New York City in 1884. Imagine this place furiously quaking!
New York has never suffered severely from the effects of an earthquake. Most recently, the one felt in 2011— reportedly of 5.8 or 5.9 magnitude, centered around Virginia and affecting many Northeast metropolitan areas — ranks quite high on the list of tremors felt here.
There’s no way to compare that local event to the really early quakes, as the Richter scale was only created in 1935. But quakes have hit the city as early as December 18, 1737, when a guesstimated 5.2 rattled holiday chimneys.
But an equally dramatic tremor that hit on Sunday, August 10, 1884, has a few parallels to the one experienced today.
New York Times
“No Damage Done But Queer Sensations Experienced” reported the New York Tribune the next day.
From the Sun: “An Earthquake Shakes Us.” The tremor occurred at 2:07 pm “by the City Hall clock” in a couple separate waves.
Few New Yorkers living in 1884 would have ever experienced an earthquake in an American city. Some ran to their windows expecting to see a runaway horse car. Others standing under the newly built elevated railroad thought the train was arriving.
Those stopped on the street felt something beneath their feet and became starkly confused. Eventually some people left their homes and collected in parks, such as the assemblage the Tribune reports formed outside of City Hall.
Today we feel a rumbling and just assume the subway, which wasn’t built yet in 1884 (outside of the short lived pneumatic tube, of course).
There was some damage reported to homes in the Lower East Side, and some residents — being mostly immigrants, perhaps more in tune to the dangers of tremors in their home lands — rushed out into the street with their furniture. A few horse stables shook open and their residents fled into the streets.
Apparently, those in the poshest hotels felt it strongly, or at least announced to reporters that it had rattled them so.
At the Fifth Avenue Hotel, a clerk described, “On the upper floors the guests say that the oscillations were marked” and reported a rattling of the chandeliers. Apparently, an admired set of colored drinking glasses at the Astor House was thrown from its nook and smashed on the floor.
Rumors spread. Some thought the west side gas works on 14th Street had exploded, while others circulated that dynamite had gone off in the Hell Gate.
A “mouldy headed orator” in Harlem — near one of New York’s natural fault line at 125th Street — proclaimed that Manhattan was built upon a rock shelf that had been abruptly brushed by a passing whale, the tremors caused by its flapping tail.
The sensation of the tremor seemed to be felt almost at random; for instance, those living along the Hudson reporting it rattling dishes, while tourists atop the newly built Brooklyn Bridge barely felt a thing. Some electrical services were briefly disrupted, as was telegraph service. (That’s a lot of extra dots and dashes, I suppose.)
On First Avenue, a drunken afternoon reveler ran out of a local saloon “and hurrahed for earthquakes and for social revolution.” Uptown at the Hoffman House, a California businessman quietly said to his friend, “Well, if everything in New York wasn’t nailed down I should say that we are having an earthquake.”
According to the New York Sun, an aftershock was felt the following afternoon in Far Rockaway, as well as parts of New Jersey.
THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY RAN IN 2011 but it’s just as pertinent for today’s earthquake (April 5, 2024)
A model wearing 'the Thylda corset', from the French publication Les Modes, October 1908
Fashion historian and author, Dr. Elizabeth L. Block returns to The Gilded Gentleman podcast for a truly “undercover” investigation.
This time, Liz joins Carl to take a look at the world of corsets, bustles, straps and stockings all of which comprised the undergarment engineering to make the glorious gowns by Worth and other designers appear as glamorous as they did.
In addition to architecture and food, it is fashion of the Gilded Age that always elicits comments and sighs at the very beauty and craftsmanship of the great gowns that swept by on ballroom floors.
New York Public Library
But the stunning and costly gowns, whether for a ball or for wear during the day, required a complex combination of undergarments to not only make the wearer feel comfortable but to give the outer clothing its required shape.
In this fascinating episode, Dr. Elizabeth Block joins Carl for a discussion that includes insight into not only what garments were required, but also just how they were made and how they were worn.
You may be surprised at just how comfortable and wearable some undergarments actually were. Liz and Carl’s discussion also includes a look at such curious accessories as the “lobster bustle” and even a corset for men.
Tom visits the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side to walk through the reconstructed two-room apartment of an African-American couple, Joseph and Rachel Moore, who lived in 1870 on Laurens Street in today’s Soho neighborhood.
Both Joseph and Rachel moved to New York when they were about 20 years old, in the late 1840s and 1850s. They married, worked, raised a family – and they shared their small apartment with another family to help cover costs.
Their home has been recreated in the Tenement Museum’s newest exhibit, “A Union of Hope: 1869.” The exhibit recreates what their apartment may have looked like – and it also explores life in the 8th Ward of Manhattan, and, specifically, within the black community of the turbulent and dangerous decades of the 1850s and 60s.
This is the first time the museum has recreated the apartment of a black family – although, as you’ll hear, the museum’s founders had long planned for it. And the exhibit is also the first time the museum has recreated an apartment that wasn’t housed in one of their buildings on the Lower East Side, but in another neighborhood.
So, just who were Joseph and Rachel Moore? And how and why did the Tenement Museum choose to put them at the center of their new exhibit?
Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence is a perfect novel to read in the spring — maybe it’s all the flowers — so we are presenting to Bowery Boys listeners this marvelous literary-themed episode from the Gilded Gentleman.
The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s most famous novel, an enduring classic of Old New York that has been rediscovered by a new generation.
