The Bowery Boys: New York City History

It’s one of the great narratives of American urban history — the northward trek of New York society up the island of Manhattan during the 19th century. Bringing you this special story today is writer, tour guide and historian Keith Taillon from KeithYorkCity, joining Carl Raymond from the Gilded Gentleman podcast to analyze this unique social migration. They present a fascinating virtual tour through over 100 years of New York City history, showing how the Gilded Age developed and evolved from an architectural and urban planning point of view. For more information visit the Bowery Boys website, subscribe to the Gilded Gentleman podcast and check out Keith's adventures at his website. 

This month we are marking the 160th anniversary of one of the most dramatic moments in New York City history – the Civil War Draft Riots which stormed through the city from July 13 to July 16, 1863.Thousands of people took to the streets of Manhattan in violent protest, fueled initially by anger over conscription to the Union Army which sent New Yorkers to the front lines of the Civil War. (Or, most specifically, those who couldn’t afford to pay the $300 commutation fee were sent to war.)In many ways, our own city often seems to have forgotten these significant events.There are very few memorials or plaques in existence at all to the Draft Riots, a very odd situation given the numerous markers to other tragic and unsettling moments in New York City history. In particular, given the number of African-Americans who were murdered in the streets during these riots, and the numbers of Black families who fled New York in terror, we think this is a very significant oversight.In this episode, a remastered, re-edited

The Pledge of Allegiance feels like an American tradition that traces itself back to the Founding Fathers, but, in fact, the original version is only written in 1892. (And the version you may be familiar with from elementary school is less than 70 years old.)This is the story of the invention of the Pledge, a set of words that have come to embody the core values of American citizenship. And yet it began as part of a for-profit magazine promotion, written by a Christian socialist minister.Listen to the pledge wording evolve throughout the years and discover the shocking salute that once accompanied it.Featuring: Tom Meyers as the voice of Francis Bellamy, the inventor of the pledge. This is a reedited, remastered version of an episode of Greg's spin-off show The First, originally released in 2017Visit the website for more information and imagesAnd after listening, please read this article by Sam Roberts on questions over the pledge's authorship  

Take a look at a historic photograph of New York from the 1930s and you'll see automats, newsies, elevated trains and men in fedoras. What you won't see -- dozens and dozens of automobiles on the curb.In a city with skyrocketing real estate values, why are most city streets still devoted to free car storage? It's a situation we're all so used to that we don't think twice about it. Whatever happened to the curb?Long-term and overnight parking used to be illegal in the early 20th century. The transition from horse-drawn carriages to gas-powered automobiles transformed neighborhoods like Times Square and reconfigured everyday life on the street. But before the 1920s, parking those glamorous new Model Ts on the street was tolerated only in short-term situations.By the 1940s, however, New Yorkers were simply too reliant on the automobile, and the city's parking lots and garages were simply not adequate. (For many New Yorkers, like Seinfeld's George Costanza, they're still not acceptable).Street parking was de fact

From 1941 and 1976, dozens of young women and high school girls were bestowed the honor of Miss Subways with her smiling photograph hanging within the cars of the New York subway system.This was not a beauty pageant, but rather an advertising campaign which promoted the subway and drew the eyes of commuters to the train car's many advertisements for cod liver oil, cigarettes and frozen foods.The program was overseen by modeling agent guru John Robert Powers whose work for retail catalogs and newspapers would help define the 'girl-next-door' image of the mid 20th century.However this blonde Midwestern template soon looked out of place promoting the subway system of one of the most diverse cities in the world. By the 1960s, winners of this fleeting title began to reflect the many types of women who commuted and used the subway.Listen in as Greg tells the story of the Miss Subways pageant then participates as a judge for a brand new Miss Subways competition, held in Coney Island in April. But what does this titl

