The Cosby Show: A despotic governor in colonial New York and the sensational...
PODCAST A long, long time ago in New York — in the 1730s, back when the city was a holding of the British, with a little over 10,000 inhabitants — a German printer named John Peter Zenger decided to...
View ArticleNYC’s wartime doughnut history, from Irving’s olykoeks to the Union Square...
Today is National Doughnut Day which is not a real holiday or something that people should not celebrate very emphatically. However you will be surprised to learn that this day traces its roots to the...
View ArticleSolomon Northup’s ominous journey to New York City, 1841
An engraving featured in Solomon Northup’s narrative Twelve Years A Slave, published in 1853. The New York farmer and musician Solomon Northup was sold into slavery in 1841, tricked by two supposed...
View ArticleCharlie Chaplin on Wall Street: The tale behind the 1918 photo
The comedy legend Charlie Chaplin was born 125 years ago today in London, so I thought I’d use the opportunity to re-post one of my favorite photographs of Wall Street. In the 1918 photo above, Charlie...
View ArticleGeorge Washington’s inauguration and the 1939 World’s Fair
James Earle Fraser’s colossal Washington statue out in Queens. (NYPL) Tomorrow (April 30th) is the 225th anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington, sworn in at Federal Hall as the first...
View ArticleBryant Park: The Fall and Rise of Midtown’s Most Elegant Public Space
NEW PODCAST In our last show, we left the space that would become Bryant Park as a disaster area; its former inhabitant, the old Crystal Palace, had tragically burned to the ground in 1858. The area...
View ArticleRemembering the Wall Street bombing of 1920
Lunchtime down on Wall Street today is chaotic mess of brokers and bankers on cell phones, tour groups, messengers on bikes, police, construction workers, people delivering lunch and the stray old lady...
View ArticleFederal Hall: Now and Always An American National Treasure
Federal Hall National Memorial, currently administered by the National Park Service, has always been a popular landmark with tourists thanks to its position on one of the most photographed...
View ArticleCourting New York’s Legal Landmarks
Civic buildings are often beautiful architecture in plain sight. Their uniformity — many rendered in classical styles — often finds them less appreciated than other forms of urban architecture. In a...
View ArticleNew York City and the Inauguration of George Washington
PODCAST Part One of our two-part series on New York City in the years following the Revolutionary War. The story of New York City’s role in the birth of American government is sometimes forgotten. Most...
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