What is it about this story of Newland Archer, May Welland and Countess Olenska that readers respond to today?
Noted Wharton scholar Dr. Emily Orlando joins Carl Raymond on The Gilded Gentleman podcast to delve into the background of this novel, take a deep dive into the personalities of the major characters and discuss what Wharton wanted to say in her masterpiece.
When the novel came out in 1920, she had been living in France full-time for nearly 10 years and had seen the devastating effects of World War I up close.
Her response was to look back with a sense of nostalgia to the time of her childhood to recreate that staid, restrictive world of New York in the 1870s. A world that, despite its restrictive, social cruelty, seemed to have some kind of moral center (at least to her).
But it was a world in which Wharton, as a creative woman, could not live and work in. And so she transferred her life in stages to France.
Listen today: The Age of Innocence with Dr. Emily Orlando
And subscribe to the Gilded Gentleman podcast for more fabulous tales of the Gilded Age. Find Carl on Apple, Spotify, Overcast, Simplecast or any place you get podcasts.
Orlando in front of Edith Wharton’s residence
Looking for more Edith Wharton listening? Here are a few podcast from The Gilded Gentleman and Bowery Boys catalog for you to dive into:
Baseball, as American as apple pie, really is “the New York game.” While its precursors come from many places – from Jamestown to Prague – the rules of American baseball and the modern ways of enjoying it were born from the urban experience and, in particular, the 19th-century New York region.
The sport (in the form that we know it today) developed in the early 1800s, played in Manhattan’s many open lots or New Jersey public parklands and soon organized into regular teams and eventually leagues. The way that New Yorkers played baseball was soon the way most Americans played by the late 19th century.
But it wasn’t until the invention of regular ball fields – catering to paying customers – that baseball became truly an urban recreational experience. And that too was revolutionized in New York.
Just in time for spring and the new Major League baseball season, Tom and Greg are joined by the acclaimed Kevin Baker, author of The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New Cityto discuss the early history of the sport and its unique connections to New York City.
This show is truly the ultimate origin story of New York baseball, featuring tales of the city’s oldest and most legendary sports teams – the Yankees, the Dodgers, and the Giants. AND the New York Metropolitans – a different team than today’s Mets located in Queens.
Where was baseball played? Kevin shares the secrets of New York baseball’s earliest venues – from the manyPolo Grounds in upper Manhattan to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn
This is a true five-borough origin story! With stops at Hilltop Park (Manhattan), Yankee Stadium (Bronx), Fashion Race Course (Queens), Washington Park (Brooklyn), and St. George Cricket Grounds (Staten Island) among many other sites.
FEATURING the surprising link between baseball and Boss Tweed and his notorious political machine Tammany Hall
PLUS How did segregation distort the game and where did Black ballplayers play the sport? What was baseball like before Jackie Robinson?
LISTEN NOW: THE NEW YORK GAME
Fashion Race Course in Flushing, Queens, from The Clipper of July 24, 1858 (and via John Thorn/Our Game)Many hatted men at the Polo Grounds, 1911 (Library of Congress)Elysian Fields in Hoboken, the site of America’s first baseball games (NYPL, image from Booth’s History of New York)The entrance to Hilltop Park, 1912 (Library of Congress)Curt Coleman at Hilltop Park, 1912Washington Park taken September 13, 1911 from the intersection of 4th Avenue and 3rd Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn.Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, 1923 (Library of Congress)The crowd outside Ebbets Field for Game 1 of the 1920 World Series, the Brooklyn Dodgers against the Cleveland Indians.
The story of the founding of the US Navy during the Revolution has been told many times, yet largely missing from maritime histories of America’s first war is the ragtag fleet of private vessels that were critical to victory.
Privateers were privately owned vessels, mostly refitted merchant ships, that were granted permission by the new government to seize British merchantmen and men of war.
The men who owned the ships, as well as their captains and crew, would divide the profits of a successful cruise, although some Americans viewed them as cynical opportunists whose only aim was loot.
In his book Rebels at Sea, Privateering in the American Revolution, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin explores the historical distinction between pirates and privateers, showing that the latter were as patriotic as their fellow Americans, and that they greatly contributed to the war’s success.
Eric will be joined in conversation by Greg Young, co-host of the podcast The Bowery Boys. After the talk, Eric will sign copies of his book.
Out in movie theaters this week: The new film Cabrini celebrating the life, of Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, the pioneering nun (now a saint) who became a pillar of compassion and grace for thousands of Italian immigrations in the late 19th century.
She was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1946. And her legacy continues to be celebrated in several places throughout New York City.
The Cabrini Shrine is located in Washington Heights.
Cabrini was born in 1850 in today’s Italian region of Lombardy. She entered the sisterhood at a young age, and by 1880 had formed her own order with seven other women — the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The good works performed by the order soon got the attention of Bishop Giovanni Scalabrini — and Pope Leo XIII. The church had a very specific mission for Cabrini.
Thousands of Italian immigrants already lived in New York by the late 1880s. Word got back to the Vatican of the horrible living conditions in the city — not only the squalor of the city’s tenement districts, but the difficulties for Italian-speaking immigrants to continue practicing their faith. Most Catholic churches in New York at this time were for Irish or German congregations only.
In 1889, Mother Cabrini and the sisters sailed to America with a mission to tend to New York’s new Italian immigrant population. While the recently installed Statue of Liberty, still golden copper, greeted them in New York harbor, it seemed no others did.
