Author: GY

Categories
Podcasts Women's History

Uprising: The Shirtwaist Strike of 1909

EPISODE 311 Nobody had seen anything quite like it.

In late November 1909, tens of thousands of workers went on strike, angered by poor work conditions and unfair wages within the city’s largest industry.

New York City had seen labor strikes before, but this one would change the city forever.

The industry in question was the garment industry or ‘the needle trades’. The manufacture of clothing — and, in the case of this strike, the manufacture of shirtwaists, the fashionable blouse worn by many American women.

The strikers in question were mostly young women and girls, mostly Eastern European Jewish and Italian immigrants who were tired of being taken advantage of by their male employers.

Leading the charge were labor leaders and activists. And in particular, one young woman named Clara Lemlich would inspire a crowd of thousands at Cooper Union with a rousing speech that would forever echo as a cry of solidarity for an underpaid and abused workforce.

PLUS: A visit to the New-York Historical Society‘s new exhibition Women March and an interview with Valerie Paley, co-curator and director at the Historical Society’s Center for Women’s History.

To get this week’s episode, simply download or stream it forFREE from iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify or other podcasting services.You can also get it straight from our satellite site.

Listen Here: The Shirtwaist Strike of 1909
And in 2021 — now making a special appearance on the History Chicks:

THE TAKEOUT — A bonus after-show podcast for those who support us on Patreon. Greg and Tom share some exciting insights about their collaboration with the New-York Historical Society and a bit of backstage drama that happened on the podcast a couple weeks ago. Subscribe at the Five Points level and above to receive this bonus show.

Clara Lemlich, 1910, Courtesy ILR School at Cornell University
February 10, 1910, Bain News Service
Women pledging to strike 1909, courtesy Kheel Center, Cornell University
Library of Congress
January 1910, Library of Congress

From the new exhibition at the New-York Historical Society — Women March:

FURTHER LISTENING

After taking in the story of the Shirtwaist Strike of 1909, revisit these past Bowery Boys episodes for a fuller context of the events recounted on this program.

Triangle Factory Fire

Greg’s original show from 2008 on the Triangle Factory Fire.

Ready to Wear: A History of the Garment District

Uprising: The Shirtwaist Strike of 1909 really ends where this show begins, with the birth of the modern Garment District, now located primarily in Midtown Manhattan

Saving the City: Women of the Progressive Era

The shirtwaist strike and the labor movement in general was part and parcel of the larger reforms of the Progressive Era. And no surprise — women were there on the forefront, particularly in areas of health and social reform.

FURTHER READING

Beaten Down, Worked Up by Steven Greenhouse
Common Sense and A Little Fire by Annelise Orleck
Greater Gotham by Mike Wallace
A History of America in Ten Strikes by Erik Loomis
There Is Power In A Union by Philip Dray
Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David von Drehle
U.S. Women In Struggle: A Feminist Studies Anthology

Overlooked No More: Clara Lemlich Shavelson, Crusading Leader of Labor Rights by Zoe Greenberg for the New York Times

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.

ALL patrons at all levels will receive many benefits include the next episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club, an exclusive podcast (released every 6-8 weeks) celebrating New York City in the movies. And patrons at the Five Points ($5) level and up will get our other exclusive podcast — The Bowery Boys: The Takeout — released every two weeks.

We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.

Categories
Friday Night Fever Podcasts Religious History

Nights of Vice: The Midnight Adventures of Doctor Parkhurst

PODCAST Welcome to your tour of New York City nightlife in the 1890s, to a fantasia of debauchery, to a “saturnalia of crime,” your journey to a life of amoral delights!

Courtesy a private detective, a blond-headed naif nicknamed “Sunbeam” and — a prominent Presbyterian minister.

In this episode, we’re going to Sin City, the New York underworld of the Gilded Age — the saloons, dance halls, opium dens, prostitution houses and groggeries of Old New York. Depicted in the sensationalist media of the day as a sort of urban Hades, a hellish landscape of vice and debauchery. 

So you might be surprised that our tour guide into this debauched landscape is the respected minister Dr. Charles Parkhurst of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church. 

The point of Parkhurst’s sacrilegious voyage was to expose police corruption and New York law enforcement’s willingness to look the other way at illegal behavior and decrepit social situations. 

This two-week dive into New York’s most sinful establishments was meant to expose the hold of corrupt law enforcement over the powerless. But did it also expose the cravings and hypocrisy of its ringleader?

What you may hear in this episode may genuinely shock you — and change your opinion about New York City nightlife forever.

FEATURING: Stale beer dives, tight houses, a most sinful game of leap frog and something called “the French Circus.”

Listen now on your favorite podcast player:

Charles Parkhurst in 1892.

Parkhurst, circa 1896, courtesy the Library of Congress

The Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, 1903

Library of Congress

Illustrations from the book The Doctor and The Devil: The Midnight Adventures of Doctor Parkhurst:

FURTHER LISTENING

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.

Categories
Health and Living The Knick

The Knick is now on HBO Max: Our guide to this twisted medical series

The grim, bloody wonderful business known as The Knick — primarily set in a New York City hospital at the start of the 20th century — only got two seasons but they were great fun.