The Brooklyn Bridge, which was officially opened to New Yorkers 140 years ago this year, is not only a symbol of the American Gilded Age, it’s a monument to the genius, perseverance and oversight of one family.This episode is arranged as a series of three mini biographies of three family members -- John Roebling, his son Washington Roebling and Washington's wife Emily Warren Roebling. Through their stories, we’ll watch as the Brooklyn Bridge is designed, built and opened in 1883.PLUS: One more Roebling! Greg and Tom are joined in the studio by Kriss Roebling, the great, great-grandson of Washington and Emily Roebling. He shares his own surprising family stories -- and brings in some extraordinary artifacts from his family's past!Visit our website for more pictures and information about this showFURTHER LISTENING:That Daredevil Steve Brodie!The Queensboro Bridge and the Rise of a BoroughCrossing to Brooklyn: How The Williamsburg Bridge Changed New YorkThe George Washington Bridge

The Broadway musical is one of New York City's greatest inventions, over 160 years in the making! It's one of the truly American art forms, fueling one of the city's most vibrant entertainment businesses and defining its most popular tourist attraction -- Times Square.But why Broadway, exactly? Why not the Bowery or Fifth Avenue? And how did our fair city go from simple vaudeville and minstrel shows to Shuffle Along, Irene and Show Boat, surely the most influential musical of the Jazz Age?This podcast is an epic, a wild musical adventure in itself, full of musical interludes, zipping through the evolution of musical entertainment in New York City, as it races up the 'main seam' of Manhattan -- the avenue of Broadway.We are proud to present a tour up New York City's most famous street, past some of the greatest theaters and shows that have ever won acclaim here, from the wacky (and highly copied) imports of Gilbert & Sullivan to the dancing girls and singing sensations of the Ziegfeld revue tradition.CO-ST

The history of pizza in the United States begins in Manhattan in the late 19th century, on the streets of Little Italy (and Nolita), within immigrant-run bakeries that transformed a traditional southern Italian food into something remarkable.But new research discovered in recent years has changed New York food history, revealing an origin tale slightly older than what the old guide books may have you believe.Understanding the history of American pizza is important because it's a food that brings people together, young and old -- from pizza parties to corner slice places, from classic traditional pies to the latest upscale innovations.Pizza lovers of all kinds -- even you, Chicago deep-dish lovers -- will find much to enjoy in this show, tracing the early origins of American pizza and specifically how New York City-style pizza was born. (What even is New York style pizza? Even that answer is trickier than you think.)On this wandering episode -- through Nolita, Greenwich Village and even the Bowery -- Tom and G

In the early morning hours of April 15, 1912. the White Star ocean liner RMS Titanic struck an iceberg en route to New York City and sank in the Atlantic Ocean. Survivors were rescued by the Cunard liner Carpathia and brought to their berth at Pier 54 on the rainy evening of April 18.On that very spot today, a fanciful waterfront development juts out into the Hudson River, a place called Little Island which opened in 2021. This recreational oasis will draw thousands of people, New Yorkers and tourists alike, this spring and summer.But on the southern side of Little Island, peering out of the water, are dozens of wooden posts – these are the remains of the former Pier 54.And it was on this pier, on April 18, 1912, that survivors of the Titanic disembarked and touched land.This is the story of the places that figured into the aftermath and the story of how New York memorialized those lost to the tragedy.And in the end we return to Little Island and to the ghost of Pier 54, the place where this disaster became r

Enter the magical world of New York by gaslight, the city illuminated by the soft, revolutionary glow of lamps powered by gas, an innovative utility which transformed urban life in the 19th century.  Before the introduction of gaslight in the 1820s, New York was a much darker and quieter place after sunset, its streets lit only by dull, foul-smelling whale-oil lamps. Gaslight was first used in London, and it made its American debut in Newport and Baltimore.The New York Gas Company received its company charter in 1823 and began to install gas pipes under the street that decade.  With gas-powered lighting, New York really became the city that never slept.It meant you could work late without your eyes straining – or wander the streets with less apprehension. It meant greater ease reading a book or throwing a lavish ball. Gaslight brought the 19th century city to life in ways that are easy to overlook.In this episode we're joined by author Jane Brox, author of Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light who disc

