The Bowery Boys: New York City History
A Bill Murray holiday classic is closely linked to a forgotten 1955 teleplay Tracing itself back to one of America’s first television broadcast station, New York’s local WCBS-TV can claim a host of significant achievements, including the first regular broadcasts in color and the first baseball game in color (with the Brooklyn Dodgers, naturally). Their… Read More
Early news reporting on the celebration of Hanukkah (or Chanukah, as it was popularly referred then) in New York usually took a arms-length approach, as most of their readership knew little about the celebration 100 years ago. More than one old Tribune or World carried a variant of the headline ‘Jews Celebrate Chanukah’ , as though there… Read More
Williamsburg(h)’s Union Pond, one of the finest destinations for ice skating in the city, 1863. It later became America’s first enclosed baseball field. The nation was at war one hundred and fifty years ago, but that didn’t stop the austere celebrations in the ‘borough of churches’. But while thousands of Brooklyn residents attended church that… Read More
The gritty image of the scrappy 19th century newsboy, the can-do kid slinging newspapers from the street corner, full of vinegar and character, was an encouraging invention of the newspapers themselves. Children were cheap labor, willing to sling stacks of freshly printed papers to corners across the city. Many kids preferred the profession to that… Read More
The 24 States: playing field for America’s first board game HOW NEW YORK SAVED CHRISTMAS My yearly roundup of little events in New York history that actually helped establish the standard Christmas traditions many Americans celebrate today. Not just New York-centric events like the Rockefeller Christmas Tree or the Rockettes, but actual components of the festivities… Read More
It is difficult to discuss calmly the frightful disaster which happened in Brooklyn on Tuesday night. No such awful sacrifice of human life has ever been known in this country shipwreck and the casualties of war alone being excepted. — New York Times editorial, Dec. 7, 1876 One hundred and thirty-five years this evening,… Read More
A charming family enjoys its insulated beverages — just as they like it, just as they need it — in an ad from 1909. The invention of the vacuum flask in 1892 (by Scottish chemist Sir James Dewar) does not rank high among mankind’s most remarkable inventions, but its longevity relies on being a steady… Read More
No, these children have not gotten their calendars confused. One early American Thanksgiving tradition amongst rascals and rowdies involved goofy costumes and disguised faces. Sometimes called ‘Thanksgiving masking’, the strange practice stemmed from a satirical perversion of poverty and an ancient tradition of ‘mumming’, where men in costumes floated from door to door, asking for… Read More
The Stuyvesant Apartments in 1934, already being dwarfed with a newer structure on the right. Please note the ornate entrance to the Third Avenue elevated train to the left of the picture, as well as the streetcar tracks, no longer in use along East 18th Street in 1934, running down the cobblestone street. And I’m fairly sure… Read More
The creation of ‘acceptable’ communal living: The Stuyvesant Flats, at 142 East 18th Street, designed by Richard Morris Hunt, photographed by Berenice Abbott. PODCAST Well, we’re movin’ on up….to the first New York apartment building ever constructed. New Yorkers of the emerging middle classes needed a place to live situated between the townhouse and the… Read More
Anchors Aweigh: A museum finally opens in one of Brooklyn’s most restricted outposts The Brooklyn Navy Yard finally got the museum it deserves this past weekend with the opening of BLDG 92: Brooklyn Navy Yard Center, a badly needed introduction to this long-restricted yet important component of New York history. The environmentally-friendly new center is affixed… Read More
Work hard, play hard: The FBI director in his early days There are at least three scenes in the new Clint Eastwood-directed J. Edgar Hoover biopic ‘J. Edgar’ set in New York, one of which might surprise you. The first features Hoover on Ellis Island, but he’s hardly there to greet new arrivals. The FBI… Read More
Above: a typical scene during the Garbage Strike of 1911 New York street cleaners and garbage workers (sometimes referred to as ‘ashcart men’) went on strike on November 8, 1911, over 2,000 men walking off their jobs in protest over staffing and work conditions. More importantly, that April, the city relegated garbage pickup to nighttime… Read More
Above: The unusual weather this weekend left my pumpkin with an unfortunate new hairstyle. We hope you all have a fun and safe Halloween this year! In this year’s ghost-story podcast, I talked about a haunted church in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Apparently, other spirits find the neighborhood desirable. I’m reprinting an article from three years ago… Read More
A still from ‘The Wrong Man’, a crime drama shot in New York in 1956. (Courtesy Empire Magainze.) Alfred Hitchcock‘s innovative anthology series ‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ debuted on CBS in the fall on 1955. As a filmed dramatic series (vs. the live camera TV hits like ‘I Love Lucy’ and ‘The Honeymooners’), the weekly mystery… Read More