The Bowery Boys: New York City History
On October 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford walked into a press conference at the National Press Club and, using more precise, more eloquent words than legend remembers, but in no uncertain terms, told New York City to drop dead. The following day the New York Daily News — the city’s first tabloid newspaper summarized his… Read More
The first part on our Amsterdam/New Amsterdam series — called Empire of the Seas — was just awarded the 2025 Webby Award for Best History Podcast (Individual Episode) A big thank you to our brilliant producer and editor Kieran Gannon, who pulled this together from about a dozen hours of audio footage. And our fabulous… Read More
Join Tom for an interview with Instagram historian Keith Taillon (@keithyorkcity), whose detailed posts about New York’s history have earned him nearly 60,000 followers and launched a successful tour business. Keith shares the story behind his remarkable pandemic project of walking every single block of Manhattan in 2020, capturing the empty city in photographs that… Read More
It’s a Bowery Boys Podcast/Marvel Comics Podcast crossover for the ages! Greg was a guest on this week’s episode of the Official Marvel Comics Podcast, talking about the New York City origins of Daredevil. The character first appeared in Marvel Comics in April 1964 and has always been rooted in the Manhattan neighborhood of Hell’s… Read More
We invite you to come with us inside one of America’s most interesting art museums – an institution that is BOTH an art gallery and a historic home. This is the Frick Collection, located at 1 East 70th Street, within the former Fifth Avenue mansion of Gilded Age mogul Henry Clay Frick. The museum containing… Read More
PODCAST Hell’s Kitchen, on the far west side of Midtown Manhattan, is a neighborhood of many secrets. The unique history of this working class district veers into many tales of New York’s criminal underworld and violent riots which have shaken the streets for over 150 years. This sprawling tenement area was home to some of… Read More
The history of the United States Postal Service as it plays out in the streets of New York City — from the first post road to the first postage stamps. From the most beautiful post office in the country to the forgotten Gilded Age landmark that was once considered the ugliest post office. The postal service has… Read More
It’s one of the most foundational questions we could ever ask on this show — how did New York City get its name? You may know that the English conquered the Dutch settlement of New Netherland (and its port town of New Amsterdam) in 1664, but the details of this history-making day have remained hazy… Read More
The New Yorker turns one century old — and hasn’t aged a day! The witty, cosmopolitan magazine published its first issue on February 21, 1925. And even though present-day issues are often quite contemporary in content, the magazine’s tone and style still recall its glamorous Jazz Age origins. The New Yorker traces itself to members… Read More
Greg and Tom have taken off their historian hats for a minute and have suddenly become — movie critics? Close but not quite! This week we’re giving you a ‘sneak preview’ of their Patreon podcast called Side Streets, a conversational chat show about New York City and, well, whatever interests them that week. In honor of the… Read More
For the Bowery Boys episode number 450, we’re looking at the glamour and mystery of Harlem during the 1920s, a decade when the predominantly black neighborhood, in the words of Langston Hughes, “was in vogue.” This year marks the 100th anniversary of Alain Locke’s classic essay “The New Negro” and the literary anthology featuring the… Read More
One of America’s first great Italian neighborhoods was once in East Harlem, populated with more southern Italians than Sicily itself, a neighborhood almost entirely gone today except for a couple restaurants, a church and a long-standing religious festival. This is, of course, not New Yorks’ famous “Little Italy,” the festive tourist area in lower Manhattan… Read More
PODCAST A star of the New York City skyline is reborn — the Waldorf Astoria is reopening in 2025! And so we thought we’d again raise a toast to one of the world’s most famous hotels, an Art Deco classic attached to the Gilded Age’s most prestigious name in luxury and refinement. Now, you might… Read More
There were very few history podcasts around back in the year 2008, but the Bowery Boys Podcast was certainly here … and so was the Memory Palace, hosted by Nate DiMeo, presenting small, often forgotten vignettes from history in a descriptive narrative format. In this special interview episode, Greg talks with Nate on the occasion… Read More
Lets start the new year with something beautiful shall we? The latest in the Bowery Boys podcast feed — join Carl Raymond, host of The Gilded Gentleman podcast, and Lindsy Parrott of the Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass at the Queens Museum, as the luxury and elegant behind the name — Tiffany. Just the name… Read More