We just reedited and reworked our 2017 show on Irish immigration in time for St. Patrick’s Day and a celebration of all things Irish! So much has changed in our world since 2017 and this history feels more relevant and impactful than ever before. You don’t have a New York City without the Irish. In fact, you don’t have a United States of America as we know it today.This diverse and misunderstood immigrant group began coming over from Ireland in significant numbers starting in the Colonial era, mostly as indentured servants. In the early 19th century, these Irish arrivals, both Protestants and Catholics, were already consolidating — via organizations like the Ancient Order of the Hibernians and in places like St. Patrick’s Cathedral.But starting in the 1830s, with a terrible blight wiping out Ireland’s potato crops, a mass wave of Irish immigration would dwarf all that came before, hundreds of thousands of weary, sometimes desperate newcomers who entered New York to live in its most squalid neighborhoods.The I

Wall Street, today a canyon of tall buildings in New York's historic Financial District, is not only one of the most famous streets in the United States, it's also a stand-in for the entire American financial system.One of the first facts you learn as a student of New York City history is that Wall Street is named for an actual wall that once stretched along this very spot during the days of the Dutch when New York was known as New Amsterdam.The particulars of the story, however, are far more intriguing. Because the Dutch called the street alongside the wall something very different.During the colonial era, the wall was torn down and turned into the center of New York life, complete with Trinity Church, City Hall and a shoreline market with a disturbing connection to one New York's financial livelihoods -- slavery.So how did this street become so associated with American finance? The story involves Alexander Hamilton, a busy coffee house and a very important tree.Visit the website for more images and informat

Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's stoic portrait and one of the most valuable paintings on earth, came to America during the winter of 1963, a single-picture loan that was both a special favor to Jackie Kennedy and a symbolic tool during tense conversations between the United States and France about nuclear arms.Its first stop was the National Gallery in Washington DC, where over a half million people spent hours in line to gaze at the famous smile.Then, on February 7, 1963, she made her debut to the public at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, hosted in the medieval sculpture hall for a month-long exhibition that would become one of the museum's most attended shows.On that first day, thousands lined up outside in the freezing cold to catch a glimpse of the iconic painting. By week's end, a quarter of a million people had visited the museum to see the Italian masterpiece.PLUS: What's it like guarding precious and iconic works of art like the Mona Lisa? Patrick Bringley, a former guard at the Metropolitan Museum of

Dorothy Catherine Draper is a truly forgotten figure in American history. She was the first woman to ever sit for a photograph — a daguerrotype, in the year 1840, upon the rooftop of the school which would become New York University.Catherine was the older sister of professor John William Draper, later the founder of the university’s school of medicine. The Drapers worked alongside Samuel Morse in the period following his invention of the telegraph.The experiments of Draper and Morse, with Catherine as assistant, would set the stage for the entire history of American photography.The legendary portrait was taken when Miss Draper was a young woman but a renewed interest in the image in the 1890s brought the now elderly matron a bit of late-in-life recognition.To see the photograph of Draper and other early photography, visit our website. This episode originally appeared on Greg’s podcast called The First which had a respectable run a few years ago. The feed for that show will be going away soon so we wanted to

Within the New York City of Edward Hopper's imagination, the skyscrapers have vanished, the sidewalks are mysteriously wide and all the diners and Chop Suey restaurants are sparsely populated with well-dressed lonely people.In this art-filled episode of the Bowery Boys, Tom and Greg look at Hopper's life, influence and specific fascination with the city, inspired by the recent show Edward Hopper's New York at the Whitney Museum of American Art.Hopper, a native of the Hudson River town of Nyack, painted New York City for over half a decade. In reality, the city experienced Prohibition and the Jazz Age, two world wars and the arrival of automobiles. But not in Hopper's world.In his most famous work Nighthawks (1942), figures from a dreamlike film appear trapped in an aquarium-shaped diner. But Hopper has captured something else in this iconic painting: fear and paranoia. No wonder he's considered a huge influence on Hollywood film noir and detective stories.Hopper painted New York from his studio overlooking Wa