Items from the Cabrini Museum inside the Cabrini Shrine, photo by Greg Young, taken 2019
“No one met them at the dock. No one was there to meet them because they came way faster than anyone expected,” said Cherie Sprosty, director of liturgy at the Cabrini Shrine, who Greg spoke to for his 2019 podcast. “And the next day they made their way to Archbishop Corrigan’s residence to let him know that they were ready to get started. And he said, “What are you doing here? Didn’t you get my letter? Go back. We don’t have anywhere for you to live.”
Unwavering in their mission, Cabrini and the other sisters did eventually get settled in a parish on the Lower East Side. They found a room at St. Joachim’s Church (at 26 Roosevelt Street, now demolished) where they begin holding catechism class in Italian.
Italian immigration would greatly increase within the next couple decades here — not just in New York but across the country — and the sisters’ mission would expand into education and healthcare. Their work would create a sound, religious bedrock for Italian Americans, ensuring a smooth transition into American life without losing their Catholic faith.
From the Cabrini Shrine website: “Mother Cabrini discovered this property in 1899 as she drove her horse and buggy to the remote northwest edge of New York City. She purchased land at what is now 190th St. and Fort Washington Avenue to build a school for middle-class girls, the tuition from which was used to fund orphanages and free schools for the poor. Mother Cabrini always found great peace of mind and personal tranquility whenever she visited this site. A bench upon which she liked to meditate remains for visitors to sit upon.“
Cabrini died at Columbus Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, in 1917. On July 7, 1946 she was canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church. New York’s Cabrini Shrine opened in 1959.
Inside the Cabrini Shrine, photo by Greg Young, taken 2019
From the website:
“Mother Cabrini’s remains were then transferred to the Shrine, where she now rests. A pictorial mosaic composed of Carrera marble, Botticino marble, and gilded Venetian glass surrounds the altar, depicting significant scenes from Mother Cabrini’s life. A towering three-story stained-glass image of St. Cabrini at the back of the chapel overlooks the Hudson River. It features an unusual mid-century composition of pieced stained glass with painted details. The carefully restored carriage Mother Cabrini drove when she visited West Park sits beneath it.“
You could find Cabrini’s influence all over the place today, far and wide, 67 institutions throughout the United States, hospitals, orphanages, Catholic schools.
The National Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini is located in Chicago on the spot of Columbus Hospital (which she had founded in 1905). According to the Shrine’s website: “The room where Mother Cabrini died has been preserved and is currently on exhibit inside the National Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini.”
In 2020 a statue devoted to the life and work of Mother Cabrini was placed in New York’s Battery Park:
And there’s also a statue of Cabrini standing at the Church of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary & St. Stephen in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. This likeness, installed in 2021, specifically celebrates her connection to Brooklyn. In the 1890s she founded a school for Italian immigrants in the neighborhood of Red Hook. Today Mother Cabrini Park at President and Van Brunt Streets marks the spot where that school once stood.
Presenting new episodes of the Bowery Boys podcast and The Gilded Gentleman podcast, both tied to the story of architecture in New York City. After listening to both of these, you’ll understand the nature of city skyline and unlock the secrets to New York’s most famous landmarks.
The American Renaissance: Beaux-Arts Architecture in New York City
On the latest episode of The Gilded Gentleman, Carl is joined by noted architect, interior designer and author Phillip James Dodd for an in-depth discussion of the “look” of the Gilded Age — a style known as American Beaux-Arts.
Architecture constructed during the height of America’s Gilded Age most certainly had a distinctive look. It was a uniquely American combination of stylistic elements of classical antiquity, the Renaissance palaces of the Medici as well as the more flamboyant styles of France’s Belle Epoque.
But just how does one define this eclectic style that came to be known as American Beaux-Arts and who were its most famous and influential practitioners?
In this episode Carl and Phiilp discuss these concepts in general to arrive at a definition and understanding of the Beaux-Arts Movement. They also take a look at major examples such as the the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library and the Morgan Library, as well as the architects who created them: Richard Morris Hunt, Charles Follen McKim, and the architectural team of Carriere and Hastings.
After having listened to this unique episode, you’ll look at the Gilded Age and New York City with whole new eyes.
Courtesy NYPL
The Chrysler Building and the Great Skyscraper Race
The Chrysler Building remains one of America’s most beautiful skyscrapers and a grand evocation of Jazz Age New York. But this architectural tribute to the automobile is also the greatest reminder of a furious construction surge that transformed the city in the 1920s.
After World War I, New York became newly prosperous, one of the undisputed business capitals of the world. The tallest building was the Woolworth Building, but the city’s rise in prominence demanded new, taller towers, taking advantage of improvements in steel-frame construction and a clever ‘wedding cake’ zoning law that allowed for ever-higher buildings.
Into this world came William Van Alen and H. Craig Severance, two former architectural partners who had unamicably separated and were now designing rival skyscrapers. Each man wanted to make the tallest building in the world.
But Van Alan had the upper hand, backed by one of America’s most famous businessmen — Walter Chrysler. His automobiles were the coolest, sleekest vehicles in the marketplace. His brand required a skyscraper of radical design and surprising height.
Subscribe to both the Bowery Boys Podcast and The Gilded Gentleman on your favorite podcast players (including Spotify, Apple, Overcast, Pocket Casts, iHeartRadio and more.
