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Parks and Recreation Podcasts

The rebellious history of Tompkins Square Park

This episode on the history of Tompkins Square Park ties right into an all-new two-part episode coming in September, the first part coming at you next week.  Central Park has frequently been called ‘the people’s park,” but we think Tompkins Square Park may have a better claim to that title.  From its inception, this East Village recreational… Read More

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Holidays New Amsterdam

How Dutch New Amsterdam helped create the American Christmas tradition

After reading this article on the origins of Christmas in America, find some information about a virtual Christmas in Old New York tour from Bowery Boys Walks. There are many different ways to celebrate Christmas, a national holiday derived from the union of Christianity and capitalism. How one chooses to mark the occasion is a… Read More

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New Amsterdam Podcasts

Land of the Lenape: A Violent Tale of Conquest and Betrayal

PODCAST The story of the Lenape, the native people of New York Harbor region, and their experiences with the first European arrivals — the explorers, the fur traders, the residents of New Amsterdam. Before New York, before New Amsterdam — there was Lenapehoking, the land of the Lenape, the original inhabitants of the places we… Read More

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New Amsterdam Podcasts

Peter Stuyvesant and the Fall of New Amsterdam: Where did the Dutch roots of New York City go?

PODCAST There would be no New York City without Peter Stuyvesant, the stern, authoritarian director-general of New Amsterdam, the Dutch port town that predates the Big Apple.  The willpower of this complicated leader took an endangered ramshackle settlement and transformed it into a functioning city. But Mr. Stuyvesant was no angel. In part two in the… Read More

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Neighborhoods Podcasts

St. Mark’s Place: It’s Party Time in the East Village!

PODCAST: The big, brash history of St. Mark’s Place, the East Village’s most interesting street. St. Mark’s Place may be named for a saint but it’s been a street full of sinners for much of its history. One of the most fascinating streets in the city, St. Mark’s traces its story back to Peter Stuyvesant,… Read More

Categories
Landmarks Mysterious Stories

The Ghost of Peter Stuyvesant May Still Haunt the East Village

St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery is the oldest standing structure in the East Village. Upon seeing it, you’re almost forced to reevaluate where you are. It’s intriguing even to those who pass by it everyday. It’s mysterious even to those who work and worship here. Built in 1799 by the Stuyvesant family, St. Mark’s chapel and cemetery… Read More

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New Amsterdam

New York City just opened up its New Amsterdam records, including Peter Stuyvesant’s rules for drinking responsibly

From A New and Accurate Map of the Entire New Netherland, engraving believed to be by Carolus Allard, courtesy the Department of Records   Over the Thanksgiving holiday, the New York City Department of Records just blew the minds of history geeks everywhere.  They released the first batch of digitized documents from the first years… Read More

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New Amsterdam

Farewell New Amsterdam! Peter Stuyvesant vs the world, reflecting on the handover between the Dutch and the English

On August 26, 1664, English ships sailed into the harbor and essentially ran the Dutch out of their port town of New Amsterdam, renaming it New York.  Despite this momentous event, little actually changed for the townspeople themselves whose allegiances were more for their own livelihood and that of their neighbors, and less for the… Read More

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Podcasts

At The Ready: The History of the New York City Fire Department

  The distinguished members of New York’s various volunteer fire brigades, posing for the photographer Matthew Brady in 1858PODCAST  The New York City Fire Department (or FDNY) protects the five boroughs from a host of disasters and mishaps — five-alarm blazes, a kitchen fire run amok, rescue operations and even those dastardly midtown elevators, always… Read More

Who are Barnes and Price? And other notes from the podcast

Stuyvesant Street in 1856, an aberration to the city grid plan thanks in part to the presence of St. Mark’s Church and its well-established churchyard. The small building in the foreground is where the St. Mark’s Bookshop stands today. You can see the steeple of St. Mark’s. Hmm, what what’s the other church in the background?… Read More

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Neighborhoods Podcasts

The secrets of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, and uncovering the East Village footprint of Peter Stuyvesant

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION Until May 21st, you can vote every day in the Partners In Preservation initiative, which will award grant money to certain New York cultural and historical sites among 40 nominees. Having trouble deciding which site to support? I’ll be featuring on a few select sites here on the blog, providing you with a window… Read More

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New Amsterdam

Peter Stuyvesant is also a cigarette, the “international passport to smoking pleasure”

Oh, that Peter Stuyvesant. He was all about luxury, high class athletic sport and international travel. The Concorde! Monte Carlo! Caviar! Less than three centuries after the iconic Dutch director-general of New Amsterdam died at his palatial farm in today’s East Village, his name was employed to sell a brand of stylish, premium cigarette, still… Read More

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Podcasts

The Stuyvesant, New York’s first apartment building: Imported luxury style for a new middle class

The creation of ‘acceptable’ communal living: The Stuyvesant Flats, at 142 East 18th Street, designed by Richard Morris Hunt, photographed by Berenice Abbott. PODCAST Well, we’re movin’ on up….to the first New York apartment building ever constructed. New Yorkers of the emerging middle classes needed a place to live situated between the townhouse and the… Read More

Dr. Johannes La Montagne: Manhattan’s first physician

Nothing underscores the harshness of early New Amsterdam more than the notion that the Dutch settlement, which first formed at the tip of Manhattan in 1625, didn’t actually have a trained physician for almost twelve years. Most likely, in these earliest years, medical emergencies were handled by ship surgeons and non-professionals skilled in a set… Read More

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Uncategorized

Notes from the Podcast (#122) The Manhattan Grid Plan

From H.S. Tanner’s ‘The American Traveller; or Guide Through the United States’, 1836 (book published book 1840) Stuyvesant Street is mentioned as one of the few streets in New York that was allowed to break the grid, and its diagonal path between Second and Third avenues is a reminder of the original farm grid of… Read More