The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Above is an illustrated bird’s eye view of College Point, Queens, from a 1917 guidebook “Illustrated Flushing and vicinity.” As that book goes on to describe, “COLLEGE POINT is essentially a manufacturing town—the industrial center of the Flushing District. It is an old settlement like Flushing and Whitestone, both of which it immediately adjoins on… Read More
Many cities have turned the sites of World’s Fairs into public places that have endured through the decades. Chicago’s Jackson Park and the Midway were greatly upgraded after their use in the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The odd-looking Sunsphere, a highlight of the Knoxville World’s Fair in 1982, is now the city’s most recognizable monument.… Read More
. The second oldest manmade object in New York City — outside, that is, not in a museum or private collection — is a solitary little Roman column built in 120 AD for the Temple of Artemis in the ancient city of Jerash. It once stood among a chorus of ‘whispering columns’, creating an effect… Read More
Certainly Robert Moses expected there to be a few little problems to arise at the opening of the 1964 World’s Fair on April 22, 1964. And for the most part, the most popular attractions launched without a hitch. But a host of bad press on opening day and a litter of minor issues created a… Read More
The World’s Fair of 1964-65 opened fifty years ago today! We visited this unusual New York mega-event on the podcast a few years ago. Give this show a listen to get a good introduction to our city’s strangest celebration of the future. You can listen to it here or download it from the Bowery Boys… Read More
Ah, take in the horrid reality of the Corona marshes with their ashes, manure and garbage! (Courtesy CUNY) Outside of probably Hell, there is no literary landscape as forlorn and soul-crushing as the ash dumps of Corona, Queens. “This is the valley of ashes,” writes Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat… Read More
Ah, take in the horrid reality of the Corona marshes with their ashes, manure and garbage! (Courtesy CUNY) Outside of probably Hell, there is no literary landscape as forlorn and soul-crushing as the ash dumps of Corona, Queens. “This is the valley of ashes,” writes Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, “a fantastic farm where ashes… Read More
Reaction to the Bowery Boys podcast on the Consolidation of 1898 has been tremendous! But I do have one clarification, and provided by a very excellent source. The accurate placing of the boundary line between Queens and the newly created Nassau County was a source of frustration for a great many months after consolidation. I recounted… Read More
I love flipping through the collections of the NYC Department of Records because, on top of strange crime photographs and rote images of city blocks, you occasionally find images like the ones above. According to the caption, these female and male dancers are performing in Kissena Park, Queens, in 1927. (In the fall, but they… Read More
Apparently there’s some controversy involving the latest campaign ad from presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. The ad, aimed at Michigan primary voters, displays the photograph at top while Mitt’s voiceover discusses ‘going to the Detroit auto show’. That may have just been some unfortunate sound editing, as Mitt was not in Detroit, but rather at the New York… Read More
You’ll still find a few free-standing homes on the far western end of Astoria — traditionally called Hallet’s Cove — but you won’t find the one above, a veritable (if ramshackle) plantation getaway as photographed by Berenice Abbott in 1937. The caption of this picture places this house in the hands of Joseph Blackwell, an ancestor… Read More
PODCAST Sick of Donald Trump yet? (Probably.) Figured him out yet? Is he a financial wizard, reality sideshow, or political distraction? Or all of the above? The solution may be contained in the roots of his fortune — a saga that stretches back to the 1880s and begins with a 16-year-old boy named Drumpf who… Read More