This virtuoso dark drama, created by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler, was directed by Steven Soderbergh in a shadowy and often experimental style, somewhere between Grey’s Anatomy and the Twilight Zone.

Originally made for Cinemax, The Knick has is now available on HBO Max where I hope it finds a very warm welcome with pandemic-weary viewers (even as the show pretty much dives into a macabre assortment of diseases and bodily horrors.)

The show was unusually precise when it came to accurate depictions of historical events, famous figures and — with no lack of gruesome detail — medical practices of its day.

At its center was Clive Owen as Dr. John W. Thackery, as dark and brooding as his surroundings, as brilliant and inventive as he was drug-addled.

Through his adventures, we got to enter New York’s finest restaurants and foggiest opium dens, often within five minutes of each other.

Back in 2014 and 2015, we were very, very on The Knick beat here at the Bowery Boys: New York City History website.

My Clive Owen/The Knick Halloween costume in 2014. Don’t worry, I washed the wall after the picture.

We highly suggest you take a dive into this series or take a second look if you binged the first two seasons — after checking out these resources from our podcast and website

The inspiration for the original Knick:

Knickerbocker Hospital
“Location: Covent Avenue and 131st Street
The hospital depicted in The Knick is much, much further downtown.  However, with the arrival of elevated trains and, later, the subway, some new immigrants would have settled in upper Manhattan to escape the crowded tenements. So the types of patients treated at these institutions would have been similar.”

Purpose:  According to the 1914 Directory of Social and Health Agencies, “Gives free surgical and medical treatment to the worthy sick poor of New York City.  Incurable and contagious diseases and alcoholic, maternity and insane patients not admitted.  Emergency cases received at any hour.”

READ MORE: Knickerbocker Hospital: An inspiration for Cinemax’s The Knick

New York’s real ‘operating theaters’

A look at Syms Operating Theater at Roosevelt Hospital and Long Island College Hospital:

“The administrators at Long Island College Hospital could not have been thrilled when they picked up the New York Times on April 27, 1895.

Right there on the front page was a horror story with their historic institution as a backdrop.

“It is from this upper floor that foul and inexpressibly nauseating odors are wafted through the operating theater at all times, because it is there that the students of the college and hospital practice anatomy on eighteen or twenty decomposing cadavers.”“

READ MORE: The tale of two hospitals: Enjoy the “inexpressibly nauseating” aromas of Brooklyn’s oldest operating theater

The Cocaine Fiends of the Gilded Age

The wonders of cocaine in medicine: “Cocaine was the wonder drug of the early 1880s. Not only could it cure disease; it could also dampen the senses.  

“In 1884, a doctor presented his findings at the College of Physicians and Surgeons (23rd/Park Avenue), heralding the successes of “anesthetic cocaine” in numbing patients during ear and eye surgeries.  It was even given as a pain reliever to horses.“

READ MORE: The Cocaine Fiends of the Gilded Age: New York stages an intervention for its over-the-counter drug problem

Visiting The Knick (the sets, that is)

In 2013 we happened to stumble upon the outdoor sets that were used in The Knick — portions of the Lower East Side, transformed into the year 1900. See more pictures here.

In 2015, we went a step further and paid a visit to the interior sets of The Knick Season Two, filming in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

For many more pictures, check out our 2015 article on the visit.

Photos by Greg Young

Season Two Recap

For a good recap of themes from Season Two — and a look at tweets from the Bowery Boys Podcast about The Knick — check out this article: A history recap from the brothel to the freak show. Here’s an excerpt:

“EUGENICS
Deteriorated or stunted moral character was also seen as endemic of new arriving immigrants especially those from southern Italy. 

The study of eugenics — belief in the improvement of the human race through selective reproduction — rapidly grow in colleges and universities in the 1900s. Naturally the eugenics argument was also used against African-Americans and wielded as a threat against any who attempted to upend the status quo.”

Tweets Galore About The Knick

And finally, I tweeted along with the show during live broadcasts — remember those? You can find those tweets on the Bowery Boys Podcast Twitter page (@boweryboys) using the hashtag #TheKnick.

Here were a few sample Tweets:

And finally — they may be bringing The Knick back for a Season Three (or would that be a ‘reboot’), now with Barry Jenkins at the helm. Returning to the show — André Holland as Dr. Algernon C. Edwards. In 2016, Holland starred in Jenkin’s Oscar-winning Moonlight.

Categories
Black History Podcasts

Harlem Before The Renaissance: Making a mecca for Black America

PODCAST “If we were to offer a symbol of what Harlem has come to mean in a short span of twenty years, it would be another statue of liberty on the landward side of New York. Harlem represents the Negro’s latest thrust towards Democracy.” — Alain Locke

EPISODE 353 This is Part Two of our two-part look at the birth of Black Harlem, a look at the era before the 1920s, when the soul and spirit of this legendary neighborhood was just beginning to form.

The Harlem Renaissance is a cultural movement which describes the flowering of the arts and political thought which occurred mostly within the Black community of Harlem between 1920 and the 1940s.

Seventh Avenue in Harlem in 1932. Photograph: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images

In particular the 1920s were described by writer Langston Hughes as “the period when the Negro was in vogue.” The moment when the white mainstream turned its attention to black culture. 

But how Harlem become a mecca of Black culture and “the Capital of Black America”?