The Chrysler Building remains one of America’s most beautiful skyscrapers and a grand evocation of Jazz Age New York. But this architectural tribute to the automobile is also the greatest reminder of a furious construction surge that transformed the city in the 1920s.
After World War I, New York became newly prosperous, one of the undisputed business capitals of the world. The tallest building was the Woolworth Building, but the city’s rise in prominence demanded new, taller towers, taking advantage of improvements in steel-frame construction and a clever ‘wedding cake’ zoning law that allowed for ever-higher buildings.
Into this world came William Van Alen and H. Craig Severance, two former architectural partners who had unamicably separated and were now designing rival skyscrapers. Each man wanted to make the tallest building in the world.
But Van Alan had the upper hand, backed by one of America’s most famous businessmen — Walter Chrysler. His automobiles were the coolest, sleekest vehicles in the marketplace. His brand required a skyscraper of radical design and surprising height.
Stages in the design for the Chrysler building, 1929 (courtesy NYPL)
In 1930, the Chrysler became the tallest building in the world, a title it held until the Empire State Building.
Just ten years ago, the Chrysler Building was the fourth tallest in New York City. Today, however, it’s the thirteenth tallest building in the city. And that’s because of a new skyscraper surge shaping the city’s skyline, with supertalls making the skyscrapers of old feel very small in comparison.
It can be bewildering to see the skyline change so rapidly. But that’s exactly how New Yorkers felt exactly one century ago.
LISTEN NOW: THE CHRYSLER BUILDING
Midtown Manhattan, 1930s, around Grand Central, courtesy NYPLA view of the Chrysler Building from the RCA Building, 1946, courtesy NYPLThe Chrysler Building as seen from the Third Avenue El, 1952, courtesy NYPLFrom Popular Science Monthly 193040 Wall Street, from a postcard illustration, courtesy Skyscraper Museum….and another.40 Wall Street in 1930 from the Seaport, photo by Ewing Galloway, courtesy NYPL
FURTHER LISTENING
FURTHER READING
American Rhapsody : Writers, Musicians, Millionaires, Movie Stars and One Great Building / Claudia Roth Pierpont Billionaires’ Row: Tycoons, High Rollers, and the Epic Race to Build the World’s Most Exclusive Skyscrapers / Katherine Clarke Capital of the World: A Portrait of New York in the Roaring 20s / David Wallace The Chrysler Building : Creating a New York Icon, Day By Day / David Stravitz Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City / Neal Bascomb Skyscraper: The Politics and Power of Building New York City in the Twentieth Century / Benjamin Flowers Supreme City: How Jazz Age Manhattan Gave Birth to Modern America / Donald Miller
The Brooklyn waterfront was once decorated with a yellow Domino Sugar sign, affixed to an aging refinery along a row of deteriorating industrial structures facing the East River.
The Domino Sugar Refinery, completed in 1883 (after a devastating fire destroyed the original), was more than a factory. During the Gilded Age and into the 20th century, this Brooklyn industrial landmark was the center of America’s sugar manufacturing, helping to fuel the country’s hunger for sweet delights.
But the story goes further back in time — back hundreds of years in New York City history. The sugar trade was one of the most important industries in New York, and for many decades, if you used sugar to make anything, you were probably using sugar that had been refined in New York.
Domino Sugar Refinery in the 2010s/Photo mypene/reddit
Sugar helped to build New York. Thousands and thousands of New Yorkers were employed in sugarhouses and refineries. And of all the sugar makers, there was one name that stood above the rest — Havemeyer!
The Havemeyers were America’s leading sugar titans. By the 1850s they had moved their empire to the Brooklyn waterfront – and the neighborhood of Williamsburg.
Their massive refinery helped establish the industrial nature of Williamsburg, leading to a rush of sugar manufacturers to Brooklyn, most of which would then be absorbed into the Havemeyer’s operation.
Photo by Greg Young
But this story is even larger than New York, of course. It encompasses the transatlantic slave trade, political influence in the Caribbean, Cuba-United States relations, and the sorry working conditions faced by Hayemeyer’s underpaid employees.
PLUS: It’s Dumbo vs Williamsburg in the Coffee and Sugar War of the 1890s!
LISTEN NOW: BEHIND THE DOMINO SIGN
Photo taken 2010, courtesy wburg/FlickrTony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK 2011
The Livingston Sugar House, on Liberty Street, and the Rhinelander Sugar House, between William & Duane Streets in New York. They were the city’s largest buildings which is why both were repurposed as prisons during the Revolutionary War.
NYPL
The original Havemeyer sugar refinery on the Brooklyn waterfront before the fire, 1876.
The original factory before the fire, 1876. New York Publc Library
Frederick Havemeyer, NYPL
Frederick’s brother William, the mayor of New York for three separate terms (NYPL)
Henry (Harry) Havemeyer, “president of the Sugar Trust. Pic NYPL
Louisine Havemeyer, 1919, in her suffragist phase (Library of Congress)
Havemeyer Hall on the Columbia University campus, built in 1897 and named for Frederick Havemeyer who moved the family’s sugar enterprise to Brooklyn. According to Untapped Cities, it happens to contain Hollywood’s favorite classroom.
Library of Congress
Taken by Greg June 2018, before the completion of The Refinery:
Current photos by Greg (circa January/February 2024)
The playground pays homage to the sugar refining process.
Site of the former wharves where ships docked with sugar cane product from destinations around the world.
Where does the name Domino come from? Most likely from a kind of factory cut — the domino cut — name for the sugar appearing like little dominos. The box today is also rectangular like these ‘domino’ lumps.
