Episódios
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What is Thanksgiving without the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? The annual march through Manhattan -- terminating at Macy's Department Store -- has delighted New Yorkers for a century and been a part of the American tradition of Thanksgiving since it was first broadcast nationally on television in the 1950s.
Macy's began the parade in 1924 as a way to promote the new Seventh Avenue extension of their Herald Square location -- and to overshadow its department store rival Gimbel's. That first parade had many of the hallmarks of our modern parade -- from floats to Santa Claus - however it was much longer. Six miles!
One major tradition is thankfully gone -- releasing the parade balloons into the air and encouraging New Yorkers to chase after them. After one near disaster in 1932 (airplane, meet balloon zebra) this curious contest was discontinued.
By the late 1930s, the real world began seeping into the fairy-tale parade route, and during World War II, the parade was cancelled entirely -- a prohibition kicked off in a rather violent balloon deflation ceremony led by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.
Television would change the parade -- and the holiday -- forever. With NBC broadcasting starting in the 1950s, people could tune in from across the country, creating more opportunities to promote .... everything!
By the 1970s, the parade was a festival of commercialism, a beloved kitsch-fest featuring lip-syncing vocalists, ever larger balloons, morning show hosts and product placements embedded within other product placements.
But harsh winds and cold could be detrimental to the balloons and, sometimes, to the bystanders. Why will you never see a Cat In The Hat balloon in the parade again?
FEATURING: A cast of B and C list celebrities, thousands of out-of-town marching bands and a few favorite balloons (Snoopy, Underdog, the Tin Man and more)
Visit the website for pictures and other information about the parade
Read Greg's extensive article on the New York City connections of the film Miracle on 34th Street
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The energy and personality of New York City runs through its local businesses -- mom-and-pop shops, independently run stores and restaurants, often family run operations.
We live in a world of chain stores, franchises, corporate run operations and online retailers that have run many of these kinds of stores out of business. But what is New York without its diners, its small book shops, its curious antique stores and its historic delis?
These kinds of shops contribute to the health of a neighborhood. And today we're celebrating them with Nicolas Heller, better known to his 1.4 million Instagram followers as New York Nico, "the unofficial talent scout of New York City."
But he's also helped lift up small businesses and even helped them survive through the pandemic and beyond.
And now Heller's new book New York Nico's Guide to NYC, he highlights 100 of his favorite small business from all five boroughs. So we thought we'd geek out with him for about an hour, talking about our favorite small places in the city.
FEATURING: Astor Place Hairstylists, Pearl River Mart, Katz Deli, Casa Amadeo, Fishs Eddy, DeFonte's in Red Hook and many, many more
And remember to shop local this holiday season!
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The young socialite Dorothy Arnold seemingly led a charmed and privileged life. The niece of a Supreme Court justice, Dorothy was the belle of 1900s New York, an attractive and vibrant young woman living on the Upper East Side with her family. She hoped to become a published magazine writer and perhaps someday live by herself in Greenwich Village.
But on December 12, 1910, while running errands in the neighborhood of Madison Square Park, Dorothy Arnold — simply vanished.
In this investigative new podcast, we look at the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, from the mysterious clues left in her fireplace to the suspicious behavior exhibited by her family.
This mystery captivated New Yorkers for decades as revelations and twists to the story continued to emerge. As one newspaper described it: “There is general agreement among police officials that the case is in a class by itself.”
ALSO: What secrets lurk in the infamous Pennsylvania ‘House of Mystery’? And could a sacred object found in Texas hold the key to solving the crime?
Visit the website to see photographs and images related to this show
A version of this show was originally released in May 2016 (episode 205). It has been newly reedited and remastered.
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On January 1, 1898, Greater New York was formed from the union of two cities – New York and Brooklyn, along with other towns and villages of the region, creating the five boroughs we know and love today.