Reception for the Harlem Hellfighters

This is the story of constructing a cultural movement on the streets of Upper Manhattan in the 1910s. From the stages of the Lafayette Theater to the soapboxes of Speakers Corner. From the pulpits to the salons (both hair and literary)!

WITH stories of Marcus Garvey, Madam C.J. Walker, Arturo Schomberg and many more.

AND the origin of a beloved Harlem treasure, at home at the Apollo Theater.

Listen to HARLEM BEFORE THE RENAISSANCE on your favorite podcast player or from the player below:
Three ladies in Harlem, 1925

The Tree of Hope, sitting across from the Lafayette Theatre and Connie’s Inn.

The stump of the Tree of Hope still inspired hopefuls for many years before it was taken to the Apollo Theater.

James Reese Europe and the Clef Club Band, 1914.

Courtesy the New York Public Library

The home and salon of Madam C.J. Walker.

Madam C.J. Walker became one of Harlem’s most successful and prominent business owners.

A’Lelia Walker with dancer Al Moore 

Courtesy Madam Walker Family Archives

Hubert Harrison — the ‘Black Socrates’ — whose fiery speeches on Speakers Corner galvanized political activity in Harlem.

Marcus Garvey in a UNIA parade, 1924.

Photo by James Van Der Zee 

Garvey speaking at Liberty Hall, 1920

Library of Congress
FURTHER LISTENING:

The first part of the Birth of Black Harlem two-part series:

…and a newly produced version of our earlier show on the Hotel Theresa.

In addition, these people and events play a big role in this week’s 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 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.

Categories
Black History Podcasts

The Birth of Black Harlem: On the Road to a Renaissance

Harlem in 1942. National Archives/Getty Images

PODCAST How did Harlem become Harlem, the historic and spiritual center of Black culture, politics and identity in American life? This is the story of radical change — through radical real estate.

By the 1920s, Harlem had become the capital of Black America, where so many African-American thinkers, artists, writers, musicians and entrepreneurs would live and work that it would spawn — a Renaissance.

But in an era of so much institutional racism — the oppression of Jim Crow, an ever-present reality in New York — how did Black Harlem come to be?

The story of Harlem, the neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, begins more than three and a half centuries ago with the small Dutch village of Nieuw Haarlem (New Haarlem).

During the late 19th century Harlem became the home of many different immigrant groups — white immigrant groups, Irish and German, Italian and Eastern European Jews — staking their claim of the American dream in newly developed housing here.

But then an extraorindary shift occurs beginning in the first decade of the 20th century, a very specific set of circumstances that allowed, really for the very first time, African-American New Yorkers to stake out a piece of that same American dream for themselves.

This is a story of radical real estate — and realtors! And not just any realtor, but the story of the man who earned the nickname the Father of Harlem — Philip A. Payton Jr.

Listen here or stream/download the episode from your favorite podcast player:

Harlem in 1870. West 125th Street in background, with St. James Roman Catholic Church on left and steeple of Manhattanville Presbyterian Church visible behind it.

New York Public Library

City Dairy at the southeast corner of East 116th Street and Fourth Avenue, in Harlem, New York City, 1889 (!)

New York Public Library

116th Street near Lenox Avenue, 1893, where tenement development rubs against the vestiges of rural Harlem.

A street in Harlem after the blizzard of Feb. 13, 1899. Note the elevated railroad in the distance.

Library of Congress

Plans for the Mount Morris, northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 126th Street, 1908.

New York Public Library

Men in front of an apartment that rented to Black tenants, 1915.

New York Public Library / Science Source

Philip A. Payton Jr. who used real estate savvy to introduce many African-Americans to Harlem.

From the New York Evening World, May 2, 1904 (courtesy Newspapers.com)

John E. Nail and Henry C. Parker, who left the Afro-American Realty Company to pursue even greater success, become the ‘little Fathers’ of Harlem.

Harlem, late 1910s.

Courtesy Brown Brothers, Columbia University

St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, 1920

Courtesy Columbia University

Mother Zion Church, West 137th Street, 1924

Wurts Brothers, Museum of the City of New York

FURTHER READING

Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal by Eric K. Washington
Greater Gotham by Mike Wallace
Harlem Is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America by Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts
Harlem: The Four Hundred Year History from Dutch Village to Capital of Black America by Jonathan Gill
Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto by Gilbert Osofsky
Race and Real Estate: Conflict and Cooperation in Harlem 1890-1920 by Kevin McGruder

FURTHER LISTENING

Check out these past Bowery Boys Podcasts with related themes to this week’s 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 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.

Categories
Bowery Boys Movie Club

Auntie Mame: The most glamorous lady on Beekman Place

In a bit of Super Bowl counter programming, we’ve just released an unusually eccentric episode of Bowery Boys Movie Club to the general Bowery Boys Podcast audience, exploring the 1958 comedy masterpiece Auntie Mame.

New episodes of the Movie Club are exclusive to those who support us on Patreon. For current patrons, we’ve also just released a brand new episode of the Movie Club, looking at the 1961 film Breakfast At Tiffany’s.