Brooklyn’s Sweet Ruin: Relics and Stories of the Domino Sugar Refinery / Paul Raphaelson Cuba: An American Story / Ada Ferrer Food City: Four Centuries of Food-Making in New York / Joy Santlofer Frederick Christian Havemeyer Jr: A Biography / Harry W. Havemeyer Henry Osbourne Havemeyer: The Most Independent Mind / Harry W. Havemeyer The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes To America / Frances Weitzenhoffer The Rise and Fall of the Sugar King / Geoffrey Cobb Sugar: A Bittersweet History / Elizabeth Abbott White Gold: A Brief History of the Louisiana Sugar Industry / Glenn R Conrad, Ray F. Lucas The World of Sugar: How the Sweet Stuff Transformed Our Politics, Health, and Environment Over 2,000 Years / Ulbe Bosma
Emma Stebbins is most noted for her iconic bronze statue The Angel of the Waters which was placed on Central Park’s Bethesda Terrace in 1873.
You may be aware of parts of the Stebbins’ biography. Her Angel was the first public statue in New York produced by a woman and her life included a domestic partnership with another woman. But there is much more in the story.
This is the story of a creative artistic woman whose life, which began in early 19th-century New York, expanded and flourished in a community of fellow artists and sculptors in mid-century Rome.
Image courtesy Central Park
In this episode of The Gilded Gentleman podcast, journalist and biographer Maria Teresa Cometto — author of Emma and the Angel of Central Park — joins host Carl Raymond for a look into the life of this enigmatic woman.
This is a very Italian story in many ways, set against the backdrop of the ruins, museums, and palaces of classical Rome. Emma’s story includes love, betrayal, inspiration, tragedy, and even a bit of mystery.
LISTEN HERE: The Sculptor and the Angel: The Untold Story of Emma Stebbins
And subscribe to the Gilded Gentleman podcast so you don’t miss an episode.
Author Maria Teresa Cometto
And after you’ve listened to this episode of The Gilded Gentleman, revisit last year’s Bowery Boys podcast episode on the early years of Central Park. The show also features the history of Bethesda Fountain featuring historian Sara Cedar Miller.
Cab stand at Madison Square, 1900. Courtesy Detroit Publishing/Library of Congress. This image is looking south down the edge of the park. Within two years, the Flatiron Building would be rising in the distance.
So much has happened in and around Madison Square Park — the leafy retreat at the intersections of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street — that telling its entire story requires an extra-sized show, in honor of the Bowery Boys 425th episode.
Madison Square Park was the epicenter of New York culture from the years following the Civil War to early 20th century. The park was really at the heart of Gilded Age New York, whether you were rushing to an upscale restaurant like Delmonico’s or a night of the theater or maybe just an evening at one of New York’s most luxurious hotels like the Fifth Avenue Hotel or the Hoffman House.
The park is surrounded by some of New York’s most renown architecture, from the famous Flatiron Building to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, once the tallest building in the world.
The square also lends its name, of course, to one of the most famous sports and performing venues in the world – Madison Square Garden. Its origins begin at the northeast corner of the park on the spot of a former railroad depot and near the spot of the birthplace of an American institution — baseball.
The park introduced New Yorkers to the Statue of Liberty … or at least her forearm and torch. It stood silently over the bustling park while prize-winning dogs were championed at the very first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show nearby, held at Gilmore’s Gardens, the precursor to Madison Square Garden.
Today the region north of the park is referred to as NoMad, which recalls life around Madison Square during the Gilded Age with its high-end restaurant and hotel scene.
Tom and Greg invite you on this time-traveling escapade covering over 200 years of history. From the days of rustic creeks and cottages to the long lines at the Shake Shake. From Franconi’s Hippodrome to the dazzling colonge fountains of Leonard Jerome (Winston Churcill’s grandfather).
LISTEN HERE: IT HAPPENED AT MADISON SQUARE PARK
This episode’s title pays homage to one of favorite books about park history — It Happened On Washington Square by Emily Kies Folpe.
Madison Cottage, courtesy NYPLFranconi’s Hippodrome, 1853, courtesy NYPLDedication of the Worth Monument in 1857. In the background you can see the development of the surrounding areaLeonard Jerome….… and the Jerome Mansion. In the distance is the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. The former Gilmore’s Gardens, renamed Madison Square GardenRain on Madison Square, painting by Paul CornoyerCourtesy NYPLMadison Square 1936 , photo by Berenice AbbottNorthern pool in Madison Square Park. Photo by Greg YoungLooking down at the Metropolitan Life Tower and the Flatiron Building. Photo by Greg YoungThe park features a tree from James Madison’s Virginia plantation.
FURTHER READING
A Block in Time: A New York City History at the Corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-Third Street / Christiane Bird The Flatiron: The New York Landmark and the Incomparable City That Arose with It / Alice Sparberg Alexiou The Grandest Madison Square Garden: Art, Scandal, and Architecture in Gilded Age New York / Suzanne Hinman Incredible New York: High Life and Low Life from 1850 to 1950 / Lloyd Morris Liberty’s Torch: The Great Adventure to Build the Statue of Liberty / Elizabeth Mitchell Madison Square: The Park and Its Celebrated Landmarks / Miriam Berman Madison Square Garden, 100 Years of History / Joseph Durso
Central Park, Winter by Williams Glackens, 1905; Winter in Union Square, Childe Hassam, 1889-90, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art
We love talking about parks on the Bowery Boys podcast because they are an excellent way to experience history and recreation at the same time.
