Results tagged “history”

Vinegar Hill, that quaint little area between DUMBO and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, was declared a Landmark District in 1997 — and today Forgotten NY takes a look at the neighborhood, saying: "Know that this streetscape will likely survive, as is, indefinitely." The area is filled with overgrown alleys, cobblestone streets, structures built in the early 1800s, and places we would like to live. There are even some old cars scattered about. It's worth checking out the photos and history, but would you live there?

       

The New York Public Library has a great collection of photographs from 1933 of "Thanksgiving Ragamuffins." Unfamiliar with the term? According to this website, kids would get dressed up and "go from house to house yelling, 'Anything f' Thanksgiv'n?' In return they would be rewarded with coins, or a piece of fruit, or a piece of candy. Apparently in those days it was called Ragamuffin Day and was practiced the day before Thanksgiving."

    

As you may have read in our newsletter, on this day in 1966 New York City experienced the smoggiest day in the city's history... and the details read like a horror movie. After 9/11, the NY Times touched upon three particularly smoggy years in the city, saying "Most of the horrors of New York's environmental past, like the grim air episodes in 1953, 1962 and 1966, were chronic and cumulative. Most past events had a thousand sources and causes — a vague diffusion of responsibility that made no one responsible."

Perhaps crazier than the mystery of where 5th and Broadway was in Williamsburg... the blogger at Pardon Me For Asking dug up an old map showing something called Yellow Hook. Indeed, there was a Yellow Hook! The NYPL (where there's currently a great exhibit mapping New York's shoreline), has some more evidence of this magical land, which was south of Red Hook.

The complete history of Eldridge Street between Stanton and Rivington has all been visually played out in this 12-second video. Don't blink, you might miss that time it was Delancey Farm.

You wouldn’t know it today walking down West 46th Street in Manhattan or Smith Street in Brooklyn, but until 1827, New York City did not have a single restaurant. That's the year when a pair of Swiss brothers named Delmonico opened their eponymous William Street confectionery and café, ending 200 years of restaurant-less history and setting "the tone for fine dining in New York almost overnight," according to a new book detailing the city's evolution as a restaurant capital. Before then, anyone forced to eat out had two choices at their local boardinghouse or chophouse: “a slab of beef or mutton with potatoes and gravy."

If you hop on the 2/3 train, and go back in time about 116 years, you might find yourself in the above setting. Harlem Bespoke found this photo of 116th Street by Lenox Avenue taken in 1893. They say: "Yes, those are cows standing around an open watering hole. The middle class apartment buildings can be seen encroaching on the once pastoral setting. The farmer was probably one of the last ones to sell out." It's also possible that there's currently a luxury condo development called the Kalahari in this exact spot. Which only means one thing: poltergeist ghost cows!

Perhaps it would have been nice to have had the mystery of the Washington Square Park tombstone prolonged until Halloween, but the case has seemingly been cracked! In just under a week the unearthed tombstone has been dusted off and, the NY Times reports, belongs to one James Jackson who died in September of 1799.

Yesterday we noted that as renovations continue in Washington Square Park, a tombstone was unearthed by workers. Considering there are about 20,000 dead bodies under there, this is much more mysterious than creepy.

While Hog Island used to be the family vacation spot for Tammany Hall politicians, after surfacing off the coast of the Rockaways in the mid-1800s, it was no match for Mother Nature. Ephemeral NY revisits the old destination spot, which "featured the usual late-19th century bathing facilities, pavilions, restaurants, and regular ferries," noting how by the late 1800s the sea swallowed it back up, whole!

              

The Rockettes were out practicing their kicks yesterday, and other such fancy footwork at at St. Paul The Apostle Church. The Christmas Spectacular opens at Radio City on November 13th; buy a ticket before Jim Dolan kills them all off (actually, he won't)!

The Putnam Trail in Van Cortlandt Park contains many rail remnants (including an old passenger platform) from the New York Central Railroad's Putnam Division, which began construction there in the 1870s. Amongst the historical artifacts that remain in the overgrown trail are 13 stones that were placed there prior to 1903 by Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. He had quarries send him samples to help determine which weathered best, with the chosen one used as the building material for Grand Central Terminal. "In the end, the second southernmost stone, Indiana limestone, was chosen not for its durability but for its cheaper transportation cost across Vanderbilt's railways." Who knew we had our very own Stonehenge in the Bronx!

    

There's a terrific gallery of old images courtesy of LIFE (naturally) that show off 30 Dumb Inventions, all of which can still be seen around the city today. Yes, even the baby cage (on any given day in South Williamsburg you can see children hanging out in these things). It's probably best that inventions like the dog restrainer didn't make it to the present day, however; PETA would have likely had them banned by now anyway. [via Animal]

       

Yesterday we looked at the newly renovated lobby of the Empire State Building, and all its Art Deco glory made us nostalgic. LIFE magazine images are often good for curing that; they even have a whole gallery of the building being made by hand. Enough to make you reread The Fountainhead.

Who has helped define this city's history for the past 400 years? The Museum of the City of New York (who we really wish would shorten their name) has compiled a list in commemoration of Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage into the Harbor. "The NYC400 is the first-ever list of New York City's ultimate movers and shakers since the City's founding—from politics, the arts, business, sports, science, and entertainment."

The Brooklyn Bridge wasn't always so precious to New Yorkers, in fact, Ephemeral NY points out that back when it was called the “East River Bridge Project,”, the public opinion was that the structure would take away from New York Harbor's beauty.