But each of those five boroughs brings their own unique histories and personalities. And so for this year’s annual Bowery Boys Halloween Special, we thought we’d give each borough the spotlight – or rather the spooklight – to highlight the city’s haunted landscape, from rural escapes to densely populated urban centers. Ghosts, you see, can manifest anywhere!
And a special treat -- every single one of these ghost stories was sourced from actual newspaper and magazine reporting of their respective eras. Journalists on a ghost beat, finding ghostly activity in every corner of the city.
The Bronx: The Reptile House at the Bronx Zoo doesn't seem like a haunted house, but when a sudden ghost whistling disturbs both man and beast alike, zoo directors call a meeting .... and a medium.
Brooklyn: When a former hospital in Flatbush converts into a luxury apartment tower, horrifying poltergeists stop by to spook the new tenants. Is it all a ruse -- or something more sinister?
Manhattan: The Russian mystic Madame Blavatsky attempts to divine the identity of a spooky ghost orb along the East River waterfront. Is it the apparition of the beloved watchman Old Shep?
Queens: The 19th-century town of Flushing seemed overflowing with ghost stories! But none more notorious than the sight of three sword-wielding spirits at the Old Meeting House, the 17th-century house of worship with a few secrets under its foundations.
Staten Island: A tombstone-nabbing ghoul at the Old Clove Cemetery in Concord decides to ride a trolley.
Find the complete list of Bowery Boys ghost story podcasts here.
Get tickets to our live Ghost Stories of Old New York podcast (Oct 29-31, 2024) at Joe's Pub here
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New York City has its fair share of famous 'urban legends' -- persistent rumors, too good to be true, often macabre and dark.
No, we're not talking about just about ghost stories. (Those arrive next episode.) We mean far fetched, reality defying fantasies sometimes rooted in science fiction and horror – with just enough bearing to the real world that many people believe them to be true.
Tom and Greg go deep into their favorite New York urban legends. breaking down their origins and revealing the hidden truths that live beneath the legends. This episode answers the questions:
-- Are there alligators in the sewer? Believe it or not, there are. Or at least, there were. Kinda. New York's most famous urban legend has a fun and twisted origin.
-- Does the Cropsey Maniac stalk the corridors of a New York ruin? Campfire tales collide with genuine institutional breakdowns and real-life horrors in this somber story set in Staten Island.
-- Did somebody really sell the Brooklyn Bridge? The truth is even more surprising!
-- Have UFO's landed in New York City? Sounds preposterous, but one incident in 1989 ignited a decade of conspiracies, entangling both the New York Post and the United Nations. You'll never look at Pier 17 the same way again....
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Ida Wood had a secret. Born Ida Mayfield in New Orleans, Ida moved to New York in the 1850s and through her marriage to Benjamin Wood, publisher of the New York Daily News, she entered society.
By the 1870s, Ida’s name was regularly found in the social columns of the city’s newspapers. So why, in 1907, did Ida Wood cash in – withdrawing her fortune from the bank and then, along with her sister and daughter, retreat into a suite at the Herald Square Hotel… for decades?
This is the story of a Gilded Age Belle turned recluse, who chose to withdraw from society while still living in the heart of it. It’s also the story of the fortune hunters who circled around her in her final years.
And most incredibly – it’s the story of what happened next.
Check out the Bowery Boys website for photos of Ida, Ben, the Herald Square Hotel, plus the "alternate ending" proposed by Joseph Cox, author of The Recluse of Herald Square.
After listening to this episode, dive into these past shows with similar themes and locations
-- Herald Square
-- Fernando Wood
-- When Longacre Square Became Times SquareThis episode is part of the Bowery Boys Season of Mysteries, running through September and October:
-- The Ghosty Men: Inside the Collyer Mansion
This episode was edited by Kieran Gannon
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In 2022, Greg received a large box in the mail, containing hundreds of news clippings and documents related to the Collyer Brothers. This expanded, newly edited version of his 2019 show on the Collyer Brothers includes some of this research.