In February we will be bringing you two all-new episodes related to two New York City parks — one park which traces back to the founding of the United States and another park that’s not very old at all (but perfectly embodies the story of 19th century New York City).
In the meantime, dive into one of our previous stories of park history. You can find all these shows in the Bowery Boys Podcast feed or just listen from the page below.
NOTE: We’ve been recording since 2007 so go easy on the early shows. They’re relatively short in nature, unsophisticated and the sound quality is a little flat on some.
The Kosciuszko Bridge is one of New York City’s most essential pieces of infrastructure, the hyphen in the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that connects the two boroughs over Newtown Creek, the 3.5 mile creek which empties into the East River.
The bridge is interestingly named for the Polish national hero Tadeusz Kościuszko who fought during the American Revolution, then attempted to bring a similar revolutionary spirit to his home country, leading to the doomed Kościuszko Uprising of 1794.
Kościuszko, the man, is a revered historical figure. The bridge, however, has not always been loved. And many non-Polish people even struggle to pronounce its name, inventing a half-dozen acceptable variants.
A tribute to the war hero on the new bridge.
The original Kosciuszko Bridge was not exactly beloved by drivers, vexed by its inadequate handling of traffic and its poor roadways. Its glorious replacement, installed in two phases in 2017 and 2019, lights up the night sky — and the filmy waters below.
In this episode, Greg tells the entire story — of both the man and the bridge. But it’s also a story of Newtown Creek, the heavily polluted body of water which runs beneath it. How did this once placid creek become so notoriously filthy? And how did the most prominent bridge over that waterway become associated with an 18th century hero?
PLUS The return of Robert Moses!
LISTEN NOW — Kościuszko: The Man. The Bridge. The Legend.
Walking over the bridge, end of day. Photo by Greg Young
Interesting views from the bridge — of Newtown Creek and Calvary Cemetery.
From the new Kosciusko Plaza at the Brooklyn entrance to the bridge.
View of the bridge from the site of the old Penny Bridge/Meeker Avenue Bridge.
Penny Bridge marker in need of some maintenence.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1843
FURTHER LISTENING
FURTHER READING
The New York Times article which ran August 24, 1939, one week before Hitler invaded Poland
This podcast was based on this article written for this website several years ago:
“That sound that crashes in the tyrant’s ear – Kosciuszko!” Lord Byron was talking about Polish hero Tadeusz Kościuszko, who was (most likely) born on this date in 1746. Tomorrow a new bridge bearing his name will open to the public, hoping to eliminate the many grievances of those stuck upon its predecessor during rush hour.
But how did the original 1939 span over the Newtown Creek, connecting Brooklyn to Queens, get named the Kosciuszko Bridge in the first place?
Kosciuszko wasn’t just Poland’s most famous revolutionary. In 1776, he sailed for America to fight alongside George Washington and the Continental Army. He was a brilliant strategist and engineer, helping bolster many American forts, and was greatly admired by Washington’s generals.
In one of his more clever displays, the man who would one day have a bridge named after him actually blew up several bridges to hamper British advances in upstate New York.**
After the war, he returned to Europe and led the fight for Poland’s independence (although his storied uprising against Russia was ultimately a failure).
Kosciuszko died in 1817 and has been celebrated the world over as the greatest of revolutionaries and perhaps the best known historical figure in Polish history. But that alone doesn’t get one a bridge in Long Island.
The new automobile bridge, eventually part of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, was completed in 1939, replacing a smaller one called the Meeker Avenue Bridge.
The new crossing opened in August. Germany invaded Poland nine days later.
The approach to the Kosciuszko Bridge, photographed in 1939 by the Wurts Brothers. Photo courtesy the Museum of the City of New York
New York City’s affinity with Poland was strong by this time. The city had thousands of Polish-Jewish residents.
The Polish pavilion at the 1939-40 World’s Fair in Flushing-Meadow was among the most striking, featuring a bold statue of the Polish monarch Wladyslaw Jagiello. (That statue was eventually moved to Central Park, where it sits today near the Turtle Pond.) Its powerful, war-like stance resonated with New York’s Polish immigrants, watching the destruction of their native country and its people from afar.
Below: Construction of the new Meeker Avenue Bridge in June 1939, later to be named Kosciuszko. (Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives)
In July 1940, the Meeker Avenue Bridge was renamed the Kosciuszko Bridge, as a sign of the revolutionary spirit that bonded America and Poland. It certainly made sense given that the Brooklyn anchorage rises from Greenpoint, a vibrant Polish neighborhood.
At an official ceremony on September 23, 1940 — a year after the German invasion — thousands of Polish-Americans cheered along to a rousing patriotic speech by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. On either side of the bridge were parades featuring revelers in traditional Polish costumes.
Below: An image of the renaming ceremony, the bridge adorned in American flags. Courtesy New York State
“[I]n so far as the American people and the American government are concerned,” said La Guardia, “the free government of Poland still lives and will continue to live.”
The crowd roared with applause at the mention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. America would not be officially engaged in World War II until the following year with the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Ah, but that name! It remains one of the more perplexing bridge names to say. It’s correctly pronounced kohsh-CHOOSH-koh, although several slight variations are accepted.
At first, many people simply refused to say it. In 1945, the New York Times mentioned that “Kosciuszko Bridge the people will not have and they call it the Meeker Avenue Bridge to this day.”
