The Bowery Boys: New York City History
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 Jacob WesterveltIn office: 1853-1855 Dutch-blooded Jacob Aaron Westervelt, 24th man to become mayor of New York since the British evacuation of 1783,… Read More
Hopefully some of you are watching the Ken Burns multi-hour epic documentary The National Parks: America’s Great Idea, a fascinating but rather languid celebration of American preservation of its greatest natural treasures. I’m assuming that by Wednesday, Burns should get here to New York with discussion of two national monuments (the Statue of Liberty and… Read More
ABOVE: 1969 — Central Park’s Sheep Meadow was transformed into ‘Moon Meadow’, a celebration for people watching the Apollo 11 moon landing.We don’t have any regular podcast this week; however I am reposting the second part our Central Park show called ‘The Evolution of Central Park, re-launching it in our secondary feed NYC History: Bowery… Read More
Currier and Ives’ flamboyant and unnatural depiction of an afternoon in Central Park in 1869. The building with the flag is the Arsenal, years before it became part of the Central Park Zoo. We don’t have any regular podcast this week; however I am reposting our first Central Park episode called ‘The Creation of Central… Read More
What started in a tiny East Village basement grew to become one of New York’s most enduring summer traditions, Shakespeare in the Park, featuring world class actors performing the greatest dramas of the age. But another drama was brewing just as things were getting started. It’s Robert Moses vs. Shakespeare! Joseph Papp vs. the city!… Read More
Prospect Park, Brooklyn’s biggest public space and home to the borough’s only natural forest, was a sequel for Olmsted and Vaux after their revolutionary creation Central Park. But can these two landscape architects still work together or will their egos get in the way? And what happens to their dream when McKim, Mead and White… Read More
Jimmy Walker, Hollywood version of a mayor 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. MayorJimmy Walker In office: 1926-1932 Has a New York mayor ever reflected the decade he… Read More
For one Pilgrim, Thanksgiving never ends. Standing near the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park is Manhattan’s tribute to the original European settlers, a solitary pilgrim upon a hill (Pilgrim’s Hill, to be exact) looking as though he’s made a wrong turn. The Pilgrim made its debut in Central Park in 1885, long after Frederick Law… Read More
Photo from Flickr A true five-borough episode! The New York City Marathon hosts thousands of runners from all over the world, the dream project of the New York Road Runners and in particular one Fred Lebow, an employee of the Fashion District turned athletic icon. Find out how he launched a massive race in the… Read More
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. The year Carnegie opened his illustrious Music Hall to the delight of New York’s cultured class, the city’s fate was in the hands of the… Read More
McGown’s Pass Tavern (date unknown, but possibly around 1913 We’re finally moving on from Central Park, but not before observing perhaps its most historically significant area — McGown’s Pass and the Block House. Located on the northern portion of the park, next to the charming Harlem Meer, are a collection of hills and bluffs left… Read More
When last we left the Park, it was the embodiment of Olmstead and Vaux’s naturalistic Greensward Plan. Then the skyscrapers came. Also, how did all those playgrounds, a swanky nightclub, a theater troupe and all those hippies get here? Listen to it for free on iTunes or other podcasting services. Or you can download or… Read More
Don’t accept a gift unless you’re pretty sure you’re going to use it. That’s the lesson the city learned after the fiasco involving the jazz-age Naumburg bandshell, which sits proud and empty overlooking the Central Park mall thanks to some tenacious descendants of the man who donated it, Elkan Naumburg. Proper sorts of concerts were… Read More
Over 15,000 Irish Americans gathered in Jones Wood in 1856, to greet countryman James Stephen Once upon a time, back when Fifth Avenue was a dirt path and Bloomingdale was literally a blooming dale, there stood a haunted and most mysterious forest located on bluffs overlooking the East River, far east of the area today… Read More
Carousels aren’t really for kids anymore. Sure, you won’t see many adults truly captivated by the process of mounting a wooden animal and twirling in a circle. But well-preserved models of the famous amusements are nostalgia goldmines; tinkling calliope music and a few flashing light bulbs can sometimes capture a by-gone era more than a… Read More