk in New York without tripping over an old ghost story, whether it be the restless spirit of Peter Stuyvesant over at St. Mark’s Church-In-The-Bowery, Gilded Age-era spirits roaming the halls of the Dakota Apartments or even the apparitions of suicide victims at the Empire State Building.

If you are attuned to such things, our parks are haunted, our bars and restaurants, our churches and theaters. Some even claim the Brooklyn Bridge is haunted, although I pity that mournful apparition on a crowded Saturday afternoon. 

Old places generally accumulate their share of ghost tales, and New York is certainly old indeed — over 400 years old. But that’s not the only reason the Big Apple is so frightfully haunted. 

The city’s first great writer, Washington Irving, both popularized and satirized urban legends, spinning his most famous yarn The Legend of Sleepy Hollow out of the misty superstitions of Westchester County. 

With the dawning of second Great Awakening — centered in western New York state — the American religious experience became deeply personalized, revising views on the afterlife.

New Yorkers of the late 19th century became entranced by the tools of spiritualism — mediums, magicians, séances, even Ouija boards.

Other realms became accessible, and it seemed believable for some that those who had died might have left unfinished business behind. 

The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane (1858) by American artist John Quidor

The preservation of old historic structures — on streets named for the long-dead — has given certain areas of New York a sense of being trapped in time, ample setting for a spooky story about the people who once inhabited these places. 

Many parks were once cemeteries. Yes, below that bench you’re sitting on? Very often a grave.

Washington Square Park may still have many thousands of bodies potentially buried underneath it. In knowing the history of a place, our minds sometimes draw artificial conclusions. If the bodies are there, could their spirits still be hanging around?

But mostly, ghost stories are generally good for business. When has saying some famous landmark was haunted ever driven anybody away from it? In the end, we all fashion ourselves ghost hunters.

Washington Square Parks’ charming vista holds a surprising history.

Even though New York City has very few free-standing spooky mansions in the traditional horror-movie vein, the city nevertheless possesses a disturbing variety of haunted private residences.

Here are a few of our favorite haunted houses — haunted, that is, according to legend. We’ve limited this list to free-standing homes and townhouses, not apartment towers — many still standing and many still used as private homes and businesses.

If you ever get a chance to stay in any of these places overnight, my advice would be — don’t.

136 Clinton Avenue in Brooklyn back when it was very, very close to the shoreline.
The Bell Ringer
136 Clinton Avenue, Brooklyn

In Clinton Hill, a plantation-style house built in the early years of the Brooklyn Navy Yard has survived hundreds of unusual tenants over the years, but certainly the scariest days in this historic home occurred in 1878 with a relentless, invisible hand that would not stop knocking.

Featured in the new podcast Gotham’s Greatest Ghost Stories

Courtesy Time Out New York
The ‘House of Death’
14 West 10th Street, Manhattan

This simple brownstone is often considered the MOST haunted place in Manhattan, as a variety of spirits have appeared in the building’s stairwells, including that of a former inhabitant — Mark Twain!

Featured in the podcast Spooky Stories of New York

Photo by Greg Young, from 2019
The Ghost In The Attic
226 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan

Near Madison Square Park, an eccentric writer posts a classified ad, hoping to rent out an attic room to a prospective subletter. Unfortunately the room already an occupant — a greenish ghost with a troubling Civil War history.

Featured in the podcast Haunted Houses of Old New York

2012-10-22-G2.jpg
Courtesy New York Public Library
The Phantom of Gay Street
12 Gay Street, Manhattan

This charming home on quiet, curvy Gay Street in the West Village was a former speakeasy and the home to Mayor Jimmy Walker‘s mistress. The creator of Howdy Doody even lived here. But many believe the party never truly stopped, as ghostly revelers have been seen and heard, including a spirit in an opera cloak affectionately known as ‘the Gay Street phantom’. 

For more information listen to the podcast Haunted Tales of New York

2012-10-22-G3.jpg
Courtesy Municipal Art Society
James Brown House
326 Spring St, Manhattan 

This former home of a Revolutionary War veteran is most famous for the taverns that have occupied its ground floor, including today’s jovial Ear Inn. But several decades ago, a sailor named Mickey was killed in an accident in front of the building, and many believe his mischievous spirit still harasses patrons to this day.

Featured in the new podcast Gotham’s Greatest Ghost Stories

The Possessed Townhouse
1 East 62nd Street

On the Upper East Side, a lavish penthouse ballroom may be permanently vexed with the ghost of a testy spirit named Mrs. Spencer. Can legendary funny lady Joan Rivers and a Vodou priestess manage to keep the ghoul under control?

For more information: the podcast Haunted Houses of Old New York 

2012-10-22-G4.jpg
Courtesy New York Public Library
Morris-Jumel Mansion
65 Jumel Terrace, Manhattan

This lovely home, open to visitors, also has Revolutionary War connections – George Washington even slept here — but it’s the ghost of the scary old lady Eliza Jumel that frightens children today with her occasional appearance.

For more information: our very first ghost story podcast Ghost Stories of New York

The Haunted Hollywood Star
 428 West 44th Street, Manhattan 

The glamorous TV and film star June Havoc kept a gorgeous home in Hell’s Kitchen that was unfortunately haunted by a very tormented ghost named Lucy — a ghost that needed to feed.

