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Landmarks Podcasts

The Sip-In of 1966: Celebrating Julius’ Bar, New York’s Newest Landmark

New York City has a new landmark, a little bar in the West Village named Julius’, officially recognized by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on December 6th, 2022.  It’s here that one moment of protest (the Sip-In of 1966) set the stage for a political revolution, “a signature event in the battle for LGBTQ+ people to gather,… Read More

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Podcasts Politics and Protest Preservation

The History of Jefferson Market and the Women’s House of Detention

In the heart of Greenwich Village sits the Jefferson Market Library, a branch of the New York Public Library, and a beautiful garden which offers a relaxing respite from the busy neighborhood. But a prison once rose from this very spot — more than one in fact. While there was indeed a market at Jefferson… Read More

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It's Showtime Long Island Podcasts

The Very Gay History of Fire Island

How did one particular summer settlement on Fire Island become a ‘safe haven’ for gay men and lesbians almost ninety years ago, decades before the uprising at Stonewall Inn? This is the third and final part of the Bowery Boys Road Trip to Long Island. (Check out the first part on Gatsby and the Gold… Read More

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Events

Join the Fun: Gay Bars That Are Gone PRIDE Edition Virtual Tour

This Thursday (June 10, 2021) — we have a very unique experience that you’re not going to want to miss. And you can do it from your own home. Gay history. Nightlife history. New York City history. Join tour leaders Michael Ryan & Kyle Supley on a virtual walk through some of New York’s most… Read More

Categories
Podcasts Writers and Artists

Walt Whitman at 200: Celebrating his life and legacy in the cities of New York and Brooklyn

A very special episode of the Bowery Boys podcast, recorded live at the Bell House in Gowanus, Brooklyn, celebrating the legacy of Walt Whitman, a writer with deep ties to New York and its 19th century sister-city Brooklyn. On May 31, 1819, the world will mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Whitman, a journalist who revolutionized American… Read More

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It's Showtime Podcasts

Absolutely Flawless: A History of Drag in New York

PODCAST The story of New York City’s most colorful profession. Television audiences are currently obsessed with shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race and FX’s Pose, presenting different angles on the profession and art of drag. New York City has been crucial to its current moment in pop culture and people have been performing and enjoy drag performers for well… Read More

Categories
Landmarks Podcasts Politics and Protest

Revisiting the Stonewall Riots: The Evolving Legacy of a Violent Night

PODCAST The legacy of the Stonewall Riots and their aftermath, in a podcast history told over nine years apart (May 2008, June 2017). In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, undercover police officers attempting to raid the Stonewall Inn, a mob-controlled gay bar with darkened windows on Christopher Street, were met with something… Read More

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Bowery Boys Bookshelf

Insomniac City: A strange tale of love and a tribute to off-beat New York

Writer and photographer Bill Hayes moved to New York in 2009 and experienced what many of us have already learned:  the nights are magic and the subway is a wilderness. He began jotting down his observations of peculiar experiences, the strange behaviors of others existing in their own little New Yorks. “Every car on every train… Read More

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Landmarks

Stonewall Inn: The story of New York’s newest National Monument (NPS 100)

This month America celebrates the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, the organization which protects the great natural and historical treasures of the United States. There are a number of NPS locations in the five borough areas. Throughout the next few weeks, we will focus on a few of our favorites. For more information,… Read More

Categories
Bowery Boys Gilded Age New York

Odds and Ends: Washington Irving, Modern Ruin, Tourist Advice, The Slide

Irving Place is the remarkably pretty street that travels from the south side of Gramercy Park to the less charming ruckus of 14th Street.  It was named for the great writer Washington Irving during his lifetime by developer Samuel Ruggles.  The house at East 17th Street and Irving Place purports to be the former home… Read More

Categories
It's Showtime Podcasts

Diamond Girl: How Mae West Brought ‘Sex’ and Scandal to Broadway

PODCAST Mae West (star of I’m No Angel and She Done Him Wrong) would come to revolutionize the idea of American sexuality, challenging and lampooning ideas of femininity while wielding a suggestive and vicious wit. But before she was America’s diamond girl, she was the pride of Brooklyn! In this podcast, we bring you the origin… Read More

Odds and Ends: New Penn Station, ‘AIDS in New York’

The interior of Penn Station, 1935, by Berenice Abbott (NYPL) Enthusiasm is rising for the New Penn Station project, which would move Madison Square Garden from its present location and bring out the train station from the basement, a payback of sorts by the Municipal Art Society after the original Penn Station was torn down 50 years ago. A… Read More

Categories
Friday Night Fever

In good company: The local significance of Obama’s inaugural quote: “Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall”

As many others today are ruminating on the symbolic and historic implications of yesterday’s presidential inaugural ceremony, allow me to dwell a little on a curious milestone of far lesser importance. Until yesterday, no place in New York City has ever been mentioned in a presidential inaugural speech.  Not Ellis Island, not the Statue of… Read More

Categories
Friday Night Fever

In good company: The local significance of Obama’s inaugural quote: “Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall”

As many others today are ruminating on the symbolic and historic implications of yesterday’s presidential inaugural ceremony, allow me to dwell a little on a curious milestone of far lesser importance. Until yesterday, no place in New York City has ever been mentioned in a presidential inaugural speech.  Not Ellis Island, not the Statue of… Read More

Don’t douse the glim! Four infamous dancehalls and dives which made the notorious reputation of Bleecker Street

“There are no lower outcasts in New York than the women who nightly creep out of the darkness and swarm the pavement of Bleecker Street…” L. Hereward, Eclectic Magazine, 1893 Sure, the Bowery was a rough and rowdy avenue, but one looking for more alternative adventures in the late 19th century might have found themselves… Read More