The Bowery Boys: New York City History
On the evening of December 5, 1876, the glorious Brooklyn Theatre caught fire, trapping its audience in a nightmare of flame and smoke. The theater sat near Brooklyn City Hall (today’s Brooklyn Borough Hall), and the blaze which destroyed it could be seen as far away as Prospect Park. The horrible truth was revealed in… Read More
While you may know the Brooklyn Museum for its wildly popular cutting-edge exhibitions, the borough’s premier art institution can actually trace its origins back to a more rustic era — and to the birth of the city of Brooklyn itself. On July 4, 1825, the growing village laid a cornerstone for its new Brooklyn Apprentices… Read More
When Prospect Park was first opened to the public in the late 1860s, the City of Brooklyn was proud to claim a landmark as beautiful and as peaceful as New York’s Central Park. But the superstar landscape designers — Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux — weren’t finished. This park came with two grand pleasure… Read More
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… Read More
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. The Navy Yard’s origins within Wallabout Bay tie it to the birth of the United States itself, the spot where thousands of… Read More
On May 30, 1883 — one week after it officially opened — 12 people were killed in a horrifying trample caused by the collapse of the Brooklyn Bridge. Except of course, the Bridge didn’t actually collapse. The prior week, the Brooklyn Bridge opened to terrific fanfare, with almost 14,000 people invited to cross this architectural… Read More
Playboy Magazine called Herb Cohen “the world’s greatest negotiator” and whether or not that was true, Cohen could convince you that it most certainly was. He wrote You Can Negotiate Anything and in 1982 it became a best-seller during a wave of self-help books. A year before its release, Cohen became involved in the Iran… Read More
Over 350 years ago today’s Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush was an old Dutch village, the dirt path that would one day become Flatbush Avenue lined with wheat fields and farms. Contrast that with today’s Flatbush, a bustling urban destination diverse in both housing styles and commercial retail shops. It’s also an anchor of Brooklyn’s Caribbean… Read More
On November 19, 1895, Calvert Vaux went for a morning walk from his son’s home in Brooklyn. He never returned. The 70 year old architect had helped to create the greatest parks in the cities of New York and Brooklyn. His landscape collaborations with Frederick Law Olmsted had given Manhattan its Central Park and Brooklyn… Read More
The Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant is defined by its architectural character, rows of impressive brownstones and ornate apartment buildings which trace back to the late 19th century. It was once two separate villages — Bedford and Stuyvesant Heights — combined to appeal to new residents in the ever-expanding city of Brooklyn. The Bed-Stuy of… Read More
The origin of a true Brooklyn ‘start up’ — Charles Pfizer and Co, who went from developing intestinal worm medication in 1849 to being a leader in vaccine distribution in the 21st century. This is story of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals before the 1950s, a tale of German immigration and of early medical practices and concoctions that… Read More
We’re sliding into summer AT LAST — ready for great music, hot dancing and breaking into fire hydrants — and so we’ve just released an epic summertime episode of Bowery Boys Movie Club to the general Bowery Boys podcast audience, exploring the 1989 Spike Lee masterpiece Do The Right Thing. And sticking to the theme of summertime New… Read More
People have been enjoying movies and alcohol well before anybody first thought to make popcorn for hungry audiences. Believe it or not, this carefree pleasure — one most people do not take for granted anymore — has its roots in a small but significant decision that was made almost 110 years ago. In May of… Read More
There is no place in New York City quite like the converted factory building at 538 Johnson Avenue in Bushwick*, Brooklyn. At the same time, it evokes in mysterious ways a compelling truth about this city — that every building has a story, if only it had a storyteller to share it. For 538 Johnson, that storyteller is Bryan Sears,… Read More
Motherless Brooklyn, a radical retro transformation of Jonathan Lethem’s book of the same name, refits the bright noir of the movie Chinatown into 1950s New York City. Edward Norton, who wrote and directed this adaptation, also stars as its central figure — Lionel Essrog or simply Brooklyn, a detective with Tourette syndrome and a photographic… Read More