To listen to that episode and to past Movie Club episodes (discussing Do The Right Thing, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Warriors, When Harry Met Sally and many other films) become a Patreon supporter today

In the latest episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club, Tom and Greg celebrate wild and fabulous Auntie Mame, the outrageous comedy masterpiece starring Rosalind Russell that’s mostly set on Beekman Place, the pocket enclave of New York wealth that transforms into a haven for oddballs and bohemian eccentrics.

Auntie Mame cleverly uses historical events — the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Great Depression — as a backdrop to Mame’s own financial woes, and her progressive-minded care of nephew Patrick introduces some rather avant garde philosophies to movie-going audiences.

Listen in as the Bowery Boys set up the film’s history, then give a rollicking synopsis through the zany plot line.

Should you watch the movie before you listen to this episode? This podcast can be enjoyed both by those who have seen the film and those who’ve never even heard of it.  

We think our take on Auntie Mame might inspire you to look for the film’s many fascinating (but easy to overlook) historical details, so if you don’t mind being spoiled on the plot, give it a listen first, then watch the movie! Otherwise, come back to the show after you’ve watched it.

Listen now: Auntie Mame (Bowery Boys Movie Club)

This episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club was originally released on February 19, 2019, to those who support the Bowery Boys Podcast on Patreon.

Sign up and help support the show today to get the latest episodes of the Bowery Boys Movie Club.

Categories
Bowery Boys Movie Club

Breakfast At Tiffany’s: An aging classic, ‘mean reds’ in a little black dress

The new episode of the Bowery Boys Movie Club explores the film Breakfast At Tiffany’s and the rich historical context of early 1960s New York City. An exclusive podcast for those who support us on Patreon.

In the film version of Truman Capote‘s daring 1958 novella — starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard— New York City provides the elegant backdrop to a romantic fable dripping in diamonds and booze.

Holly Golightly lives in her own fantasy world, and from her Upper East Side apartment, she seduces wealthy strangers and entertains a roster of outcasts and oddballs. From glamorous dates at the 21 Club to visits with her mobster ‘friend’ in Sing Sing Prison, Holly paints for herself a glamorous life — even through bouts of the ‘mean reds’.

But when a handsome writer moves into the building — a man with his own complicated relationships (hello, Patricia Neal!) — will Holly find in him, as the song goes, a fellow ‘drifter, off to see the world’?

Listen in as Greg and Tom recap the story and explore some of the historical context for the film. Featuring a dreamy lineup of New York locations including the Central Park, the Seagram Building, the New York Public Library and, of course, Tiffany and Co.

PLUS: What to do with Mickey Rooney.

How do I listen the Bowery Boys Movie Club?  Once you’re signed in on Patreon, you’ll see a private RSS link that can be put directly into your favorite podcast player. Even easier, it can also be played directly from the Patreon app if you’re signed in.

Your support on Patreon assists us in producing our podcast and website and it helps as we endeavor to share our love of New York City history with the world.

Categories
Podcasts Skyscrapers

The World Trade Center in the 1970s

April 1977 -- Bill Pierce/Getty Images

PODCAST The World Trade Center opened its distinctive towers during one of New York City’s most difficult decades, a beacon of modernity in a city beleaguered by debt and urban decay. Welcome to the 1970s.

EPISODE 350 This year, believe it or not, marks the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.

Today there’s an entire generation that only knows the World Trade Center as an emblem of tragedy.

But people sometimes forget that the World Trade Center, designed by Japanese-American architect Minoru Yamasaki, was a very complicated addition to the New York skyline when it officially opened in 1973.

While it might be fun to think of New York City in the 1970s through the lens of places like Studio 54 or CBGB, it was really the Twin Towers that redefined New York.

The journey to build the world’s tallest building and its expansive complex of office towers and underground shops began in an effort by David Rockefeller to stimulate development in Manhattan’s fading Financial District.

By the time Port Authority got onboard to fund the project, the Twin Towers were bonded together with another vital project — a commuter train from New Jersey.

The World Trade Center inspired strong opinions from critics and the public alike, but eventually many grew to admire the strange towers which marked the skyline.

And for some, the Twin Towers became objects of obsession.

Jean-Louis Blondeau / Polaris Images

FEATURING: The insane, completely outlandish and ultimately successful feat of acrobatics by a very bold French tightrope walker.

PLUS: An interview with with Kate Monaghan Connolly of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum about how that institution memorializes those lost in the tragedy while still celebrating the technological marvels that once stood there.

Listen here or stream/download the episode from your favorite podcast player:

Go to websites for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum and One World Observatory for more information about visiting hours and COVID-19 safety precautions at each site.

Follow us on Instagram for more images of our adventures through New York City.

Architect Minoru Yamasaki with a model of this Twin Tower design for the World Trade Center, March 25, 1964

Photographer Tony Spina/Courtesy Walter P. Reuther Library

David Rockefeller with a model of the westside of lower Manhattan.

Courtesy John Duricka/Associated Press

The first plan for the World Trade Center called for construction of a United Nations-inspired set of structures on the east side, most likely eliminating (or seriously reducing) the South Street Seaport.

Images of Radio Row, clearly showing a vibrant retail district that remained active over many decades. Had it remained, who knows how much larger it would have gotten with the advent of television?

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

They were so prominent and tall that they become the world’s most observed construction project — for years.

Courtesy AP

Over the years, the landfill site (and future home of Battery Park City) was used for performance art, musical performances and even circuses.