Of course, many people preface the name today with an expletive, as the original bridge is better known for its traffic entanglements and its lack of any kind of shoulder for stalled cars. There have been plans for years to replace the bridge, plans which finally came to fruition this week with opening of the second span of the newly designed bridge.
The Kosciuszko’s younger brother bridge — the Pulaski Bridge, named for another Polish hero, Kazimierz Pulaski — spans the same body of water just a couple miles to the west.
**Tadeusz Kościuszko actually blew up and booby-trapped many bridges during the Revolutionary War on the command of Colonel Philip Schuyler, the father-in-law of Alexander Hamilton.
Thank you for making 2023 another excellent year for the Bowery Boys podcast.
Greg and Tom at the Algonquin
This year our shows spanned hundreds of years of history — from the Dutch wall of New Amsterdam in the 1650s to the paparazzi woes of Greta Garbo in the 1950s — and looked at many forgotten aspects of city life like the Miss Subways contest and the Fulton Fish Market at the Seaport.
Greg, Krikor and our producer Kieran Gannon getting ready to interview Ray from Ray’s Candy Store
In 2023, we looked at art and artists (Mona Lisa, Edward Hopper), important landmarks (Bethesda Terrace, Grace Church, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Brooklyn Navy Yard), major changes to everyday life (gaslight, automobile parking), important American stories (the sinking of the Titanic, the end of the Revolutionary War) and a two-part look at the ‘creation’ and evolution of the East Village.
And of course — pizza! pizza! pizza!
Tom and Scott Wiener of Scott’s Pizza Tours at historic Lombardi’s Pizza. Photo by Greg Young
We did it all with a record of special guests this year — authors, restaurant owners, museum curators and some of the best tour guides in New York City. And don’t forget Ken Burns!
The new Miss Subways competition in Coney Island was featured in the Miss Subways’s show from June.
And finally we had our best shows ever at Joe’s Pub for the Halloween season. See you there next year!
Here’s the list of all of our new shows in 2023. And you won’t have to wait long in the new year for a new episode. A special bridge-themed show arrives next Friday.
Flushing-Meadows Corona Park in the borough of Queens is the home of the New York Mets, the U.S. Open, the Queens Zoo, the Hall of Science and many other recreational delights. But it will always be forever known as the launching pad for the future as represented in two extraordinary 20th century world’s fairs.
Featuring the brilliant Kyle Supley and his extraordinary collection of World’s Fair memorabilia
In the 19th century, the Fulton Fish Market in downtown Manhattan was to seafood what Chicago stock yards were to the meat industry, the primary place where Americans got fish for their dinner tables.
Edward Hopper, a native of the Hudson River town of Nyack, painted New York City for over half a decade. In reality, the city experienced Prohibition and the Jazz Age, two world wars and the arrival of automobiles. But not in Hopper’s world.
Featuring a visit to the Edward Hopper House Museumin Nyack, New York, to talk the artist’s early life with executive director Kathleen Motes Bennewitz. AND a look at the hidden meanings in Hopper’s paintings thanks to American art historian Rena Tobey.
The Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci’s stoic portrait and one of the most valuable paintings on earth, came to America during the winter of 1963, a single-picture loan that was both a special favor to Jackie Kennedy and a symbolic tool during tense conversations between the United States and France about nuclear arms.
Wall Street, today a canyon of tall buildings in New York’s historic Financial District, is not only one of the most famous streets in the United States, it’s also a stand-in for the entire American financial system.
One of the first facts you learn as a student of New York City history is that Wall Street is named for an actual wall that once stretched along this very spot during the days of the Dutch when New York was known as New Amsterdam.
The particulars of the story, however, are far more intriguing.
Enter the magical world of New York by gaslight, the city illuminated by the soft, revolutionary glow of lamps powered by gas, an innovative utility which transformed urban life in the 19th century.
Featuring author Jane Brox, author of Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light, who discusses the curious charms of this rare and enigmatic light source.
In the early morning hours of April 15, 1912. the White Star ocean liner RMS Titanic struck an iceberg en route to New York City and sank in the Atlantic Ocean.
Survivors were rescued by the Cunard liner Carpathia and brought to their berth at Pier 54 at the Chelsea Piers. Today, on that very spot, stands Little Island.
The history of pizza in the United States begins in Manhattan in the late 19th century, on the streets of Little Italy (and Nolita), within immigrant-run bakeries that transformed a traditional southern Italian food into something remarkable.
But new research discovered in recent years has changed New York food history, revealing an origin tale slightly older than what the old guide books may have you believe.
On this wandering episode — through Nolita, Greenwich Village and even the Bowery — Tom and Greg are joined by the prince of pizza himself Scott Wiener of the long-running Scott’s Pizza Tours.
The Brooklyn Bridge, which was officially opened to New Yorkers 140 years ago this year, is not only a symbol of the American Gilded Age, it’s a monument to the genius, perseverance and oversight of one family.
Greg and Tom are joined in the studio by Kriss Roebling, the great, great-grandson of Washington and Emily Roebling. He shares his own surprising family stories — and brings in some extraordinary artifacts from his family’s past!
From 1941 and 1976, dozens of young women and high school girls were bestowed the honor of Miss Subways with her smiling photograph hanging within the cars of the New York subway system.
This was not a beauty pageant, but rather an advertising campaign which promoted the subway and drew the eyes of commuters to the train car’s many advertisements for cod liver oil, cigarettes and frozen foods.