Featured in the new podcast Gotham’s Greatest Ghost Stories

2012-10-22-G6.jpg
Courtesy New York Public Library
The Merchant’s House
29 E. 4th Street, Manhattan

Poor Gertrude Tredwell. A long-time resident of the neighborhood now called NoHo, she lived her entire life here and may still haunt this museum which exhibits many of her original possessions. Trust me, she doesn’t like it when you rearrange things. 

For more information: the podcast Haunted Houses of Old New York 

Photo by Greg Young
The Revolutionary Spirit
Van Cortlandt House, The Bronx

Van Cortlandt Park has several haunted legends accorded to it. And inside the Colonial-era Van Cortlandt House, whispers abound of a forlorn servant girl, still looking for her master’s silver. 

For more information: the podcast Haunted Houses of Old New York 

2012-10-22-G7.jpg
Courtesy Staten Island Museum
Kreischer Mansion
4500 Arthur Kill Road, Charleston, Staten Island

The Kreischer Mansion was once mirrored by a twin house that stood next door, both constructed by a brick manufacturer for his sons. One burned down several decades later, but the remaining manor is notorious for its many ghostly apparitions. A bloody, mob-related murder in the past decade further lends to the house’s devilish reputation.

For more information: the podcast Haunted Histories of New York

Photo by Tom Meyers
Conference House
7455 Hylan Blvd, Staten Island

The Conference House in Staten Island played an interesting role in the Revolutionary War, and some residents from that period may still wander its ancient hallways.

For more information: the podcast Haunted Houses of Old New York 

Categories
Health and Living Mysterious Stories Podcasts

New York Underground: The Secret Stories of Cemeteries

Green-Wood Cemetery in 1873. Courtesy of New York Public Library.

PODCAST The following podcast may look like the history of New York City cemeteries — from the early churchyards of the Colonial era to the monument-filled rural cemeteries of Brooklyn and Queens.

But it’s much more than that. This is a story about New York City itself, a tale of real estate, urban growth, class and racial disparity, superstition and architecture.

Cemeteries and burial grounds in New York City are everywhere — although by design we often don’t see them or interact with them in daily life.

Calvary Cemetery, October 2021. Photo by Tom Meyers

You see them while strolling late night through the East Village or out your taxi window headed to LaGuardia Airport. Some of your favorite parks were even developed upon the sites of old potter’s fields.

Why are there so many cemeteries on the border of the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens? Why are 19th century mausoleums and tombstones so fabulously ornate? And why are there so many old burial grounds next to tenements and apartment buildings in Greenwich Village? 

Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery. Photo by Greg Young

Featuring four tales from New York City history, illustrating the unusual relationship between cemeteries and urban areas.

— The Doctor’s Riot of 1788
— The tragic monument of Charlotte Canda
— The shocking grave robbery of retailer A.T. Stewart
— The remarkable discovery in 1991 of a long-forgotten burial ground

Listen Now – New York Underground

For a vivid look into the individual cemeteries of New York City, we highly recommend you pay a visit to the website Cemeteries of New York City, created and maintained by Elizabeth D. Meade, PhD.

It also includes an interactive map which beautifully illustrates the ‘cemetery belt’ of Brooklyn and Queens. You can also find older, smaller family cemeteries around the city and the sites of burial grounds, now vanished.

Rudolph Cronau, View from Greenwood Cemetery, 1881. (Courtesy Green-Wood Cemetery)
The Doctor’s Riot of 1788 — Wood engraving of New York rioters trying to break their way into a doctor’s dissection area.
Stereoscopic view of the Charlotte Canda site, New York Public Library

FURTHER LISTENING

After you’ve listened to this show on the history of New York’s many cemeteries, dive back into the back catalog and listen to these shows referred to on the show:

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 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.

The Richard Upjohn gate at Green-Wood Cemetery. Photo by Greg Young
Marker to the Revolutionary War, Green-Wood Cemetery.
Nothing beats Green-Wood Cemetery in the fall. Photo by Greg Young
The Charlotte Canda monument. Photo by Greg Young
Trinity Churchyard (Photo by Greg Young
Ancient gravestones at Trinity. Photo by Greg Young
Flatbush Dutch Reformed Churchyard, taken October 2020. Photo by Greg Young
Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, located in Washington Heights.
Inside the African Burial Ground visitors center. Photo by Greg Young
Inside a discovered vault underneath Washington Square Park, 2015. New York City Department of Design and Construction
Green-Wood volunteers re-inter remains at Washington Square Park. Read more at Real Estate Weekly.
Categories
Events Newspapers and Newsies

Greg Young’s PBS Debut: Watch ‘Citizen Hearst’ on American Experience (Sept. 27)

So remember last year when we did a two part show on Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst? Here are the shows to refresh your memory:

Part of the reason for that two-part episode last summer was because I was preparing to film my PBS debut for American Experience — a two-part series on the life of William Randolph Hearst — newspaper mogul, politician, rich guy.

Well a year later — and Citizen Hearst has arrived!