The wheat field (an art project by Agnes Denes), planted in 1982.

The lobby of one of the towers.

The Twin Towers from the film King Kong.

From the New York Daily News, August 8, 1974. For context, Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States the following day (Friday, August 9).

Courtesy Newspapers.com

The Philippe Petit story made international news. Here’s one example — from Butte, Montana!

Courtesy Newspapers.com

From the Oscar-winning documentary Man On Wire:

Photo by Lars Plougmann/Wikimedia Commons

Dolly Parton and Andy Warhol at Windows on the World, 1977.

Photo by Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images
FURTHER READING

City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center / James Glanz and Eric Lipton
Twin Towers: The Life of New York City’s World Trade Center / Angus Kress Gillespie
The World Trade Center: A Tribute / Bill Harris

FURTHER LISTENING

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.

Categories
Bridges Podcasts Queens History

The Queensboro Bridge and the Rise of a Borough

Photo by Greg Young, taken January 2016

“The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

EPISODE 349 This is the story of a borough with great potential and the curious brown-tannish cantilever bridge which helped it achieve greatness.

The Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge (sometimes known as the 59th Street Bridge) connects Manhattan with Queens by lifting over the East River and Roosevelt Island, an impressive landmark that changed the fate of the borough enshrined in its curious name.

In 1898, before the Consolidation of 1898, which created Greater New York and the five boroughs, much of Queens was sparsely populated — a farm haven connected by dusty roads — with most residents living in a few key towns, villages and one actual city — Long Island City.

With Brooklyn and Manhattan already well developed (and overcrowded in some sectors) by the early 20th century, developers and civic leader looked to Queens as a new place for expansion. But in 1900 it had no quick and convenient connections to areas off of Long Island.

The bridge in 1917 with the elevator storehouse, Museum of the City of New York

With the opening of the bridge in 1909, rich new opportunities for Queens awaited. Communities from Astoria to Bayside, Jackson Heights, Flushing and Jamaica all experienced an unprecedented burst of new development.

Thanks in small part to the bridge so famous that it inspired a classic folk song and became the cinematic backdrop of a 1970s film classic.

Listen here or from your favorite podcast player:
From a stormy Spring day in 2014. Photo by Greg Young
(Courtesy Shorpy)
Courtesy Shorpy)
The unique finials at the top of the bridge, 1905. Courtesy Museum of the City of New York
The bridge near complete, 1908. Courtesy the Museum of the City of New York
The marketplace with Guastavino tile, 1915. Courtesy Museum of the City of New York

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 outand consider being a sponsor.

We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.

Approaching the bridge at street level on the Manhattan side. Photo Greg Young
The bridge as the Roosevelt Island Tramway crosses. (GY)
Guastivino tile on the First Avenue archway beneath the bridge. (GY)
Across the bridge….. (GY)
On the Queens side, the bridge takes on a different character, dominating the waterfront blocks. (GY)
Views from Queensbridge Park. (GY)
Gustav Lindenthal in 1909, the year the bridge opens.
From the June 12, 1909 Brooklyn Daily Eagle

RELATED LISTENING

Categories
Bowery Boys

The Bowery Boys podcast, now in its 14th year. Tell a friend about the show!

Collier's New Encyclopedia, 1921,

This Friday we begin our 14th year of podcasting with a new episode about one of New York City’s most beloved landmarks.

And on January 29, we will release our 350th episode — on a subject which is certain to surprise you!

We’re returned to our regular recording schedule — a brand new episode of the podcast every two weeks.

BUT you’ll still be getting a show in your podcast feed every week thanks to our REWIND series, presenting shows from our back catalog that have renewed relevance to events occurring in our world today.

For instance, our two shows on Penn Station were just recently re-released to mark the opening of the new Moynihan Train Hall.

But these aren’t merely reruns! Most of the REWIND shows will include newly recorded material — either updates to the information or extra bonus stories that we have discovered since first recording those shows.

All shows will be re-edited for a slightly more pleasing listening experience than the first time around. (Hey we’ve been doing this for 14 years! We’ve obviously learned a lot about producing audio since 2007.)

We hope that the Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast is providing you with some needed escapism and entertainment during this unbelievable moment in our nation’s history.

CAN YOU DO US A FAVOR?

— Just make sure you’re subscribed to the Bowery Boys podcast on your favorite podcast player. See below for specific links.

— And tell a friend or two about our show. We’ve got so many now that we undoubtedly have something for everything.

(And of course we also welcome your support on Patreon where you’ll also receive audio bonuses and other surprises. There will be new Patreon-only audio released later this week.)

Thanks and see you on Friday!

Greg and Tom

The Bowery Boys Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Overcast, Castro, Player FM, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Podbean, TuneIn, Google Podcasts

Categories
Planes Trains and Automobiles Podcasts

The Destruction of Penn Station

Pennsylvania Station 1950 (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

On January 1, 2021 Moynihan Train Hall officially opened to the public, a new commuters’ wing catering to both Amtrak and Long Island Railroad train passengers at New York’s underground (and mostly unloved) Penn Station.

To celebrate this big moment in New York City transportation history, we’re going to tell the entire story of Pennsylvania Station and Pennsylvania Railroad over two episodes, using a couple older shows from our back catalog. 