In the 19th century, the Fulton Fish Market in downtown Manhattan was to seafood what the Chicago stock yards were to the meat industry, the primary place where Americans got fish for their dinner tables.Over the decades it went from a retail market to a wholesale business, distributing fish across the country – although as you’ll hear, that was a bit tricky in the days before modern refrigeration.Today its former home is known by a more familiar name -- the South Street Seaport, a historical district that has undergone some incredible changes in just the past half century. The fish market, once an awkward staple of this growing tourist destination, moved to the Bronx in 2005. But you can still find ghosts of the old market along these historic stone streets.And you can still find delicious seafood at the Seaport. And the Tin Building has taken dining in the neighborhood to the next level, literally in the architectural remains of a former fish market building.On this show, we'll be joined by professor Jonath

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. Now it may not look like much from the outside, but 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, socialize, and celebrate openly in bars, restaurants, and other public places.”So we thought it would be a great time to revisit our 2019 show on the history of Julius'  and a look at the life of gays and lesbians in the mid 20th century. But this show also features an interview -- recorded at Julius' of course -- with When Brooklyn Was Queer author Hugh Ryan who was just on our recent show on the history of Jefferson Market and the Women’s House of Detention .PLUS there’s even a tie-in to the Worlds Fair of 1964, linking to our last episode.Visit our website for photographs and more details -- boweryboyshistory.comThis

Flushing-Meadows Corona Park in the borough of Queens is the home of the New York Mets, the U.S. Open, the Queens Zoo, the New York Hall of Science and many other recreational delights. But it will always be forever known as the launching pad for the future as represented in two extraordinary 20th century world's fairs.There is so much nostalgia today for the 1939-1940 World's Fair and its stranger, more visually chaotic 1964-65 World's Fair. And that nostalgia has fueled a thriving market for collectables from these fairs -- the souvenirs and other common household items branded with the two fairs' striking visual symbols.The Trylon and Perisphere represented the dreams of 1930s America after the Great Depression, the strange symbols of "the World of Tomorrow." A quarter century later the Unisphere depicted its theme -- "Peace Through Understanding" -- as a space-age fantasy.Millions of souvenirs were manufactured and sold at these two fairs. And those very treasured items which survive -- in the hands of co

Greg and Tom -- with some help from producer Kieran Gannon -- reflect nostalgically upon old New York City restaurants from the 1990s (Mars 2112, anyone?), wonder what it was like to eat at a chop suey restaurant, praise the strange wonders of Chez Josephine and Congee Village and reveal their favorite places to get pizza in New York City. ---Here’s the first episode of Side Streets, a conversational show about life and culture in New York City, an exclusive podcast for t hose that support the Bowery boys on Patreon. We’re giving you this preview of the first episode with hopes that you’ll join on Patreon, at any level, to check out the rest. You can listen to more by signing up at Partreon.com/boweryboys. Featured on the show:Congee VillageSquare DinerL&B Spumoni GardensArthur AvenueArturo's PizzaJunior's CheesecakeKesté Pizza 

Crosswords, jigsaws, mazes, rebuses, Rubik's cubes, Myst, Words With Friends -- and now Wordle? Not only have people loved puzzles for centuries, they've actually gone wild for them. Every few years, a new tantalizing puzzle comes along to captivate the nation.But each of these little games has an extraordinary history and for this special show, we have the "the puzzler" himself to help us unravel these unique mysteries.Joining the show today is AJ Jacobs, author of The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life, who leads Greg and Tom down a maze of fascinating origins for the world's most popular puzzles -- many with a connection to New York City.FEATURING:-- Sam Loyd, the ultimate puzzle huckster-- The utterly madcap Rebus Craze of 1937-- The Secret and the possible treasure buried underneath New York's very streets-- Stephen Sondheim's glorious contributions to the puzzling worldVisit the website for more information and imagesPodcas