Check your local listings but the show will debut on most places on Monday, September 27.

Part 1, Monday, September 27, 2021, 9/8c
Part 2, Tuesday, September 28, 2021, 9/8c

Here’s an exclusive clip from the show where I’m chatting about Newspaper Row in lower Manhattan. I’ll be featured in both parts (although most in part one, set in New York City)

Follow along with the Bowery Boys on Twitter this Monday for some further details about Hearst and some behind-the-scenes photographs

Categories
It's Showtime Podcasts

The Shuberts: The Brothers Who Built Broadway

PODCAST There’s no business like show business — thanks to Lee, Sam and JJ Shubert, the Syracuse brothers who forever changed the American theatrical business in the 20th century.

Broadway is back! And the marquees of New York’s theater district are again glowing with the excitement of live entertainment.

And many of these theaters were built and operated by the Shubert Brothers, impresarios who helped shape the physical nature of the Broadway theater district itself, creating the close cluster of stages that give Times Square its energy and glamour.

In this show, we’ll be visiting the dawn of Times Square itself and the evolution of the American musical — from coy operettas and flirty song-filled revues filled with chorus girls.

The Shuberts were there from the beginning. After fending off their rivals (namely the Syndicate), the Shuberts centered their empire around an alleyway that would quickly take their name — Shubert Alley.

They were innovative and they were ruthless, generous and often cruel (especially to each other). During the 1950s and 60s, the Shubert empire almost crumbled — only to rise again in the 1970s and 1980s thanks to A Chorus Line and some very musical felines.

FEATURING A visit to the Shubert Archive above the Lyceum Theatre, a magical trove of historical items from the American stage.

Listen Now – The Shuberts

Our thanks to Mark E. Swartz, Sylvia Wang and Arielle Dorlester for giving us a marvelous tour of the Shubert Archive.

FURTHER LISTENING

After you’ve listened to this show on the history of Broadway, dive back into the back catalog and listen to these shows referred to on the show:

Rodgers and Hammerstein: The Golden Age of Broadway

The Broadway Musical: Setting the Stage

Florenz Ziegfeld and the Ziegfeld Follies

Times Square in the 1970s

And here’s a special Spotify playlist inspired by this week’s show, featuring tunes which were made famous in America on Shubert stages — either in original runs or very acclaimed revivals.

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 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 Times Square
Sam Shubert. He had moxie!
JJ and Lee Shubert, in a rare picture with each other. (Shubert Archive)
Shubert Theatre (ca. 1919)
Shubert Alley in the 1930s, looking south, the Booth Theater to the right.
Showgirls from The Passing Show

Images from the Shubert Archive (taken by Greg):

Taking the stairs to the elevator at the Lyceum Theatre.
Gerald Schoenfeld’s piano
Telegram from Sarah Bernhardt
At the Shubert dining table, looking at old photos of the Lyceum
Wall of Shubert theaters!
A notice for A Texas Steer, Sam Shubert’s first show.
Categories
Podcasts Writers and Artists

Tragic Muse: The Life of Audrey Munson

PODCAST By the time Audrey Munson turned 25 years old, she had became a muse for some of the most famous artists in America, the busiest artist’s model of her day.

She was such a fixture of the Greenwich Village art world in the early 20th century that she was called the Venus of Washington Square, although by 1913 the press had given her a grander nickname — Miss Manhattan.

Her face and figure adorned public sculpture and museum masterpieces. And they do to this day. 

But just a few years after working with these great artists, Audrey Munson disappeared from the New York art world, caught up in a murder scandal that would unfairly ruin her reputation. 

And on her 40th birthday she would be locked away forever.

FEATURING: Daniel Chester French, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Richard Morris Hunt, Isadore Konti and many Beaux-Arts greats.

Listen Now – Tragic Muse

The Maine Monument, featuring Audrey in two places.

The goddess Pomona atop the Pulitzer Fountain

Courtesy PortableNYCTours/Wikimedia Commons

The Brooklyn side of the Manhattan Bridge used to be much more glamorous with two statues created by Daniel Chester French (and both based on Audrey Munson) on either side of the approach.

Brooklyn Museum

The allegorical figure of Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Museum

Photo by Daderot/Wikimedia Commons

The Straus Memorial with a contemplative muse sculpture. Seen here on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

Photo by Nightscream/Wikimedia Commons

Civic Fame atop the Manhattan Municipal Building.

Photo by Stig Nygaard/Wikimedia Commons

Audrey at the pinnacle of her fame.

Photographer Arnold Genthe, photo taken March 1915

Alexander Stirling Calder puts the finishing touches on a ‘star maiden’ for the San Francisco Panama-Pacific Exposition.

The Palace of Fine Arts is the most famous remnant of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition still standing.

Rhododendrites/Wikimedia Commons

Publicity still from the 1915 film Inspiration (later The Perfect Model).

Another publicity photo, this time for the film Purity.

An illustration from her newspaper column Queen of the Artist’s Studio with Munson rescuing a young woman from an unfortunate scene of vice.

Audrey was almost completely forgotten about after 1931 and most of the references to her at all are in the context of the Wilkins murder case.