Listen to PART ONE here — The Construction of Penn Station

PODCAST Why did they knock down old Pennsylvania Station?

The original Penn Station, constructed in 1910 and designed by New York’s greatest Gilded Age architectural firm, was more than just a building. Since its destruction in the 1960s, the station has become something mythic, a sacrificial lamb to the cause of historic preservation.

Amplifying its loss is the condition of present Penn Station, a fairly unpleasant underground space that uses the original Pennsylvania Railroad’s tracks and tunnels. As Vincent Scully once said:

“Through Pennsylvania Station one entered the city like a god. Perhaps it was really too much. One scuttles in now like a rat.”
Robert R McElroy/Getty Images

In this show we rebuild the grand, original structure in our minds — the fourth largest building in the world when it was constructed — and marvel at an opulence now gone.

Why was Penn Station destroyed? If you answered MONEY!, you’re only partially right.

This is the story of an architectural treasure endangered — and a city unprepared to save it. Should something so immense be saved because of its beauty even if its function has diminished or even vanished? Does the public have a say in a privately  owned property?

PLUS: We show you where you can still find remnants of old Penn Station by going on a walking tour with Untapped Cities tour guide Justin Rivers.

Listen to the show here or on your favorite podcast player:

THE BULK OF THIS SHOW WAS ORIGINALLY RELEASED AS EPISODE 254 — FEB 2018. THIS SHOW ALSO INCLUDES NEW MATERIAL.

_______________________________________________________

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 outand consider being a sponsor.

We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.

________________________________________________________

Bain Collection/Library of Congress. Clean-up version courtesy Shorpy

The 32nd Street entrance in 1910

The corner of 31st Street and 7th Avenue, entrance to the south carriage entrance, 1914

Museum of the City of New York
1912- MCNY/Detroit Publishing Col

The Pennsylvania Station restaurant, found after one stepped through the arcade but before the waiting room.

MCNY/McKim Mead and White

The train concourse, 1911

1910 — Library of Congress/clean-up version Shorpy

Awaiting the arrival of preacher Billy Sunday. (Read more about the context of this extraordinary picture here.)

Library of Congress
1936 — MCNY/Wurts Brothers
MCNY/Berenice Abbott
NYPL/Berenice Abbott

The view of the concourse from the Grand Waiting Room, 1939

Museum of the City of New York

The loggia, leading to the grand staircase, 1939

Museum of the City of New York
New York Public Library

A 1955 bar menu from the Penn Station restaurant/bar

NYPL

The AGBANY protesters including Philip Johnson and Jane Jacobs.

WALTER DARAN/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGE

Madison Square Garden rose as old Penn Station was slowly demolished.

New York Daily News
Norman McGrath/New York Times
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS/GETTY IMAGES

A couple eagles still flank the 7th Avenue side of the Madison Square Garden/Penn Station complex today.

Greg Young

The Samuel Rea statue that once greeted commuters from the original Penn Station loggia. In his hands are blueprints to the old Penn Station and a model of the station to his side.

Greg Young

Tom and Untapped Cities guide Justin Rivers walking down one of the original Penn Station departure staircases, still in operation.

Greg Young

An original arrivals staircase.

Greg Young

Scenes from the new Moynihan Train Hall:

And further images on our Instagram page:

FURTHER READING
The Late Great Pennsylvania Station by Lorraine B. Diehl
Conquering Gotham: The Construction of Penn Station and Its Tunnels by Jill Jones
Old Penn Station by William Low
Pennsylvania Station: McKim, Mead and White by Steven Parissien

TOURS

The Remnants of Penn Station, led by Justin Rivers for Untapped Cities

FURTHER LISTENING

The story of Pennsylvania Station involves more than just nostalgia for the long-gone temple of transportation as designed by the great McKim, Meade and White. It’s a tale of incredible tunnels, political haggling and big visions.

Special thanks to Kieran Gannon for helping with editing this week’s show.

Categories
Amusements and Thrills The Jazz Age

Ringing in 1921: “The dullest New Year’s Eve New York has ever seen.” Or was it?

At the Times Square ball drop in 1926, Getty Images

For more information on the history of Times Square’s New Year’s celebrations, listen to our show A New Year In Old New York:

One hundred years ago, Americans rang in the new year in an entirely new way — without legal liquor.

“New Year’s Eve Agreeably Dull,” declared the New York Herald. “Sober Crowds Jam Streets of City on New Year’s Eve,” observed the New York Times.

But look more closely and you’ll find the mad revelry was still there, sequestered in hotel rooms, brandished by defiant saloons or tucked away in a coat pocket.

The Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting the production and sale of alcohol in the United States, had actually gone into effect almost 12 months before — on January 17, 1920.

Partygoers welcoming in the year 1920 knew that access to liquor would soon be shut down courtesy the Volstead Act, the law that enforced the new amendment.

According to the New York Herald, “A year ago the stuff could be toted around with perfect legality and in the course of the revelry thousands of bottles of it were given away to diners by restaurant men who took prohibition seriously and now curse their folly.”

Why “curse their folly”? Over the past eleven months, liquor manufacturing and distribution had gone underground.

The thirst for alcohol simply became more discrete. And hotels and restaurants could now charge extra for their secretive stashes of wine and champagne. (Not to mention their Manhattans and martinis.)