       

Just two days after diver Gene Ritter recovered it from the ocean floor, the Dreamland bell that sunk during the iron pier fire of 1911, was being rung again. Temporarily displayed at the Coney Island History Project, where it will remain through September 13th, you can pay $1 to give it a ring yourself—and it still sounds good after nearly a century underwater! They explain that "a hose system was set up to keep the bell constantly wet since it has been underwater for 98 years." Also on display are old images of the bell as well as other artifacts Ritter has recovered, including bottles, china and lamps. See more images here.

It may be The Battle of Long Island to England and the rest of America—including Queens—but from Bath Beach, where the Brits landed 20,000 troops, to East New York, where they executed the nifty turn that outflanked the rebels, it's known as the Battle of Brooklyn—if it's known at all. This weekend "Brookland" (as it was known) offers a series of events that promise to show how "the Kinges Countie" became anything but—including a reenactment of the battle itself, redcoats and all, in Green-Wood Cemetery.

       

This week's episode of Mad Men looked at the 4th (and current) incarnation of Madison Square Garden (opened February 14th, 1968) at 7th Avenue between 31st and 33rd Streets. The MSG men wanted the Don Draper treatment to spin their campaign and gain public approval for, you know, tearing down the street level portion of Pennsylvania Station; a beautiful Beaux-Arts structure that perfectly backdropped many long farewells during WWII.

          

Since 2008, the Library of Congress has been putting photos from its collections onto flickr to share them with a broader audience. The catalog covers a wide range of topics, but we decided to look through their New York baseball related photos. Photos include the New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Highlanders/Yankees. Here are a few of our favorites from the online collection.

              

Through August 28th, the Yancey Richardson Gallery is looking at Times Square, then and now, the real and the unreal. The exhibit, titled Glitz & Grime, includes photographs taken in or inspired by Times Square, with both contemporary and classic photographers behind the lens. When traveling from 1945 through 2009 in just a few seconds, it's hard not to miss the old, gritty Crossroads... even if it's nostalgia for a time we never knew personally.

Did you hear the one about the Coney Island Globe Tower? Today the Library of Congress posted a bunch of old New York Tribune covers in their Flickr pool, one displaying the ambitious tower, where the plans for it were announced in May 1906. Inside, investors were offered "a ground floor chance to share profits in the largest steel structure ever erected...the greatest amusement enterprise in the whole world...the best real estate venture." The Globe Tower would cost around $1,500,000 to erect, and the man behind it, Samuel Friede, was looking for the means to make it happen.

       

This September the New York Public Library will bring you back to school with some topographical history lessons. They're celebrating the New York Harbor Quadricentennial with an extensive exhibit featuring rarely seen maps, atlases and other treasures from their own personal collection. The exhibit is titled Mapping New York’s Shoreline, 1609-2009, and opens on September 25th... but here's a sneak peek.

Hey hipsters, you're too disaffected to probably care, but: you've finally made it into the pages of TIME magazine! Or at least onto their internet home. They begin their brief history of the hipster by narrowing the group down to people who hate Coldplay, love silk-screened tees, and drink PBR. We cross-referenced this in our Urban Outfitters Hipster's Guide to the Galaxy handbook that doesn't exist because hipsters would never buy it, and it all seemed to check out.

Exactly 64 years ago today, a U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building between the 78th and 79th floors (remember this image?). NYC Aviation looks back at the incident, saying "an engine plunges down an elevator shaft, sparking a fire in the basement. Eleven people in the building are killed, in addition to the three man bomber crew. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded." The ESB notes that the pilot and two other passengers were killed, as well eleven people in the Catholic War Relief office.

Yesterday we got to watch in "real time" the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, down to the second it was aired when covered by Walter Cronkite. Today the NY Times has included a four page insert in the paper, featuring the big headline of July 21st, 1969, just as it was printed 40 years ago. Wanna save some trees? Read the original story here; it's still probably one of the most exciting ledes of all time: "Men have landed and walked on the moon."

       

As noted in our newsletter today, 32 years ago tonight, at 8:37 p.m., the blackout of 1977 began. On its 30th anniversary, we did a full recap of the night. The evening has been well-documented elsewhere as well—here are some more images—but the LIFE database actually has plenty photographs from other blackouts in the city's past (1942, 1959, 1965 and 2003). In 2003 the NY Times looked at how the '65 and '77 ones shaped our history. While the former showed people coming together, proving "reassuring and exhilarating," they sum up the latter with a quote a priest named Gabriel Santacruz from St. Barbara's Church in Bushwick. He said the Sunday after the '77 blackout: "We are without God now."

As noted in our newsletter this morning, on this day in 1953, the first commuter passenger service by helicopter began. New York Airways provided a lift for busy folks who wanted to avoid traffic.

John Adams once wrote to his wife Abigail, "The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival." July 2nd? The authors of Inside the Apple remind us that America actually declared its independence from Great Britain today. Before you clock out, however, they also add that "only 12 of the 13 original colonies had voted to declare independence on July 2—the delegates from the thirteenth colony, New York, did not feel they had been invested with such power and retreated from Philadelphia to discuss their options. Meanwhile, on July 4, the Continental Congress agreed to print the Declaration." On July 9th a copy arrived here, where George Washington's troops were stationed, and it was on that day that New York agreed to be the thirteenth and final colony to declare independence. And yes, this totally means we should celebrate Independence Week from July 2nd to 9th! Someone draft a petition, it's what Thomas Jefferson would have done. In the meantime, check out the Beach Boys rocking Central Park on July 2nd, 1967.

Sure, old buildings have plenty of supporters sticking up for their preservation and landmark rights, but what about coordinates of where historic events took place? The NY Times takes a look at 39-year-old amateur historian, and Columbia grad, Andrew Carroll's project to preserve and mark those sites. While his mission will take him to all 50 states, there are plenty of places here in NYC (Barack Obama Alley anyone?).