Newsday (Courtesy Newspaper.com)

FURTHER LISTENING

After you’ve listened to this show on the life of Audrey Munson, dive back into the back catalog and listen to these shows with similar themes:

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 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.

Categories
Brooklyn History Health and Living

The Brooklyn origin of Pfizer and the wild world of 19th century medicine

The origin of a true Brooklyn ‘start up’ — Charles Pfizer and Co, who went from developing intestinal worm medication in 1849 to being a leader in vaccine distribution in the 21st century.

This is story of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals before the 1950s, a tale of German immigration and of early medical practices and concoctions that might seem alien to us today. Patent medicines! Worm lozenges!

But this company’s biography is also a celebration of Brooklyn — the City of Brooklyn in the mid 19th century, developing into an economic force in the United States and in opposition to the city of New York across the East River. 

PLUS You can’t tell the Pfizer story without looking at the world of apothecaries and early drug stores in New York City in the 19th century.

Apothecaries were the first ‘natural’ medicine makers but their objectives were limited, seeking only to alleviate symptoms, not tend to the root cause of so many discomforts.

Later on, drugstores would stock up on manufactured medicines and questionable additions to the health regimen like soft drinks.

FEATURING Duane Reade, Kiehl’s, C.O. Bigelow, E. R. Squibb and Johnson & Johnson

ALSO: What important American figure today grew up delivering parcels for his family drugstore in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn?

LISTEN TODAY ON YOUR FAVORITE PODCAST PLAYER — PFIZER: A BROOKLYN ORIGIN STORY
FURTHER LISTENING

After listening to this show, take a dive in other episodes on similar or adjacent subjects.

The German biotechnology company Biopharmaceutical New Technologies (BioNTech) developed the COVID-19 vaccine injection with Pfizer, one of the world’s large pharmaceutical companies, who will manufacture and distribute it.

Let’s give our thanks to the scientists, researchers and physicians who helped get us to this moment. And yes, Brooklyn, you also get to share in a little bit of that pride today.

Because Charles Pfizer & Company — the originating business, founded in 1849 — first got its start in Brooklyn.

Or, to be more specific — the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg.

Or to be really, really specific — the independent Town (and later City) of Williamsburgh.

At their original Brooklyn location, the architectural details still gleam with ‘Pfizer Quality’.
A Company of Immigrants

Karl Christian Friedrich Pfizer (later Charles Pfizer), born in 1824 in the Kingdom of Württemberg, was one of the many thousands of Germans who would immigrate to the United States during the 1840s.

Pfizer came to America with his cousin Charles Erhart in the fall of 1848. Unlike the experiences of so many immigrants during this time, both Pfizer and Erhart came from wealthy families and were both highly educated — Pfizer as a chemist, Erhart in the grocery and confectionary trade.

Wilhelmine Klotz Erhart, her son Charles Erhart, and her nephew Charles Pfizer standing. Photograph taken in 1855, courtesy the book The Legend of Pfizer

The practical applications of science to modern life were just beginning to be explored in the early 19th century. Pfizer was taking his training to a country not yet internationally known for scientific breakthrough.

According to author Jeffrey L. Rodengen, “Chemicals that once interested only scholars were becoming indispensable in manufacturing, agriculture and medicine. [Pfizer] also recognized that in the new nation of America, virtually no one was meeting the growing demand.”

Charles Pfizer, photographed here in 1890
A Home Among The Factories

Pfizer and Erhart would form their new chemical operation in Long Island’s King County in 1849, shortly after their arrival in America.

But not in the thriving City of Brooklyn, located south of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. (No community on Long Island was a part of New York City until 1898.)

They had their eye on a spot near the Town of Williamsburgh, north of the burgeoning Brooklyn metropolis.

The first Pfizer building

Williamsburgh — a former village under the jurisdiction of the town of Bushwick — was a desirable destination for budding industrialists thanks to its proximity to a busy waterfront and the already busy waters of Newtown Creek. Chemical and oil plants were already home here when the cousins arrived.

Pfizer’s first headquarters was a bit far from the waterfront. They couldn’t quite afford to build a new factory.

Instead the cousins moved their operations into a pre-existing red brick building at Bartlett and Tompkins Streets thanks to a $2,500 loan from Pfizer’s father. (That’s about $78,000 today thanks to inflation.)

An example of 19th century medicine used to treat worms *shivers*.
How To Deal With Worms

A chemist and confectioner might seem like an odd couple today. But go to your medicine cabinet. How many of your medicines have flavor? Most pharmaceuticals would be hard to swallow without additives literally meant to make the medicine go down.

In 1849 the Pfizer company rolled out its first product — a product made from santonin. But this was santonin that tasted, well, not good exactly, but palatable enough to help relieve a very grotesque condition — intestinal worms.

Pfizer and Erhart produced santonin (made from the flower of Artemesia plants) with a relatively delicious almond-toffee taste.

Given that intestinal worms were a far bigger problem in the mid 19th century than they are today, the product flew off the shelves, allowing Pfizer to expand into other chemical remedies.

The original Brooklyn location of Pfizer still displays its history.
Room To Grow

As business was just getting off the ground, exciting things were happening in the neighborhood. In 1851, Williamsburgh briefly became its own incorporated city.

