The Bowery Boys: New York City History
This year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will feature balloon representations of Mr. Potato Head, Kermit, Ronald McDonald, Scooby Doo, Flying Ace Snoopy, Shrek and Hello Kitty. And if you see a balloon that looks like Dolly Parton, don’t flinch — that’s actually Dolly Parton. What will not be flying by is Underdog. Ask any person… Read More
New York gets another Robert Indiana sculpture, which stands at Park Avenue and 57th Street. See our past article on Indiana’s other works in the city. The ghost of Sid Vicious walks the halls of the Chelsea Hotel, according to Dee Dee Ramone. [Chelsea Blog] Some excellent shots of Coney Island, one hundred years ago.… Read More
(Top and bottom photos: Garry Winogrand – taken on the El Morocco dance floor – 1955) To get you in the mood for the weekend, every Friday we’ll be celebrating ‘FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER’, featuring an old New York nightlife haunt, from the dance halls of 19th Century Bowery, to the massive warehouse spaces of the… Read More
Is there anything more frightening than a insane asylum on fire? Nope. Welcome to America’s first municipal lunatic asylum, its home — you guessed it — is on Roosevelt Island in the 19th century. The 1839 facility was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, one of the most influential architects of his day and best known for… Read More
The streets are getting particularly clogged these days with film crews in New York. According to the Mayor’s office, expect to see the following on your block: Gossip Girl, 30 Rock, What Happened In Vegas (Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher), Death In Love (Adam Brody and Josh Lucas), Burn After Reading (Brad Pitt and George… Read More
The baby walrus at New York Aquarium makes his debut![New York Aquarium] I can’t believe I’m getting so choked up about the closing of a midtown porn house.[Vanishing New York] But the Domino Sugar Factory gets a reprieve — landmark status.[Lost City] Robert Moses nemesis Jane Jacobs, saviour of the New York ‘neighborhood’, gets a… Read More
To get you in the mood for the weekend, every Friday we’ll be celebrating ‘FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER’, featuring an old New York nightlife haunt, from the dance halls of 19th Century Bowery, to the massive warehouse spaces of the mid-90s. Past entries can be found here . Bond International Casino — save for fifteen days… Read More
(Above: a boy delivers some very heavy looking hats through the city, circa 1910) Most photographers document history, but few actually change it. Lewis W. Hine entered the brand new field of photojournalism during the first decade of the new century but quickly found a use for it in social reform, particularly in documenting (and… Read More
Tomorrow’s podcast will intersect with the shiploads of European immigrants arriving into New York harbor, many as anxious to seek fortunes in the new world as they were to escape the drear misfortunes of the lands they just left. A 10 year old boy named Marcus Rothkovich was aboard a ship docking at Ellis Island… Read More
ABOVE: A detail from Childs Restaurant, on the boardwalk at Coney Island Never fear, it looks good that Astroland will be returning next year.[Lost City] But wha-wha-what? Will it really cost $200 million to fix the boardwalk?[Gowanus Lounge] Should four year olds be allowed to pee in the streets of New York without harrassment?
It’s the first day of school for some freshmen at City College of New York. President Gregory H. Williams speaks to the newbees today at the gorgeous Great Hall on the Harlem campus. What else will greet the new freshmen: almost six hundred ‘grotesques’ which decorate the corners of all the classical neo-Gothic halls. The… Read More
We normally put up our new podcasts on Wednesday morning. However I am sick and completely lost my voice. I would do the podcast in sign language if I could, but well, I dont know sign language either. Either we’ll be back up with a new one on Thursday morning. Thanks for listening! -Greg
The well from which the San Gennaro Festival draws its zany carnival energy is surprisingly the church which sits its center, the birthplace of the first U.S. San Gennaro feast, at the Church of the Most Precious Blood, between Baxter and Mulberry in Little Italy. The ‘Most Precious Blood’ in this case refers not only… Read More
Every year for the past 80 years, Mulberry Street in Little Italy becomes a wacky religious carnival. Why the San Gennaro Festival — with its mixture of saintly reliquary, frozen daquaris, freak shows and clowns — isn’t considered profane and condemned by the Catholic Church is a mystery to me. All I know is that… Read More
ABOVE: Inside the main hall at the Alexander Hamilton Custom House (standing in the very spot where Fort Amsterdam stood) New Amsterdam in 1660 vs downtown Manhattan today — the Yahoo comparison[Yahoo Maps] A Seinfeld landmark — and one of Sinatra’s favorite late night spots — fades into memory[NY Times] [Gothamist] Radio Row — the… Read More