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Amusements and Thrills Sports Those Were The Days

The New York Game: Baseball in the Early Years

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… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills Podcasts Writers and Artists

Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball: The Absurd Story of a Marvelous Party

PODCAST Your ticket to Truman Capote’s celebrity-filled party at the Plaza. This month FX is debuting a new series created by Ryan Murphy — called Feud: Capote and the Swans — regarding writer Truman Capote‘s relationship with several famed New York society women. And it’s such a New York story that listeners have asked if we’re going… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills The Gilded Gentleman

How The Gilded Age Played: A Sweet Summertime Show With Esther Crain

On the latest episode of The Gilded Gentleman, returning guest Esther Crain, author and creator of Ephemeral New York, joins Carl for a look at how New Yorkers stayed cool on summer days in the Gilded Age.  As New York continued its march up the island of Manhattan, there were few places where New Yorkers that couldn’t escape… Read More

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Alternate Side History Amusements and Thrills Events

Miss Subways 2023: The historical pageant with a twist lands in Coney Island

New York City subway riders in the mid 20th century knew who Miss Subways was. The beauty pageant, spotlighting “every day” New York women, featured placards which hung on all the trains (like the one above for 1948 winner Thelma Porter). Well, Miss Subways is back, hosted by the City Reliquary Museum in a fabulous,… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills Podcasts

Jenny Lind at Castle Garden: New York City’s Most Famous Concert

What happens when P. T. Barnum, America’s savviest supplier of both humbug and hoax, decides that it is time to go legit? The result is one of the greatest concert tours in American history. The Gilded Gentleman hosts this special presentation from the Bowery Boys podcast, recorded in 2020. Listen to it here or subscribe… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills It's Showtime

In the Pleasure Gardens of Old New York

It has become a name so associated with American sports and entertainment that you barely think about it. In New York City, when you say you are going to The Garden, you aren’t going to see flowers. Most likely, you’re going to see the Knicks. Or possibly Billy Joel. New York City’s many actual gardens… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills Podcasts

The Landmarks of Coney Island (Extended Funhouse Mix)

PODCAST Coney Island is back! After being closed for 2020 due to the pandemic, the unusual attractions, the thrilling rides and stands selling beer and hot dog have finally reopened. So we are releasing a very special version of our 2018 show called Landmarks of Coney Island — special, because this is an extended version of… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills Film History

The Paris Theater: A loving tribute to a cinema survivor

The Paris Theater, as glamorous and as eccentric as any film it’s ever played, has the benefit of having the Plaza Hotel and Central Park to ensure it never goes out of style. But the history of this romantic and occasionally radical movie house, the longest running single-screen movie theater in New York, is as… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills Film History

The Trans-Lux experience: New York’s ‘modern’ mini-movie houses

I’m a sucker for severe electric-laden art-deco theaters like the Trans-Lux Modern Theater which was once located in Midtown Manhattan on the corner of 58th Street and Madison Avenue. Most every Midtown movie theater by the 1920s dabbled into electric signage to grab attention. But Trans-Lux worked in the opposite direction. To underscore the importance… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills The Jazz Age

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

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… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills Podcasts

The Real Life Adventures of Tom Thumb

PODCAST The tale of one of the 19th century’s most unusual superstars, a man who spent his entire life in the media spotlight — thanks to promoter and friend P.T. Barnum and to his highly publicized ‘wedding of the century’ to Lavinia Warren at Grace Church. EPISODE #339 Charles Stratton, who would become world famous… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills

Circus activism: Barnum’s female stars demand right to vote

Women received the right to vote 100 years ago today with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Tens of thousands of women from all walks of life spent hard-fought decades working for this moment. Many of the most prominent suffragettes were wealthy white women of the Fifth Avenue set. It was… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills Film History

Come to the Airdome! Over 100 years of outdoor movies in NYC

It may be some time before we all get to truly enjoy the inside of a movie theater again. Hopefully soon! But outdoor movies — in particular, drive-in movies — have had a bit of a renaissance, a socially distanced way to enjoy blockbusters on a big screen. Mommy Poppins has a great round-up of… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills Health and Living

The Bowery Boys New York City swimsuit edition, 1880-1920

 The notion of organized ‘ocean bathing’ — actually going into the water for health, relaxation and enjoyment — was really a 19th century invention, first popularized in the United States during the 1830s at the Marine Pavilion on the Rockaway Peninsula. For propriety’s sake, people would enter a bathing hut hitched to a horse and… Read More

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Amusements and Thrills

The fire at Barnum’s American Museum 155 years ago

One hundred and fifty-five years ago (on July 13, 1865), New York City lost one of its most famous, most imaginative and most politically incorrect attractions. When P.T. Barnum opened his museum in 1841, the kooky curiosities contained within the building at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street — at the foot of Park… Read More