Less than four years later the city — along with the township of Bushwick and Greenpoint — would be incorporated into the expanding City of Brooklyn. It was collectively known as the Eastern District.

(At some point, the ‘h’ also disappeared from its name. For more information, listen to our shows on the history of Williamsburg and the Williamsburg Bridge.)

As the community was quickly growing, so too was business booming for the cousins who over the next three decades quickly expanded into the lots surrounding their original headquarters on Bartlett and Thompson.

Like many areas of the Eastern District by the late 19th century, the chemical aroma must have been remarkable.

Brooklyn Public Library

Of course Pfizer also expanded outside of Brooklyn almost immediately. In 1868, they naturally moved their central headquarters closer to Wall Street — to 81 Maiden Lane.

Meanwhile their Brooklyn location was cranking out such products as iodine, chloroform, borax, camphor and even morphine. They also specialized in non-medicinal products like cream of tartar.

A celebration of their 75th anniversary featuring a depiction of their Brooklyn operation.

As Scott H. Podolsky writes in his journal article Antibiotics and the Social History of the Controlled Clinical Trial 1950-1970:

“For nearly a century of Pfizer’s existence, it did not market pharmaceuticals but rather had centered upon the production and refinement of chemicals such as citric acid, which Pfizer was the world’s largest producer by World War II.

“However the fermentation techniques used in the production of citric acid would render Pfizer a leader in the American World War II efforts to mass-produce penicillin and Pfizer soon followed as one of the largest producers of the equally nonexclusive streptomycin and dihydrostreptomycin (selling to other companies to distribute).”

An advertisement touting their 100th anniversary

Penicillin would change the world — and significantly expand Pfizer’s profile by the second half of the 20th century through corporate mergers and expanded offices in several countries.

But Pfizer’s primary headquarters remain in Manhattan — on 42nd Street, across the street from the iconic Daily News Building.

But the company remained in their original Brooklyn location until 2008, when the aging plant was finally closed. Today many other businesses populate this historic spot:

Categories
Landmarks Music History

Making Music History at the Hotel Pennsylvania

The following article is an excerpt from a new Bowery Boys mini-podcast — following up on this week’s episode on the Hotel Pennsylvania — which has been made available to those who support the show (at the Five Points level and above) on Patreon.

In the latest episode of the Bowery Boys podcast on the history of the Hotel Pennsylvania, we discuss the musical landscape of Midtown Manhattan in the 1930s and how the unspoken social restrictions of the day played out during the rise of Big Band jazz.

In fact, the Hotel Pennsylvania played a very small role in the eventual elimination of color barriers in Midtown venues.

But this story has nothing to do with the Café Rouge, the legendary Big Band ballroom which hosted major artists and popular radio broadcasts. Rather the action takes place in the smaller club down on the hotel’s lower level — the Madhattan Room.

“It wasn’t as sumptuous or as glamorous as the Café Rouge,” one newspaper describes, “but it had fine acoustics and its small size and low ceiling lent an aura of immediacy conducive to jazz listening.” 

It was here in the fall of 1936 that Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and Teddy Wilson would make New York music history.

Breaking Barriers

While many white Big Band stars worked with black artists on arrangements and recordings — and they obviously sat in with each other during rehearsals — live public performances proved more difficult. 

Black and white musicians were never allowed to play on stage with one another.

This was not merely a prejudice of the Jim Crow South. Venues in northern cities also held fast to this color barrier — particularly in hotel lounges and ballrooms.

That is, until Easter Sunday of 1936, during a tea dance at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, when between sets of Goodman’s regular orchestra, the bandleader debuted a new jazz trio — with Goodman on clarinet, Krupa on drums, and Wilson (an African-American musician from Texas) on piano.

It was the first time that a black musician played as a regular part of a white musical ensemble before a live paying audience. And it was only really accepted because Wilson did not actually play with the full band. Still, a moment is a moment.

According to the British jazz journalist Leonard Feather, “It was an historic precedent, the magnitude of which can hardly be appreciated today in correct perspective.”

Image courtesy Benny Goodman Day by Day

The Trio Becomes A Quartet

Later that fall Benny Goodman came to the Hotel Pennsylvania and the Madhattan Room, his orchestra performing nightly.

The Madhattan Room would be Goodman’s on-and-off again home in New York, from September 30, 1936 to early 1938. And in between the band sets, Goodman would bring out Wilson and Krupa for a sweet trio interlude.

Soon that trio became a quartet in 1937 with the addition of another black musician — Lionel Hampton on the vibraphone.

I couldn’t find any images of the quartet at Hotel Pennsylvania, but here’s one from the Hollywood Hotel

While this decision might seem minor today — really, in service of the music as Wilson and Hampton were outstanding artists — some later compared Goodman to Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers who signed Jackie Robinson in 1945 and broke through baseball’s color barrier.

Hampton later said, “As far as I’m concerned, what he did in those days—and they were hard days, in 1937 — made it possible for Negroes to have their chance in baseball and other fields.”

You can hear one recording from one 1937 performance at the Madhattan Room here:

Highlights of Jazz History

But this subtle, somewhat nuanced and ironically quiet introduction to integrated live performances in New York gets immediately overshadowed by two major moments in music history.