FEATURING A visit to the New York Transit Museum, the City Reliquary, Coney Island USA’s Seashore Theater and Ellen’s Stardust Diner. And an introduction to the current reigning Miss Subways!
Take a look at a vintage photograph of New York from the 1930s and you’ll see automats, newsies, elevated trains and men in fedoras. What you won’t see — dozens and dozens of automobiles on the curb.
In a city with skyrocketing real estate values, why are most city streets still devoted to free car storage? It’s a situation we’re all so used to that we don’t think twice about it. Whatever happened to the curb?
Featuring Henry Grabar, author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains The World, who exposes some shocking parking violations and even offers a few couple solutions for the future.
Instead of looking back to the history of New York City in this episode, we are looking forward to the future — to the new generation of creators who are celebrating New York and telling its story through mediums that are not podcasts or books.
Featuring Nicolas Heller (New York Nico), the “unofficial talent scout of New York City”; Riley Arthur, (Diners of NYC), who explores the world of New York City diners, great and small; and Tommy Silk, (Landmarks of NY), who shares illuminating photos and videos featuring the city’s most interesting and overlooked architectural gems.
The tale of the Brooklyn Navy Yard is one of New York’s true epic adventures, mirroring the course of American history via the ships manufactured here and the people employed to make them.
Featuring Andrew Gustafson from Turnstile Tours who unfurls the surprising history of the Navy Yard — through war and peace, through new technologies and aging infrastructure, through the lives of the men and women who built the yard’s reputation.
Stroll the romantic, rambling paths of historic Central Park in this week’s episode, turning back the clock to the 1860s and 70s, a time of children ice skating on The Lake, carriage rides through The Mall, and bewildering excursions through The Ramble.
Featuring Sara Cedar Miller, historian emerita of the Central Park Conservancy and author of Before Central Park; and Dr. Emma Guest-Consales, former president of the Guides Association of New York City and tour ambassador at One World Observatory.
Before 1955 nobody used the phrase “East Village” to describe the historic northern portion of the Lower East Side, the New York tenement district with a rich German and Eastern European heritage.
But when the Third Avenue El was torn down that year, those who were attracted to the culture of Greenwich Village — with its coffeehouses, poets and jazz music — began flocking to the east side, attracted to low rents.
Featuring Jason Birchard from Veselka Restaurant, who shares his family’s story, and theater historian David Loewy who discusses the influence of Joe Papp and The Public Theater
By the mid 1970s, the East Village was in crisis, one of the Manhattan neighborhoods hit hardest by the city’s fiscal difficulties and cutbacks.
But the next generation of creative interlopers (following the initial stampede of Greenwich Village beatniks and hippies) built upon the legacies of East Village counter-culture to create poems, music, paintings and stage performances heavily influenced by the apocalyptic situations around them.
Greg hits the streets of the East Village with musician and tour guide Krikor Daglian (of True Tales of NYC), exploring the secrets of the recent past — from the origins of skateboarding to the seeds of the American alternative rock scene.
Theodore Roosevelt was a New Yorker and a rugged outdoorsman, a politician and a naturalist, a conservationist and a hunter. His connection with the natural world begin at birth in his Manhattan brownstone home and end with his death in Sagamore Hill.
But as this episode’s special guest Ken Burnsreveals in his newest mini-series The American Buffalo, Roosevelt’s relationship with the animal world was complicated and in certain ways, hard to understand today.
A brand new batch of haunted houses and spooky stories, all from the gaslight era of New York City, the illuminating glow of the 19th century revealing the spirits of another world.
Greta Garbo on the streets of New York City, 1958. Getty Images/Keystone-France
Garbo in New York! A story of independence, glamour and melancholy, set at the intersection of classic Hollywood and mid-century New York City.
This is the biography of a legendary star who became the city’s most famous ‘celebrity sighting’ for many decades while out on her regular, meandering walks.
Washington’s Grand Entry into New York, November 25, 1783 by Alphonse Bigot
For decades New Yorkers celebrated Evacuation Dayevery November 25, a holiday marking the 1783 departure of British forces from a city they had occupied for several years.
The events of that departure — that evacuation — inspired annual celebrations of patriotism, unity and a bit of rowdiness. Evacuation Day was celebrated well until the late 19th century. But then, gradually, the party sort of petered out…..
Manhattan’s Grace Church sits at a unique bend on Broadway and East Tenth Street, making it seem that the historic house of worship is rising out of the street itself.
But Grace is also at another important intersection — where religion and high society greeted one another during the Gilded Age.
Featuring vicar Harry Krauss who gives the Bowery Boys a tour of this gorgeous, landmark parish.
Leonard Bernstein, 1955: Al Ravenna, World Telegram staff photographer – Library of Congress.
On the morning of November 14th, 1943, Leonard Bernstein, the talented 25-year-old assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, got a phone call saying he would at last be leading the respected orchestral group — in six hours, thatafternoon, with no time to rehearse.
The sudden thrust into the spotlight transformed Bernstein into a national celebrity. For almost five decades, the wunderkind would be at the forefront of American music, as a conductor, composer, virtuoso performer, writer, television personality and teacher.
He would also help create the most important Broadway musicals of the mid-20th century — On The Town, Wonderful Townand West Side Story. These shows would not only spotlight the talents of its young creator. They would also spotlight the romance and rhythm of New York City.
