The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Just south of the World Trade Center district sits the location of a forgotten Manhattan immigrant community. Curious outsiders called it Little Syria although the residents themselves would have known it as the Syrian Colony. Starting in the 1880s people from the Middle East began arriving at New York’s immigrant processing station — immigrants from… Read More
PODCAST The World Trade Center opened its distinctive towers during one of New York City’s most difficult decades, a beacon of modernity in a city beleaguered by debt and urban decay. Welcome to the 1970s. EPISODE 350 This year, believe it or not, marks the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers on… Read More
PODCAST This month marks the 185th anniversary of one of the most devastating disasters in New York City history — The Great Fire of 1835. This massive fire, among the worst in American history in terms of its economic impact, devastated the city during one freezing December evening, destroying hundreds of shops and warehouses and changing… Read More
Photography on this page, from various periods, by Edmund V. Gillon, courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York. Check out their online gallery for some more beautiful black-and-white shots. Let me take you back to a simpler time, back to a time where it might have been okay to hate the… Read More
The villain du jour of the latest financial scandal is investment firm Goldman Sachs, accused of fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading investors on the shady details of certain ‘exotic’ mortgage-backed securities. The magnitude of Goldman Sachs’ ambitions over the past 140 years — its seismic up and downs, through booms and… Read More
Of all the people who lived in New York City during the Revolutionary War, of all the great Americans who helped shaped history here in the city, [cue deep-voiced announcer] only one can be called America’s first U.S.-born saint. Commuters who zip on and off the Staten Island ferry and tourists gallivanting through Battery Park… Read More
Above: Golfer Bobby Jones assailed with wild strings of paper Whenever New Yorkers get really, really excited about something — as we are this week with the thrilling victory of the New York Giants over the New England Patriots — we like to take serpentine strips of paper and throw them out a window, primarily… Read More