In March of 1937, Goodman and his musicians played a two-week engagement at the Paramount Theater in Times Square.

Every night the auditorium was filled mostly with wildly enthusiastically hip teenagers, who scooped up the 25 cent tickets and sold out every night.

To quote from Goodman biographer Ross Firestone: “It was apparent to everyone — Benny and the band, the Paramount management, the assembled members of the press and the thousands of still ecstatic youngsters — that something truly momentous had just taken place.”

“By the time Goodman finished with “Sing, Sing, Sing” at the end of a forty-three minute set,” writes David Rickert, “it could be safely said that the Swing Era had begun.”

And at these shows, as they had done at the Hotel Pennsylvania, Goodman was joined on stage between sets by Wilson, Krupa and Hampton.

Then, on January 16, 1938, Goodman and record producer John Hammond brought together an epic collection of musicians to perform at Carnegie Hall.

This celebration of jazz artistry has been called the most important concert in jazz history. 

For more information on New York City and jazz music history, check out these prior episodes of the Bowery Boys podcast:

Categories
Gilded Age New York Podcasts

The Man Who Saved the Horses: Henry Bergh’s Fight for Animal Rights

PODCAST “Men will be just to men when they are kind to animals.” – Henry Bergh

Today’s show is all about animals in 19th-century New York City. Of course, animals were an incredibly common sight on the streets, market halls, and factories during the Gilded Age, and many of us probably have a quaint image of horse-drawn carriages.

But how often do we think about the actual work that those horses put in every day?

The stress of pulling those private carriages — or, much worse, pulling street trolleys, often overloaded with New Yorkers trying to get to work or home?

Work Horse parade, New York City: horse and delivery wagon, 1908. Courtesy Library of Congress

In the book A Traitor to His Species: Henry Bergh and the Birth of the Animal Rights Movement, author Ernest Freeberg (who joins Tom on this week’s show) tells the story of these animals — and of their protector Henry Bergh, the founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

He ran the organization from the 1860s to the 1880s, and was a celebrity in his day — widely covered, and widely mocked for his unflinching defense of the humane treatment of all animals, even the lowliest pesky birds or turtles.

His story is full of surprising turns, and offers an inside account of the early fight for animal rights, and engrossing tales of Gilded Age New York from a new perspective — the animal’s perspective.

Featuring an interview with Ernest Freeberg, a distinguished professor of humanities and head of the history department at the University of Tennessee.

Listen Now – Henry Bergh’s Fight for Animal Rights

Bergh in an illustration by George E Perine
“The arrest, (afterwards imprisonment), for killing a cat, although provoked to the act by a cat-nyp.” New York Public Library
Caricaturist James Albert Wales lampooning Mr. Bergh. PHOTO: BETTMANN ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
Bergh made an easy target for satire magazines like Puck
Jacob Riis captured this tragic image in 1900.
Ini 1917 horses were sharing the street with automobiles and streetcars.
The rendering factory on Barren Island, Brooklyn. It was abandoned by the time of this photograph — January 1938. Photographer: Sam Brody. WPA Federal Writers’ Project Collection, NYC Municipal Archives..

FURTHER READING

FURTHER LISTENING

After you’ve listened to this show on Henry Bergh and the animals rights movement, dive back into the back catalog and listen to these shows with similar themes:

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 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.

Categories
Bowery Boys Bookshelf Writers and Artists

‘Republic of Detours’: Paying great writers to discover New Deal America

Zora Neale Hurston at a FWP book fair held at Rockefeller Center

For the hundreds of thousands of people employed by New Deal programs during the Great Depression, it was always infrastructure week.

Even for those employed by the WPA’s Federal Writers’ Project, aimed at giving paychecks to unemployed writers by creating meaningful employment that benefited the public good.

But their objectives weren’t to build new infrastructure; it was to guide Americans over its preexisting bridges and roads via a unique set of tour books — the American Guide Series.

Republic of Detours
How the New Deal Paid Broke Writers to Rediscover America
by Scott Borchert
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Scott Borchert’s fascinating survey of this unconventional New Deal program, packed with literary greats, brings FDR’s optimistic political strides of the 1930s in line with the realities of the American landscape — from the mountains of Idaho to the swamplands of Florida.

The American Guides — tour guides of each state and many cities, often quirky and elegantly written — were the signature achievements of the project, employing thousands of writers from a wide spectrum of talents and ideologies to produce a snapshot of the United States in the late 1930s.

Library of Congress

Republic of Detours peers into the production process of several state guides — and New York City, which was treated like its own state by the program.

The personalities involved were control freaks, wanderers and raging drunks. Some were affiliated with the Communist Party (when that was obviously a less radioactive association) or left-leaning journals that would easily call the entire project into question in today’s political environment.

The program was overseen by journalist Henry Alsberg, a penpal of Emma Goldman and a Greenwich Village theater producer who pulled together an extraordinary array of talent that collectively produced a poetic embodiment of the New Deal spirit. The rights of the common man, a chorus of American voices.

