The summer blockbuster Spider-Man: Homecoming may be the greatest New York City superhero movie ever. It doesn’t treat New York like a series of famous backdrops (although there certainly are a couple); it has a familiar landscape and there’s a particular care given to depicting Queens, the home of Peter Parker. There’s even a couple scenes with… Read More
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PODCAST Cleopatra’s Needle is the name given to the ancient Egyptian obelisk that sits in Central Park, right behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is the bizarre tale of how it arrived in New York and the unusual forces that went behind its transportation from Alexandra to a hill in the city’s most… Read More
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New York: The City of Forts
The vestiges of America’s oldest wars surround us to this day. New York City has had more military fortifications contained within it than perhaps any other major American city. Part of this has to do with its roots in the American Revolution and the subsequent fears of a return invasion in the early 19th century. Today’s existing forts… Read More
PODCAST When historians look back at the year 2014, what events or cultural changes within New York City will they deem significant? In this special episode, the Bowery Boys look back at some of the biggest historical events of the year including the opening of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the troubling… Read More
An old postcard of Cass Gilbert’s U.S. Custom House, one of the highlights of this year’s Open House New York. You have no excuse now.  This weekend is the 12th Annual Open House New York, the city’s annual celebration of history, architecture and design.  Hundreds of places throughout the five boroughs will throw open their doors… Read More
I’m heading through France on my way to Tom’s wedding, but I stopped by Paris to check out an object we mentioned in our Cleopatra’s Needle podcast — the Paris obelisk in Place de la Concorde! Here it is reflected in the basin at Jardin des Tuileries.
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. Â 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
Fit for a queen: Cleopatra’s Needle, Central Park’s Egyptian obelisk, is one of the nominees in the PIP initiative (Picture by the Wurts Brothers, courtesy NYPL) You’ve got just seven more days to vote in the Partners In Preservation initiative, sponsored by American Express in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. That’s seven more votes that could… Read More
For almost five years, we have been extolling the virtues of New York’s greatest and most treasured landmarks in our podcasts. At last, we can actually bring to your attention a very special project where you’ll get to interact with some of these places and help get them get sorely needed funding. The Bowery Boys:… Read More
ABOVE: Puck Magazine satirizes father and son, Peter and Edward Cooper KNOW YOUR MAYORS Our modest little series about some of the greatest, notorious, most important, even most useless, mayors of New York City. Other entrants in our mayoral survey can be found here. Mayor Edward Cooper In office: 1879-1880 Many of us must inevitably… Read More