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Adventures In Old New York Events

The Bowery Boys Podcast takes over NYC Ferry on Instagram — Friday (June 25)

Do you follow the Bowery Boys on Instagram? Excellent! Or are you somebody who doesn’t use Instagram right now? Well tomorrow (Friday, June 25) would be a great day to check in. Because the Bowery Boys are taking over NYC Ferry for the day. No we will not be piloting ferries through the East River… Read More

Categories
On The Waterfront Women's History

The Deep Sea Hotel: A nautical housing solution for independent women

Arbuckle’s Deep Sea Hotel was neither in the deep sea, nor was it a hotel.  But for hundreds of young, single women at the end of the Gilded Age, it was home. The Challenges of Living Single Accommodations were indeed limited for the thousands of young single women who arrived in New York City at… Read More

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Bridges Podcasts Queens History

The Queensboro Bridge and the Rise of a Borough

“The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald EPISODE 349 This is the story of a borough with great potential and the curious brown-tannish cantilever bridge which helped… Read More

Categories
Health and Living Newspapers and Newsies Podcasts

Nellie Bly: Undercover in New York’s Notorious Asylum for the Insane

The story of New York World reporter Nellie Bly as she poses as a mental patient to report on the abuses of Blackwell’s Island’s Lunatic Asylum. PODCAST Nellie Bly was a determined and fearless journalist ahead of her time, known for the spectacular lengths she would go to get a good story. Her reputation was… Read More

Categories
Mysterious Stories

The Mystery on North Brother Island: A story told in news clippings

A thousand unsolved mysteries live within a newspaper’s archives, little forgotten events that have faded into history. Sometimes you can search deeper, and the answers to those mysteries may emerge. This is what happened in a series of three articles I found the other day while doing some research on North Brother Island (the fruits… Read More

Categories
A Most Violent Year Pop Culture

More signs of ‘A Most Violent Year’: New movie tie-in column

Looking over the East River at Brooklyn and Queens, 1981, where much of the film’s action takes place.  (Photo courtesy GeorgeLouis at English Wikipedia) A few weeks ago I posted the trailer to the new film by JC Chandor called A Most Violent Year, set in New York City in 1981. As support for the… Read More

Fun on the ice: Party time atop the frozen East River

Daredevils trespassing the ice between New York and Brooklyn in 1871. I spent much of New York’s Christmas blizzard nightmare in various airports throughout the country, unable to get back to La Guardia Airport, where it appears I would have just been stranded anyway. With all the transportation fiascoes, the unplowed streets and the mounting… Read More

Puzzle time! Can you identify these details of Hell’s Gate?

In digging around a little further for information on Hoorn’s Hook and Hell’s Gate — two East River spots mentioned in the Gracie Mansion podcast — I came across the incredible illustration among the Library of Congress’s digital images page. Labeled the ‘East View of Hell’s Gate, in the Province of New York’, the piece… Read More

June 15, 1904: Remembering the General Slocum disaster

The morning of June 15 — The steamboat smolders off of North Brother Island Today is the anniversary of undoubtedly one of New York’s most tragic events, a disaster that famously eradicated a neighborhood and became the city’s single largest loss of life in the 20th century — the explosion of the steamboat General Slocum.… Read More

Categories
Podcasts

Corlears Hook and the Pirate Gangs of the East River

The Short Tail Gang sit underneath a pier at Corlears Hook, picture taken in 1890, long after all the great pirate gangs of the area had disbanded, been eaten by rats, or joined the Confederate army (listen to podcast for explanation!) ___________________________________An illustrated map of the ward system of New York in 1817 highlights the… Read More

Mayor Westervelt: “Police officers must wear uniforms!”

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

How Erin Brockovich saved the East River ampitheater

I’ve always been a little fascinated by that small ampitheatre that’s located in Manhattan’s East River Park (near Corlear’s Hook). For years it just seemed so hopelessly abandoned. In the past few years though it’s been making a comeback, featuring the occasional live concert and offering a unique, leafy respite for joggers. The East River… Read More