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Podcasts Pop Culture

New York City and the birth of the television industry, experimental broadcasts from the city’s greatest landmarks

An illustration from Science & Invention, one of Hugo Gernsback’s many technology journals, demonstrating the possibilities of his ‘telephot’ system. (Courtesy The Verge) PODCAST It’s the beginning of The Bowery Boys Summer TV Mini-Series, three podcasts devoted to New York City’s illustrious history with broadcast television — from Sarnoff to Seinfeld!  In our first show,… Read More

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Mad Men Pop Culture

‘Mad Men’ ends this Sunday, and ‘Copper’ begins, but war and assassinations unite both

WARNING The article contains a couple light spoilers about the current season ‘Mad Men’ on AMC and a few on last season’s ‘Copper’ on BBC America.   While 1968 comes to a close on Sunday night with the season finale of ‘Mad Men‘, another version of New York history returns on another channel. ‘Copper‘, starting… Read More

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Pop Culture

The Broadway Melody: New York’s first Oscar victory and an ironic success for the Astor Theatre in Times Square

The second film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture was hardly a movie at all. ‘The Broadway Melody’, a frothy Hollywood revue about the mounting of an frothy Broadway revue, was a total celebration of every strength and weakness of the early Broadway stage, and a hopeful sign that the New York… Read More

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Brooklyn History Pop Culture

The curious tale behind the first film ever made in Brooklyn

Millions and millions of hours of television and film have been made within the five boroughs since the invention of the camera.  But have you ever wondered where the very first roll of film was ever shot? That distinction most likely goes to a nondescript rooftop studio built atop a building at 1729 St. Marks Avenue… Read More

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Pop Culture

A film milestone in New York, 1913, but sadly out of sync

 The future (almost): Edison’s kinetophone system On February 17, 1913, on the day that the Armory Show was preparing to reinvent American art, Thomas Edison was attempting a revolution of his own for the young moving pictures industry. On that date, he debuted a new projection system called the kinetophone in four vaudeville houses in New… Read More

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Pop Culture

Election Night, live on TV! New York City newsrooms, 1952

Above: The CBS news broadcast was sponsored by Philco, an early radio and television manufacturer. In the photos of the ABC newsroom below, you’ll notice they are also sponsored by a television manufacturer, Admiral. The candidates are now at our mercy. Election Day comes in two phases. The first is in the hands of the… Read More

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Pop Culture

Your friendly neighborhood tour guide: New York as seen through 50 years of Amazing Spider-Man comic book covers

Today is the fifth birthday of this blog, which modestly began on July 4, 2007 and has grown more steadily out of control and independent of the podcast which inspired it.  The following article was inspired by a box of old comics books which have followed me around to various apartments for the past two… Read More

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Pop Culture

Sue Simmons: A Four-Letter-Word-ing Celebration

Shake-up on the set! My favorite all-time New York news anchor Sue Simmons, a part of the WNBC news room since 1980, has been ‘let go‘ from her long-time position, as the network won’t be renewing her contract when it expires in June. One of the highest paid news anchors in New York history, Simmons is perhaps… Read More

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Pop Culture Uncategorized

History in the Making: Jackson Paint Splattering Edition

Tomorrow is Jackson Pollock’s 100th birthday. A trip to MOMA is in order! Also check out this gorgeous collection of ‘behind the scenes’ photos. (Photo by Loomis Dean, Life) I’m just getting back from a trip so the blog’s been a little thin of articles this week. But we’re back to normal here next week,… Read More

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Pop Culture

“New York was his town, and it always would be…”

I hope you all caught part one of PBS’s Woody Allen documentary last night. Part of the American Masters series, it was a beautiful tribute, not just to the filmmaker, but to 70s New York, and in particular, Woody’s old neighborhood — Midwood, Brooklyn. The second part concludes this evening at 9pm EST. I’ll be… Read More

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Pop Culture

Keep Cool … the Marilyn Way!

It’s too darn hot out there, so why not straddle a subway grating and let the fabric fly! That’s precisely what Marilyn Monroe did in the silly 1954 classic The Seven Year Itch, cooing with seduction over wary Tom Ewell. The exact location she performed her iconic flirtation, shot on September 15, 1954, and filmed a… Read More