Hurston at a book fair in Rockefeller Center. Zora Neale Hurston Papers/Special and Area Studies Collections/George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

This meant employing women and Black writers like Zora Neale Hurston, the anthropologist who studied the folklore and music traditions of the Deep South — leading to the publication of her classic Their Eyes Were Watching God.

As Borchert writes,”If the New Deal rested on three visible pillars — immediate economic recovery, deeper social and economic reform, and a realignment of the political landscape — then collaboration with the racial structure of the South was a shadowy fourth pillar.”

This led to debates about depicting raw historical events — especially racial violence against Black communities in the South. Ultimately Hurston was wasted by the program; “[i]t kept her alive but squandered her talents and demeaned her with a low rank.”

The New York City guide should have been the easiest to produce — with access to the best writers and the richest archives — yet Borchert presents an often chaotic process riddled with political disagreements.

It was into this literary melting pot that Richard Wright arrived from Chicago, a few years before the publication of Native Son, to produce a section on Harlem for a book of essays called New York Panorama. He would one of the great successes of the Federal Writers’ Project.

But Republic of Detours is filled with dozens of stories of lesser known writers, men and women you may never had heard of. Allow this book to inspire a few independent detours of your own into their lives.

Richard Wright 1945 (AP Photo/Robert Kradin, File)
Categories
Gangs of New York

William Poole, aka Bill the Butcher, was born 200 years ago

William Poole, born 200 years ago today in New Jersey, was one of the most infamous villains in New York City history.

As a young man, he operated as a butcher at Washington Market (in the area of today’s Tribeca neighborhood) and that legitimate occupation lent him his nickname earned by his more disreputable activities — Bill the Butcher.

Poole was a thug, a thief and a celebrity, leader of a Christopher Street gang which morphed and coalesced with others to become one of the most terrifying group of criminals in New York — the Bowery Boys.

We kn0w details of his life not only from classics like Gangs of New York but because of the unique nature between gangs and city politics in the mid 19th century. Street gangs were often aligned with political and social beliefs about the changing city — particularly the ships of newly arriving immigrants from Ireland.

The Bowery Boys were an instrument of the Know Nothings, a nativist movement which violently rejected the Irish newcomers. Their attacks on immigrants on the streets of Five Points were so severe that Irish gangs soon formed in retaliation, collectively referred to in the press as the Dead Rabbits.

This street level violence echoed the loftier nativist debates happening at City Hall and in the penny press. But Poole was no dignified man. His habits of proving himself a real ‘native American’ were distinctly chaotic and bloodthirsty.

Just one example from the New York Daily Herald, January 16, 1846: “William Poole and Smith Ackerman were amusing themselves by putting two dogs to fight in Christopher Street, creating a most disgraceful riot.” When a man stepped in to stop the dog fight, Poole and Ackerman gauged out his eye.

The journalist Herbert Asbury was so fascinated by Poole that in his classic Gangs of New York, he devotes an entire chapter to the man’s brutal murder in 1855.

New York Times, March 10, 1855

Poole was shot through the heart at Stanwix Hall (579 Broadway) by Tammany Hall sluggers Lewis Baker on behalf of Poole’s rival John Morrissey.

“Despite his wounds,” writes Asbury:

“Poole lived for fourteen days after the shooting, to the vast amazement of his doctors, who declared vehemently that it was unnatural for a man to linger so long with a bullet in his heart.

But at last, while other Native American gladiators watched anxiously by his bedside and relayed bulletins to a sorrowful crowd in the street, Bill the Butcher died, gasping with his last breath: ‘Good-bye, boys, I die a true American!‘”

He was buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in a funeral befitting a decorated war hero with thousands of mourners and over 150 carriages in a long, mournful procession.

The words ‘I die a true American!’ were actually emblazoned upon the side of the hearse carrying his flag-draped coffin.

New York Daily Herald, March 12, 1855

In the 2002 film Gangs of New York, directed by Martin Scorsese, a version of William Poole (named William Cutting) is depicted with genuine grit and horror by Daniel Day Lewis.

While the film is entirely fictional — liberally taking from various tales from Asbury’s book — Lewis’ Bill the Butcher has a grotesque and villainous quality that the real William Poole would have loved.

For more information, check out our podcast on the movie Gangs of New York:

Categories
Food History Podcasts Those Were The Days

The Ice Craze: Triumphs and Scandals of the 19th Century Ice Trade

New York City on ice — a tribute to the forgotten industry which kept the city cool in the age before refrigeration and air conditioning.

Believe it or not, ice used to be big business.

In 1806 a Boston entrepreneur named Frederic Tudor cut blocks of ice from a pond on his family farm and shipped it to Martinique, a Caribbean county very unfamiliar with frozen water.

Tudor was roundly mocked — why would people want ice in areas where they can’t store it? — but the thirst for the frozen luxury soon caught on, especially in southern United States.

New Yorkers really caught the ice craze in the 1830s thanks to an exceptionally clear lake near Nyack. Within two decades, shops and restaurants regularly ordered ice to serve and preserve foods. And with the invention of the icebox, people could even begin buying it up for home use.

The ice business was so successful that — like oil and coal — it became a monopoly. Charles W. Morse and his American Ice Company controlled most of the ice in the northeast United States by the start of the 20th century.

