The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Enter the magical world of New York by gaslight, the city illuminated by the soft, revolutionary glow of lamps powered by gas, an innovative utility which transformed urban life in the 19th century. Before the introduction of gaslight in the 1820s, New York was a much darker and quieter place after sunset, its streets… Read More
Dorothy Catherine Draper is a truly forgotten figure in American history. She was the first woman to ever sit for a photograph — a daguerrotype, actually, in the year 1840, upon the rooftop of the school which would become New York University. The circumstances that got her to this position were rather unique. She was… Read More
Index cards. Levers and buttons. Wheels and wires and paper. Stone-gray mechanical boxes and intricate machines of gears and pulleys. It was these things — and probably a lot of coffee — that kept New York City operating before the advent of computers. From the subway to the Wall Street trading floor, life functioned in… Read More
Jacob Riis changed the world with “How The Other Half Lives.” By using the new technology of flash photography, Riis was able to capture the squalid conditions of Manhattan tenements in a way no mere paragraph, drawing or sermon could. The startling photographs contained in this book did not originate there, however. Riis debuted them… Read More
PODCAST Nature and history intertwine in all five boroughs — from the Bronx River to the shores of Staten Island — in this special episode about New York City’s many gardens. A botanical garden is more than just a pretty place; it’s a collection of plant life for the purposes of preservation, education and study.… Read More
PODCAST: Dr. David Hosack was no ordinary doctor in early 19th-century New York. His patients included some of the city’s most notable citizens, including Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, both of whom he counted as close friends — and both of whom decided to bring him along to their fateful duel. But it was Dr. Hosack’s love and… Read More
This week marks the eighth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, which wreaked havoc upon the Northeast United States, causing billions of dollars in damage. The storm hit just days before a presidential election and right before Halloween, plunging many areas of New York City into darkness and flooding the subway… Read More
PODCAST Ancient space rocks, dinosaur fossils, anthropological artifacts and biological specimens are housed in New York’s world famous natural history complex on the Upper West Side — the American Museum of Natural History! Throughout the 19th century, New Yorkers tried to establish a legitimate natural history venue in the city, including an aborted plan for a… Read More
PODCAST The strange and wonderful life of Nikola Tesla in New York City. The Serbian immigrant Nikola Tesla was among the Gilded Age’s brightest minds, a visionary thinker and inventor who gave the world innovations in electricity, radio and wireless communication. So why has Tesla garnered the mantle of cult status among many? Part of that… Read More
It seems like a conspiracy theory from 2019 — a government plot to conjure weather conditions favorable to New York City by literally seeding the sky from government planes. But it really did happen in 1950. The results, however, were a bit more — shall we say — chilling. Howell’s StormNew York City’s Official Rainmaker and… Read More
Nikola Tesla was an artist who worked within the medium of the physical world, not only finding ways to develop electricity but demonstrating his experiments in ways that left people speechless. This is one of the intriguing theories behind “Tesla,” the latest episode of American Experience, debuting on PBS on Tuesday, October 17. Tesla has… Read More