New York City, with over 8 million people, is filled with stories of people who just want to be left alone – recluses, hermits, cloistering themselves from the public eye, closing themselves off from scrutiny.
However, none attempted to seal themselves off so completely in the way that Homer and Langley Collyer attempted in the 1930s and 1940s.
Their story is infamous. In going several steps further to be left alone, these 'ghosty men' drew attention to themselves and to their crumbling Fifth Avenue mansion – dubbed by the press ‘the Harlem house of mystery’.
They were the children of the Gilded Age, clinging to blue-blooded lineage and drawing-room social customs, in a neighborhood about to become the heart of African-American culture. But their unusual retreat inward — off the grid, hidden from view — suggested something more troubling than fear and isolation. And in the end, their house consumed them.
Visit the website for images of people and places from this show
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What was Times Square before the electric billboards, before the Broadway theaters and theme restaurants, before the thousands and thousands of tourists?
What was Times Square before it was Times Square? Today it’s virtually impossible to find traces of the area’s 18th and 19th century past. But in this episode, Tom and Greg will peel away the glamour and chaos — evict the Elmos and the pedicabs — to explore a far different world — of colonial estates, rolling farms, horse stables, and beer-themed hotels.
They’ll be ENDING their story today on the date December 31, 1904, when the very first New Year’s Eve celebration was held here – in the plaza newly christened as Times Square. But if you had walked through here fifty years earlier, you certainly would not have called it ‘the crossroads of the world.’
FEATURING: The Vanderbilts, the Pabsts, the Ochs, and the biggest musical of the 1900s! And a few connections in Times Square where you can still find these 19th-century traces of the past.
This show was edited by Kieran Gannon
Visit the website for images and other information, including recommendations of other Bowery Boys podcasts
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In 1886, during a miles-long parade celebrating the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, office workers in lower Manhattan began heaving ticker tape out the windows, creating a magical, blizzard-like landscape.
That tradition stuck. Today that particular corridor of Broadway -- connecting Battery Park to City Hall -- is known as the "Canyon of Heroes" thanks to the popularity of the ticker-tape parade.
While many cities with skyscrapers host ticker-tape parades today, New York was the place they originated in the late 19th century and for a very obvious reason -- the ticker-tape itself, a byproduct of the Financial District which revolutionized the way stocks were traded.
New York has regularly honored athletes, politicians, pilots, kings and queens, astronauts and generals with ticker-tape parades for over 125 years. Today, they're best known as a way to celebrate New York sports teams, the winners of the World Series, the Super Bowl or the Stanley Cup.
The story of the ticker-tape parade is also a story of modern American history in capsule form, celebrating technological achievements, victories in war, cultural milestones and international unity.
Greg and Tom are back in the studio to give you a rundown of New York's greatest parades. And they also pay tribute to those other local heroes -- the Department of Sanitation who cleans up after these festive but messy celebrations.
Visit the website for more information and other stories from the Bowery Boys
Get your tickets for The Gilded Age Unplugged with Greg Young and Carl Raymond (Sept 5 at the Montauk Club) here.
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One-two-three-four! The Ramones, a four-man rock band from Forest Hills, Queens, played the Bowery music club CBGB for the very first time on August 16, 1974.
Not only would Joey, Johnny, Tommy and Dee Dee reinvigorate downtown New York nightlife here -- creating a unique and energetic form of punk -- but they would join with a small group of musicians at CBGB to revolutionize American music in the 1970s.
In this episode we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Ramones' first performances in downtown Manhattan. But this also a tribute to New York rock music of the 1970s and to the most famous rock-music club in America.
CBGB & OMFUG officially stands for "Country, Bluegrass, Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers," and Hilly Kristal's legendary hole-in-the-wall music venue on the Bowery would be best defined by that "other music" -- namely punk, new wave and later hardcore.
Over the course of 70 performances, the Ramones would perfect their sound and appearance on the ragged little stage here at CBGB, building upon musical influences like the local glam rock scene (The New York Dolls, Jayne County) and their own nostalgic callbacks to the Beatles.