New Years’ Eve at Rector’s, 1910, courtesy Museum of the City of New York

And so the last hours of 1920 saw the birth of an entirely different party — where the added element of secrecy and lawbreaking added a new, wilder dimension for many.

The new style of revelry become obvious early in the evening. Oddly enough, Prohibition killed off more conservative celebrations where the crowds tended to be older and speakeasies less available. Without champagne, what was the point of braving a crowd?

Witness the scene downtown at the ‘traditional’ celebration around Trinity Church:

“In past years Park Row and lower Broadway have been crowded paths for those who marched to Trinity early to hear the chimes. These crowds used to shriek with ratchet and horn and it took extra police to keep them in line.

“Last night the police were there and lonesome.” [source]

Below: In the early 1900s, before the popularity of Times Square, crowds flocked to Trinity to hear the midnight chimes.

As one headed uptown, further evidence seemed to suggest a dampened party vibe that year — even in Times Square:

“A policeman in Longacre Square said it was the smallest turnout he had seen in his fifteen years in the precinct. It almost reminded one of the storied past, when whole families stayed at home and played charades for New Year’s Eve, when friends went to friends’ houses for holiday dinner and when people drank little or no liquor, there being no law to violate.”

Yet as the clock drew near to the midnight hour, crowds did suddenly appear.

From the New York Times, January 1, 1921

And many of those celebrants did express a certain glow found only from illicit and overly potent intoxicants.

“The throngs in the hotels and streets, probably the largest in the history of the city, saw an entirely new kind of celebration,” wrote the New York Times the following day. “The big crowd was roughly divided into two classes, the vast majority who were cold sober and a small minority who were hopelessly to the contrary.”

New York City was experiencing its first New Year celebration without legal liquor — which meant absolutely nothing.

The Hotel Astor in Times Square, pictured here in 1904. Courtesy NYPL

Liquor had not vanished.

Due to rather lax enforcement of the Volstead Act among high-end establishments — poorly paid Prohibition officers were easily bribed — liquor sales actually flourished in the Times Square area if you knew where to look.

“All the restaurant, hotel and saloon managers said with affecting solemnity that they were not selling a thing, and wouldn’t allow a drop to be brought into the house on the hip or elsewhere. Some of them meant it.

“Yet the streets were full of walking bulges and where did the bulges go when they left the street but into the — some of the — hotels and restaurants?” [source]

Celebrations carried on indoors in the finest hotels and restaurants as always but now the liquor stayed indoors as well, clandestine and under the counter. Champagne was just as likely sipped from coffee cups as from glamorous cocktail glasses. But it certainly tasted the same.

Many saloons boldly served alcohol out in the open. “The uninitiated would sometimes walk [into a saloon], look around timidly, see the backs of two or three policemen and then feel safe in demanding a glass of nice fresh whisky.” [NYT]

While some did risk a flask out in the street, many in Times Square preferred to revel within the walls of places like the Hotel Astor or the Hotel McAlpin until a few minutes before midnight — and, for many, why bother leaving at all?

Below: Times Square on New Year’s Eve just a few years later, 1926 (Getty Images)

And then of course there was the abundance of medical services available.

“For some reason a dozen hotels, taking counsel from experience, established yesterday fully equipped medical stations with physicians and nurses in attendance. The nurses’ registry offices were besieged with calls all day for nurses for emergency duty, one hotel offering $2o as a bonus for a single night’s work.” [Herald]

A Perscription for alcohol used during Prohibition, courtesy Smithsonian

According to the Smithsonian, “during Prohibition, the U.S. Treasury Department authorized physicians to write prescriptions for medicinal alcohol. Licensed doctors, with pads of government-issued prescription forms, advised their patients to take regular doses of hooch to stave off a number of ailments—cancer, indigestion and depression among them.”

I imagine a few hastily written prescriptions were dispensed that evening. Curing whatever ailed you!

But some of that medical experience was put to good use as many partygoers drank poisoned, inferior alcohol — called ‘new whisky’ by the New York Times — to great excess, brought in from other places.

New York had never seen so many sloppy drunks.

“The joy of being illegal became more intense than ever before.”

The act of ringing in the year 1921 easily proved that Prohibition was completely unenforceable in the biggest city in the United States — amid the centers of entertainment and vice, with law enforcement so used to looking the other way.

Between Greenwich Village, Midtown Manhattan and Harlem alone, thousands of speakeasies would operate without disruption over the next decade.

Writes Esad Metjahic: “It would be fair to say that New York City never truly accepted prohibition. Laws were passed, an amendment ratified, and even police task forces trained to enforce these laws, but the City of Immigrants never gave in.”

Happy New Year!

For more information, check out our podcasts on New Years Eve AND on the early days of Prohibition:

Categories
Food History Friday Night Fever Podcasts

Cheers! The Stories of Four Fabulous Cocktails

EPISODE 348 It’s the happiest of hours! The tales of four fabulous cocktails invented or made famous in New York City’s saloons, cocktail lounges, restaurants and hotels.

Cocktails are more than alcoholic beverages; over the decades, they’ve been status signifiers, indulgences that show off exotic ingredients or elixars displaying a bit of showmanship behind the bar. 

