Mayor Edward Cooper, chip off the ole block

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

Know Your Mayors: William Russell Grace

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. You can divide the mayors of New York into at least five different groups, with some obvious overlapping into one or more groupings: 1) Ladder… Read More

Prisoners of the Lower East Side

Kurt Russell had it easy Despite being in sight of two boroughs and a very large airport, Rikers Island lulls us with psychological assurance of feeling remote and entirely sequestered from our regular world. But never fear, New Yorkers; there are prisons all over the damn city. Take the Bayview Correctional Facility, a former Seaman’s… Read More

Mysteries of Roosevelt Island: Jailhouse jitters

We’ve got some more on that wacky, wonderful place called Roosevelt Island. We highlighted some of the spookier stuff last week. Read it all here. I mentioned earlier that Roosevelt Island was named for a Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial that was never built there. Perhaps the reason that doesn’t bother anybody is that’s a far… Read More