The mid-1970s CBGBs scene would produce other artists who would go on to mainstream, international fame -- Patti Smith, Television, the Talking Heads and Blondie. Not only would these artists become associated with the Bowery, but most of them would live on the surrounding streets.
On this special episode, Greg is joined by an incredible roster of guests including Ramones record producer and engineer Ed Stasium; longtime CBGBs fixture BG Hacker; tour guide and Ramones fan Ann McDermott and music historian Jesse Rifkin, author of This Must Be The Place: Music, Community and Vanished Spaces in New York City.
Visit the website for more information and images
See the Bowery Boys live at Joe's Pub this October!
After listening to this show, check out the Bowery Boys podcasts on the history of the East Village:
#416 Creating the East Village
#417 Walking the East Village
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Carl Raymond of The Gilded Gentleman podcast and his guest Keith Taillon invite you into one of the most historically exclusive spaces in New York City -- the romantic and peaceful escape known as Gramercy Park.
This small two-acre square, constructed in the 1830s, has been called “America’s Bloomsbury”. Taking the reference from London’s famous neighborhood once home to many great writers and artists, New York’s Gramercy Park has similarly included noted cultural icons as architect Stanford White, actor Edwin Booth and the great politician Samuel Tilden.
Wandering along the park today it’s easy to gain a view back into the past — many of the original Greek Revival brick townhouses and brownstone mansions remain, some still in private hands. The park in the center is one of the most unique places in America — it is a private park, not a city property and its upkeep has been managed since its inception in the early 19th century by the property owners around the park itself.
Writer and historian Keith Taillon joins Carl for this episode to look back into this hidden pocket of New York City’s past and unlock its history.
Visit the website for images and other information about Gramercy Park
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Follow along with Greg and Tom in this stand-alone travelogue episode as they visit several historic cities and towns in the Netherlands -- Utrecht, De Bilt, Breukelen and Haarlem -- wandering through cafe-filled streets and old cobblestone alleyways, the air ringing with church bells and street music.
But of course, their mission remains the same as the past three episodes. For there are traces of Dutch culture and history all over New York City -- through the names of boroughs, neighborhoods, streets and parks.
From Spuyten Duyvil Creek flowing into the Harlem River along the Bronx shoreline to New Utrecht, Gravesend and Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn. All of those place names can be traced to the Dutch presence of New Amsterdam and New Netherland.
In the final Bowery Boys episode recorded in the Netherlands, Tom and Greg head to several places that have unique links to the New York City area, mostly through Dutch colonial connections made in the 17th century.
Utrecht -- The medieval city with its unique canal wharves and monastery courtyards that may be the bicycle capital of the world. What are its connections to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn?
Breukelen -- How did this charming, quiet old town on the Vecht River become the namesake of the borough of Brooklyn? Both places have "Brooklyn Bridges." But there are a couple of other surprising parallels.
De Bilt -- The ancestral home of the Vanderbilt family, can Tom find one of their 17th-century ancestors among the stones of an old cemetery?
Haarlem -- Manhattan's Harlem remains one of America's cultural centers, and the rustic Dutch city that inspired its name also has cultural riches aplenty -- from its museums to its historic windmill Molen de Adriaan.
WITH -- Mysterious pharmaceuticals, pedal boat misadventures, ghostly apparitions and Aperol Spritzes!
PLUS: The s pecial link between Amsterdam's Jewish Quarter and New York City's Lower East Side -- through pickles
Visit the website for images of their journey
Follow Instagram to see reels from their trip
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The name Stuyvesant can be found everywhere in New York City -- in the names of neighborhoods, apartments, parks and high schools. Peter Stuyvesant, the last director-general of New Amsterdam, is a hero to some, a villain to others -- and probably a caricature to all.
What do we really know about Peter Stuyvesant?
