The Bowery Boys: New York City History
The Gilded Age, the captivating new installment from PBS’ American Experience, presents a familiar period in American history from a surprising angle. Mark Twain gave the period of America’s post-Civil War posterity its tongue-in-cheek nickname; what’s gilded might look sophisticated and rich, but it’s a hollow facade. This film begins with the most common imagery… Read More
“The nomination of Arthur is a ridiculous burlesque …. He never held an office except the one he was removed from. His nomination attached to the ticket all the odium of machine politics and will greatly endanger the success of [James] Garfield. I cannot but wonder why a convention, even in the heat and hurry… Read More
The Gilded Age, a fascinating new documentary from PBS’s American Experience, premieres in early February. But we’ve got your ticket to the premiere on Thursday, January 25! The Bowery Boys are hosting a panel discussion about the film at the New-York Historical Society, and we’d love to see you there.  —————— In collaboration with PBS’s… Read More
PODCAST The story of how Fifth Avenue, once the ritziest residential address in America, became an upscale retail strip and the home of some of New York’s finest cultural institutions. LISTEN HERE: In this episode, the symbols of the Gilded Age are dismantled. During the late 19th century, New York’s most esteemed families built extravagant mansions… Read More
PODCAST The story of how Fifth Avenue, once the ritziest residential address in America, became an upscale retail strip and the home of some of New York’s finest cultural institutions. LISTEN HERE: In this episode, the symbols of the Gilded Age are dismantled. During the late 19th century, New York’s most esteemed families built extravagant… Read More
PODCAST At the heart of New York’s Gilded Age — the late 19th century era of unprecedented American wealth and excess — were families with the names Astor, Waldorf, Schermerhorn and Vanderbilt, alongside power players like A.T. Stewart, Jay Gould and William “Boss” Tweed. They would all make their homes — and in the case… Read More
New York City lost a very interesting landmark this past weekend. Serbian Orthodox Cathedral of St. Sava, at West 25th and Broadway, was destroyed in a spectacular and mysterious four-alarm fire on Sunday, its windows shattered in shafts of flame, its ceiling reduced to cinders. If you’re a podcast listener, you may know this place… Read More
PODCAST The tale behind the brutal murder of renown architect Stanford White on the roof garden of Madison Square Garden, the building that was one of his greatest achievements. On the evening of June 25, 1906, during a performance of Mam’zelle Champagne on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden, the architect Stanford White was brutally… Read More
Irving Place is the remarkably pretty street that travels from the south side of Gramercy Park to the less charming ruckus of 14th Street. Â It was named for the great writer Washington Irving during his lifetime by developer Samuel Ruggles. Â The house at East 17th Street and Irving Place purports to be the former home… Read More
Hershey’s employees cut and pack chewing gum at Sixth Avenue and 21st Street. For five glorious years in the early 1920s, Hershey’s Chocolate operated a candy plant at Sixth Avenue, in the neighborhood of Chelsea. While chocolate bars and chocolate coating for other candies were produced here, the Chelsea plant primarily focused on a new… Read More
In 1888, the New York Herald ran this poem by the great Walt Whitman: The First Dandelion … Read More
PODCAST This year is the 125th anniversary of one of the worst storms to ever wreak havoc upon New York City, the now-legendary mix of wind and snow called the Great Blizzard of 1888. Its memory was again conjured up a few months ago as people struggled to compare Hurricane Sandy with some devastating event… Read More
How did New Yorkers know to panic over the weather in the 19th century? How could they know to run through the streets in terror at the upcoming snowpocylpse/blizzardtastrophe if there was no brightly colored Accuweather radar or a friendly weather person with perfectly coiffed hair? In the 1880s, New Yorkers turned to one man… Read More
Manhattan grid illuminated, taken from the Metropolitan Life Tower in Madison Square, looking downtown. I’m not sure when this photo was taken, but a reasonable guess might be the late 1910s. The caption says ‘New York Edison Company, Photographic Bureau.’ (Photo courtesy NYPL)FOR MORE INFORMATION: We just scratched the surface on the ‘war of… Read More
A new podcast will be ready for download later this evening! The film ‘Edison, The Man‘ was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, which is appropriate because most of the movie is entirely fictional, including this re-imagining of Edison’s Pearl Street Station and the first blocks cast in the glow of incandescent lights. In truth, the ‘switch’ was flipped from… Read More