The Bowery Boys: New York City History
Does your personal library overwhelm your home? Are there too many books in your life — but you’ll never get rid of them? Then you have a lot in common with Gilded Age mogul J.P. Morgan! Morgan was a defining figure of the late 19th century, engineering corporate mergers and crafting monopolies from the desk… Read More
Missing a good old-fashioned New York City snowfall? Well, then, take in this unusual view from 1902: What storm is this? The horrific blizzard that hit New York on February 17, 1902. It would be considered the worst snowstorm to hit the metropolitan area since the Great Blizzard of 1888. (Read all about it here.) I… Read More
This classic episode of the Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast (originally released in December of 2021) is featured in this week’s episode of the History Channel podcast HISTORY This Week. Since 2011 the Bowery Boys Podcast has revisited a few of the themes featured in this show. After listening to this episode, give… Read More
The world’s very first Christmas tree with electric lights was displayed in 1882 at the home of Edward Hibberd Johnson in the Murray Hill neighborhood of New York City. Not only did it glow with this innovative new form of illumination, this Christmas tree also spun around, revolving like a flashy new car at an… Read More
The Current War, an epic detailing the battle for electrical power in the 19th century, was supposed hit theaters in the fall of 2017. But its distributor was the Harvey Weinstein Company and its release date was delayed by more important matters. Flash forward to the fall of 2019 and The Current War has finally… Read More
The plays and sonnets of William Shakespeare, as the finest examples of the English written word, were also the first recorded sounds ever made.  The first recording ever made at Alexander Graham Bell‘s Volta Laboratory in Washington DC in 1881 was that of Bell’s very own voice reading Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Here’s another recording of Bell’s… Read More
Nikola Tesla was an artist who worked within the medium of the physical world, not only finding ways to develop electricity but demonstrating his experiments in ways that left people speechless. This is one of the intriguing theories behind “Tesla,” the latest episode of American Experience, debuting on PBS on Tuesday, October 17. Tesla has… Read More
In 1910, D.W. Griffith made one of first films ever produced in Hollywood, CA, appropriately called In Old California. Before then, film production companies were scattered throughout the United States, with two of the most successful based here in New York City. The American Vitagraph Company, originally located at the Morse Building on 140 Nassau… Read More
“Photograph shows a boy and a girl dancing while an Edison Home Phonograph plays in a house in Broad Channel, Queens, New York City.” — taken between 1910-1915 Here’s something many people thought they’d never see again in New York City — the opening of a new record store. Rough Trade, known for their famous… Read More
The future (almost): Edison’s kinetophone system On February 17, 1913, on the day that the Armory Show was preparing to reinvent American art, Thomas Edison was attempting a revolution of his own for the young moving pictures industry. On that date, he debuted a new projection system called the kinetophone in four vaudeville houses in New… Read More
In 1910, DW Griffith made the first film ever made in Hollywood, CA, called In Old California. Before then, film production companies were scattered throughout the United States, with two of the most successful based here in New York City. The American Vitagraph Company, originally located at the Morse Building on 140 Nassau Street, made… Read More
Pizza in Park Slope Jeremiah gives us a (wonderful but depressing) rundown of all the New York history destroyed by redevelopment in 2007. [Vanishing New York] Roosevelt Island’s super-spooky Renwick Ruin, New York’s former smallpox hospital turned haunted mansion, is falling apart. [City Room] Corona, Queens’ Jewish community may get landmark status bestowed on its… Read More
The Coney Island that greeted vacationers and city folk in the years 1904 to 1911 was one of infinite imagination manifested in fantastic but cheaply built extravaganza. A world of amusement starts here in New York — Coney Island, the world’s oldest and strangest collection of amusement parks, a mishmash of sideshows, concession stands, gambling… Read More