In their last days in Amsterdam (before heading to other parts of the Netherlands), Tom and Greg spend their time getting to know Stuyvesant, thanks to their special guest Jaap Jacobs, the author of a forthcoming biography on the elusive and controversial figure.
And outside the mayor's residence in Amsterdam's exclusive Gouden Bocht (Golden Bend), they meet up with Jennifer Tosch of Black Heritage Tours (with tours in New York and Amsterdam) to investigate the story of New Amsterdam and the Dutch slave trade.
PLUS They stroll around New Amsterdam on a dark, stormy evening. No really! Well, it's the village of Marken where one can find the closest approximation of what New Amsterdam looked like.
AND A few more myths are dispelled. What actual date should New York City mark as its anniversary -- 1624, 1625, or 1626? Did a letter describing the so-called 'purchase of Manhattan' from the Lenape actually come from New Amsterdam? And was New Amsterdam, in fact, even its real name?
Visit the website for images and other information pertaining to this show
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Our adventure in the Netherlands continues with a quest to find the Walloons, the French-speaking religious refugees who became the first settlers of New Netherland in 1624. Their descendants would last well beyond the existence of New Amsterdam and were among the first people to become New Yorkers.
But you can't tell the Walloon story without that other group of American religious settlers -- the Pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts four years earlier.
All roads lead to Leiden, the university city with a history older than Amsterdam. Greg and Tom join last episode's guest Jaap Jacobs, the author of The Colony of New Netherland, to explore the birthplace of Rembrandt, the historic botanical garden and a site associated with Adriaen van der Donck (whose "patroonship," or manor, gives the city of Yonkers, New York, its name).
Then they visit with Koen Kleijn, art historian and editor-in-chief of history magazine Ons Amsterdam, who takes them on a journey through Amsterdam's history -- from the innovative story of its canals to the disaster known as Tulipmania, the 1630 speculative mania that set the stage for generations of stock-market shenanigans.
PLUS: A detour to Amsterdam Noord and a look at a miniature model of New Amsterdam, courtesy of the design and production team at Artitec. And while visiting Ian Kenny from the John Adams Institute, Tom and Greg come upon an old friend holding court in a fountain.
PLUS: Tom sustains an injury --- from a bitterballen!
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The epic journey begins! The Bowery Boys Podcast heads to old Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, to find traces of New Amsterdam, the Dutch settlement which became New York.
We begin our journey at Amsterdam's Centraal Station and spend the day wandering the streets and canals, peeling back the centuries in search of New York's roots.
Our tour guide for this adventure is Jaap Jacobs, Honorary Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the author of The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America.
Jaap takes us around to several spots within the old medieval city -- Centrum, including the Red Light District -- weaving through the canals and along the harbor, in search of connections to New York's (and by extension, America's) past.
This year marks the 400th anniversary of Dutch settlement in North America, led by the Dutch West India Company, a trading and exploration arm of the thriving Dutch empire. So our first big questions begin there:
-- What was the Dutch Empire in 1624 when New Netherland was first settled? Was the colony a major part of it? Would Dutch people have even understood where New Amsterdam was?
-- What's the difference between the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company?
-- To what degree was New Amsterdam truly tolerant in terms of religion? Was it purely driving by profits and trading relationships with the area's native people like the Lenape?
-- The prime export was the pelts of beavers and other North American animals. What happened to these thousands of pelts once they arrived in Amsterdam?
-- How central were the Dutch to the emerging Atlantic slave trade? When did the first enslaved men and women arrive in New Amsterdam?
-- And how are the Pilgrims tied in to all of this? Had they always been destined for the area of today's Massachusetts?
Among the places we visit this episode -- the Maritime Museum, the Rijksmuseum, Amersham's oldest building Oude Kirk, the Schreierstoren (the Crying Tower) and many more
PLUS: We get kicked out of a cloister! And we try raw herring sandwiches.
Visit our website for images and more information
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The Bowery Boys Podcast is going to Amsterdam and other parts of the Netherlands for a very special mini-series, marking the 400th anniversary of the Dutch first settling in North America in the region that today we call New York City.