He was known as the Ice King. And he had one surprising secret friend — the Mayor of New York City Robert A. Van Wyck.

PLUS: The 19th century technologies that allowed American to harvest and store ice. The Iceman cometh!

AND: How the ice business lives on today with new 21st century uses.

Listen Now – The American Ice Craze of the 19th Century

Ice harvesting, New York, 1852, originally published in Gleason’s Drawing Room Companion

The ice railroad linking Rockland Lake with awaiting vessels on the Hudson River.

Hudson River Valley Heritage
Hudson River Valley Heritage

A 1902 film from Thomas Edison showing ice harvesting on Rockland Lake:

An illustration of the New York ice trade. Harper’s Weekly, 30 August 1884
A late 19th century icebox (or refrigerator). From 1897 ‘La Science Illustree’.

Charles W. Morse in 1910 (the man in the middle), strolling through New York

Library of Congress

Puck Magazine satirizing Mayor Van Wyck. Note the phrase Ice Trust on the ice he’s grabbing onto:

Jamaica Pond Ice Co. wagon, Boston, Massachusetts, Library of Congress
Women on an ice delivery, 1918
Football player and iceman Harold “Red” Grange, getting a cool reception. Getty Images
Ice man on Mott Street, 1943. Marjory Collins photographer, Library of Congress

FURTHER LISTENING

After exploring the history of the 19th century ice trade, visit these shows in the back catalog for more information about some of the people, places and events mentioned in this show:

A tale of the long-time endurance of the Democratic machine Tammany Hall in the lives of New Yorkers:

The reform movement swept corruption from City Hall in the mid 1890s — only for it to return a few years later:

Give another listen to your show on the history of cocktails — now that you know where the ice comes from!

With Consolidation we got the mayor Robert Van Wyck — and the Ice Trust Scandal.

Categories
Health and Living Newspapers and Newsies

The hottest day in New York City history

Mulberry Street 1936

These days of low-to-mid 90s F, high humidity temperatures got you down? Why that’s nothing!

The hottest day in New York City history was eighty-five years ago last week — on July 9, 1936, when temperatures reached an agonizing 106 degrees, measured from the Central Park weather observatory.

New York Times, July 19, 1936

This broke the record set on August 7, 1918 when New Yorkers experienced a catastrophic 104 degrees. (As if World War One and the Spanish Flu weren’t enough to suffer through that year.)

In neither of these years was there widespread air conditioning although the concept was quite familiar to those during the Great Depression. Upscale movie theaters and restaurants had a form of air conditioning by the mid 1930s but home use was too expensive at this time.

This photograph from 1935 accompanied an article about the novel concept of home air conditioning, making sure to point out that air conditioners can look ‘attractive’.
In 1937 the New York Daily News ran this unusual graphic about the newly emerging innovation of air conditioning.

So on the hottest day in New York City history, most people had to forge through the day anyway they could — without the luxury of artificially cooled air.

That 106 number was hit after a series of thermometer-breaking days that week.

According to the New York Daily News, “heat was humanly bearable only because the humidity, at 44 percent, was low. If it were twice as high … human life would be almost impossible.”

And the New York Times chimed in with a startling visual. “In the canyons of the financial district men and women reported the heat waves visible.”

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 9, 1936

Hundreds did die throughout the northeast United States that week due to the heat as well as several in the city, including two boys who drowned in the park lakes on July 10.

It was so hot that Mayor Fiorello La Guardia let out all city employees from work at 1:45 pm and thousands of WPA workers were given a half-day.

Fire hydrants were pried open in every neighborhood. In Red Hook, Brooklyn and in many other places, the hydrants lowered the water pressure so much that residents above the second floor were unable to get water in their homes.

And on Park Avenue “so many hydrants were in emergency use that the waters mounted above the curb and the cars splashed through six and eight inches of it.” [Times]

“In the great shopping districts in the Thirties [Herald Square], the pavements became so soft in the late afternoon that the crosswalks were dotted with rubber heals that were caught in the asphalt and tar as women passed by. In some spots the asphalt blistered.” [Times, 9/10/36]

From the July 10, 1936 issues of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The only relief seemed to be the city parks and beaches which people duly exploited — day or night. “Coney Island, the Rockaways and other metropolitan beaches again had their hundreds of thousands of city folks cooling off in salt water, and they including thousands who had remained all night on the Bach sand.”

In fact tens of thousands of New Yorkers, looking for relief, slept in city parks throughout the night. The mayor authorized most parks to remain open and police were directed not to harass people who slept on benches or on the ground.

And even Robert Moses flew in for the rescue, authorizing that all city swimming pools remain open until midnight.

From the July 10, 1936 issues of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

From the Times: “On the Lower East Side traffic was seriously impeded as small armies of persons emerged from tenement houses with chairs, boxes and even beds which they set up in the streets. Other thousands, including young children usually in bed by 9 o’clock, lined the East River waterfront.”

One jokester at the Daily News tried a bit of stunt journalism on that hot day by trying to fry an egg on the sidewalk in front of Queens Borough Hall. After watching the broken egg on the sidewalk for 15 minutes — runny and uncooked — the crowd left dejected.