In this podcast, we recount the beginning days of four iconic alcoholic drinks:

— The Manhattan: How an elite Gilded Age social club may have invented the cocktail for a new governor of New York;

— The Bloody Mary: A Parisian delight, enjoyed by the leading lights of the Jazz Age, makes it way to one of New York’s most famous hotels;

— The Martini: A drink of mysterious origin and potency becomes New York City’s most popular drink — and a curious lunchtime companion;

— The Cosmopolitan: Tracing the history of a new cocktail classic from Provincetown to San Francisco — and into two of New York’s most famous 1980s hangouts

LISTEN NOW — THE ORIGIN OF FOUR FABULOUS COCKTAILS

Professor Jerry Thomas, serving fire drinks to New York patrons.

From Jerry Thomas’ bartender guide (1887 edition). Read the whole guide here.

(OR ABSINTHE IF REQUIRED)

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 outand consider being a sponsor.

We greatly appreciate our listeners and readers and thank you for joining us on this journey so far.

Categories
Health and Living Podcasts

Two Stories of Historic Vaccines: The End of Polio and Smallpox

A mobile vaccine station on 84th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in 1961. Department of Health Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

We released the following show on the history of vaccines back in early April 2020 when the idea of a COVID 19 vaccine seemed little more than distant fantasy. 

Just this past Monday, on December 14, Sandra Lindsay, the director of critical care at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens became the first American to receive the Pfizer COVID 19 vaccine in a non-trial setting.

And so this week we’re re-releasing this show — in a much more hopeful context this time around.

This is the story of the polio vaccines developed by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin — and then a look at the origin of the vaccine itself, first developed to combat smallpox almost 225 years ago, thanks to Edward Jenner and a cow named Blossom.

Jenner, Stephen; ‘Blossom’, the Cow; Edward Jenner Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/blossom-the-cow-62938

In 1916 New York City became the epicenter of one of America’s very first polio epidemics.

The scourge of infantile paralysis infected thousands of Americans that year, most under the age of five. But in New York City it was especially bad. The Department of Health took drastic measures, barring children from going out in public and even labeling home with polio sufferers, urging others to stay away.

That same year, up in the Bronx, a young couple named Daniel and Dora Salk — the children of Eastern European immigrants — were themselves raising their young son named Jonas. As an adult, Jonas Salk would spend his life combating the poliovirus in the laboratory, creating a vaccine that would change the world.

In 1921 a young lawyer and politician named Franklin Delano Roosevelt would contract what was believed at the time to be polio. He would use his connections and power — first as governor of New York, then as president of the United States — to guide the nation’s response to the virus.

AND THEN: The second half of the show is devoted to the question — who came up the first vaccine anyway? 

Once upon a time there was a country doctor with a love of birds, a milkmaid with translucent skin, an eight-year-old boy with no idea what he’s in for and a wonderful cow that holds the secret to human immunity.

This is the story of the first vaccine, perhaps one of the greatest inventions in modern human history. Come listen to this remarkable story of risk and bravery which led to the eradication of one of the deadliest diseases in human history.

And hear the words of Dr. Edward Jenner himself, written in the first weeks of his experiments!

LISTEN NOW — THE STORIES OF TWO HISTORIC VACCINES

Bellevue Hospital 1916, a bus with children and polio patients — Department of Public Charities Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
A map marking the places most severely hit by the polio epidemic in 1916. The Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Poliomyelitis (Infantile Paralysis). Prevalence and Geographic Distribution During 1916. Reprint no. 403. Public Health Reports. June 29, 1917.
The Historical Medical Library of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The Epidemic of Poliomyelitis (Infantile Paralysis) in New York City in 1916. Department of Health of New York City, 1916.
New York Times, July 4, 1916
New York Times, July 5, 1916
Young Jonas Salk (at far left) with his family. Picture courtesy San Diego Union Tribute
Salk stands in his University of Pittsburgh laboratory, 1956. Bettmann/Corbis
Department of Health Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.
Young Albert Sabin, courtesy University of Cincinnati
Albert Sabin, administering his oral polio vaccine. Courtesy of the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions, University of Cincinnati
A rare picture of FDR in his wheelchair, on the porch at Top Cottage in Hyde Park. FDR Presidential Library & Museum photograph by Margaret Suckley
Roosevelt with Basil O’Connor (and a whole lot of dimes), 1944
Museum of the City of New York
Museum of the City of New York
Gypsy Rose Lee at a March of Dimes benefit lunch in New York, 1945. Courtesy Bettmann/Corbis

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.

Categories
Bowery Boys Bookshelf

‘The Encyclopedia of New York’: A glorious and eccentric view of the city

Looking for a last minute gift idea?

The Encyclopedia of New York is a rich, attractive and surprising collection of stories from the city’s history, arranged alphabetically — from abstract expressionism to zoning.

Throughout the book, you’ll be discovering fascinating articles written by some of your favorite New York writers — Kevin Baker on baseball, Frank Rich on anchormen, Jerry Saltz on modern art, Rebecca Traister on birth-control clinics.

And me! I was honored to be invited to write the six-page opening timeline which lays out the story of New York City via important historical moments.

Below are just a few of my favorite entries in the timeline. This book an absolute treasure trove of information and I’m pretty sure you’ll fall in love with it.

— Greg Young