But before they go, they're kicking off their international voyage with a special conversation -- with the man who inspired the journey.
Chances are good that if your bookshelf contains a respectable number of New York City history books, we imagine that one of those is The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America written by Russell Shorto.
The best-selling book re-introduced the Dutch presence in America to a new generation of readers and revitalized interest in New York City history when it was published in 2004.
Kevin Baker (a recent guest on our show), penning the original review for the New York Times, proclaimed, "New York history buffs will be captivated by Shorto's descriptions of Manhattan in its primordial state, of bays full of salmon and oysters, and blue plums and fields of wild strawberries in what is now Midtown."
And so before Greg and Tom begin their mini-series by speaking with Shorto about his classic book, his experiences in Amsterdam and his work with the New-York Historical Society, where he has curated a new exhibition New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam.
Russell also gives Tom and Greg some tips on places to go and advice on how to explore Amsterdam's old canals and corridors. Is it possible to find traces of New York City's past in that city's present?
And then -- immediately after the interview -- they head for the airport!
Visit the website for more information
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Announcing an epic new Bowery Boys mini series -- The Bowery Boys Adventures in the Netherlands. Exploring the connections between New York City and that fascinating European country.
Simply put, you don't get New York City as it is today without the Dutch who first settled here 400 years ago. The names of Staten Island, Broadway, Bushwick, Greenwich Village and the Bronx actually come from the Dutch. And the names of places like Brooklyn and Harlem come from actual Dutch cities and towns.
Over the course of several weekly shows, we'll dig deeper into the history of those Dutch settlements in New Amsterdam and New Netherland -- from the first Walloon settlers to the arrival of Peter Stuyvesant.
But we'll be telling that story not from New York, but from the other side of the Atlantic, in the Netherlands.
Walking the streets of Amsterdam and other Dutch cities, searching for clues. Uncovering new revelations and new perspectives on the Dutch Empire, And finding surprising relationships between New York and Amsterdam.
For this series we visited Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, Haarlem and more places with ties to New York.
We kick off this mini series next week (June 7). talking with the man who literally wrote the book on New Amsterdam -- Russell Shorto (The Island at the Center of the World)
That's the Bowery Boys Adventures in the Netherlands. Coming soon.
June 7 The New Amsterdam Man
June 14 Adventures in the Netherlands Part One
June 21 Adventures in the Netherlands Part Two
June 28 Adventures in the Netherlands Part Three
July 4 Adventures in the Netherlands Part Four -
Consider the following show an acknowledgment – of people. For the foundations of 400 years of New York City history were built upon the homeland of the Lenni-Lenape, the tribal stewards of a vast natural area stretching from eastern Pennsylvania to western Long Island.
The Lenape were among the first in northeast North America to be displaced by white colonists -- the Dutch and the English. By the late 18th century, their way of life had practically vanished upon the island which would be known by some distorted vestige of a name they themselves may have given it – Manahatta, Manahahtáanung or Manhattan.
But the Lenape did not disappear. Through generations of great hardship, they have persevered.
In today’s show, we’ll be joined by two guests who are working to keep Lenape culture and language alive throughout the United States, including here on the streets of New York
-- Joe Baker, enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians and a co-founder of the Lenape Center, an organization creating and presenting Lenape art, exhibitions and education in New York.
-- Ross Perlin, linguist and author of Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York
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The New York City subway system turns 120 years old later this year so we thought we'd honor the world's longest subway system with a supersized overview history -- from the first renegade ride in 1904 to the belated (but sorely welcomed) opening of one portion of the Second Avenue Subway in 2017.
New Yorkers like Alfred Ely Beach had envisioned a subway system for the city as early as the 1870s. Yet years of political delay and a lack of funding ensured that dreams of an underground transit would languish. It wasn't until the mid-1890s that the city got on track with the help of August Belmont and the newly formed Interborough Rapid Transit.
We’ll tell you about the construction of the first line, traveling miles underground through Manhattan and into the Bronx. How did the city cope with this massive project? And what unfortunate accident nearly ripped apart a city block mere feet from Grand Central?
You'll also find out how something as innocuous sounding as the ‘Dual Contracts’ actually became one of the most important events in the city’s history, creating new underground passages into Brooklyn, the Bronx and (wondrously!) Queens.
Then we’ll talk about the city’s IND line, which completes our modern track lines and gives the subway its modern sheen.
Through it all, the New York City subway system is a masterwork of engineering and construction. In particular, after listening to this show, you won’t look at the Herald Square subway station the same way again.
Today's episode is a remastered and re-edited edition of two 2011 Bowery Boys podcasts, featuring newly recorded material to take the story to the present day.
Visit the website for more information and images
FURTHER LISTENING
Other Bowery Boys podcasts on the subway and mass transit:
Miss Subways: Queens of the New York Commute
Opening Day of the New York City Subway
The First Subway: Beach's Pneumatic Marvel
Subway Graffiti 1970-1989
Cable Cars, Trolleys and Monorails
New York's Elevated Railroads
The East Side Elevateds: Life Under the Tracks -
The story of a filthy and dangerous train ditch that became one of the swankiest addresses in the world -- Park Avenue.
For over 100 years, a Park Avenue address meant wealth, glamour and the high life. The Fred Astaire version of the Irving Berlin classic "Puttin' on the Ritz" revised the lyrics to pay tribute to Park Avenue: "High hats and Arrow collars/White spats and lots of dollars/Spending every dime for a wonderful time."
By the 1950s, the avenue was considered the backbone of New York City with corporations setting up glittering new office towers in the International Style -- the Lever House, the Seagram Building, even the Pan Am Building.
But the foundation for all this wealth and success was, in actually, a train tunnel, originally operated by the New York Central Railroad. This street, formerly known as Fourth Avenue, was (and is) one of New York's primary traffic thoroughfares. For many decades, steam locomotives dominated life along the avenue, heading into and out of Cornelius Vanderbilt's Grand Central (first a depot, then a station, eventually a terminal).
However train tracks running through a quickly growing city are neither safe nor conducive to prosperity. Eventually, the tracks were covered with beautiful flowers and trees, on traffic island malls which have gotten smaller over the years.
By the 1910s this allowed for glamorous apartment buildings to rise, the homes of a new wealthy elite attracted to apartment living in the post-Gilded Age era. But that lifestyle was not quite made available to everyone.
In this episode, Greg and Tom take you on a tour of the tunnels and viaducts that helped New York City to grow, creating billions of dollars of real estate in the process.
FURTHER LISTENING
Listen to these related Bowery Boys episodes after you're done listening to the Park Avenue show:
The Pan Am Building
It Happened In Madison Square Park
The Chrysler Building and the Great Skyscraper Race
The Rescue of Grand Central Terminal
FURTHER READING
This week we're suggesting a few historic designation reports for you history supergeeks looking for a deep dive into Park Avenue history. Dates indicated are when the structure or historic district was designated
St. Bartholomew's Church and Community House (1967)
Seventh Regiment Armory/Park Avenue Armory (1967)
Consulate General of Italy (formerly the Henry P. Davison House) (1970)
New World Foundation Building (1973)
Racquet and Tennis Club Building (1979)
Pershing Square Viaduct/Park Avenue Viaduct (1980)
Upper East Side Historic District Designation Report (1981)
Lever House (1982)
1025 Park Avenue Reginald DeKoven House (1986)
New York Central Building (1987)
Seagram Building (1989)
Mount Morris Bank Building (1991)
Expanded Carnegie Hill Historic District Report (1993)
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (1993)
Pepsi-Cola Building (1995)
Ritz Tower (2002)
2 Park Avenue Building (2006)
Park Avenue Historic District Designation Report (2014)
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