The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Instead of looking back to the history of New York City in this episode, we are looking forwardto the future -- to the new generation of creators who are celebrating New York and telling its story through mediums that are not podcasts or books.Today we are celebrating the historians, journalists and photographers who bring New York City to life on social media platforms like Instagram. There are a million different ways to tell a good story and the guests on today's show are doing it with photography and short films, exposing new audiences to the best of New York City – its landmarks, its people, even its diners.Featuring interviews with three of our favorite people:Nicolas Heller, aka New York Nico, the "unofficial talent scout of New York City," the filmmaker and photographer who manages to capture the magic of the city’s most interesting and colorful charactersRiley Arthur, aka Diners of NYC, who explores the world of New York City diners, great and small, in hopes to bring awareness to many struggling local businessesTommy Silk, aka Landmarks of NY, who shares illuminating photos and videos featuring the city’s most interesting and sometimes overlooked architectural gemsFeaturing stories of the Neptune Diner, the Green Lady, the Little Red Lighthouse, Junior's Cheesecake, Tiger Hood and City Island.And follow the Bowery Boys on Instagram and on TikTok and on Threads (@boweryboysnyc)

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 edition of our 2011 show, we take you through those hellish days of deplorable violence and appalling attacks on abolitionists, Republicans, wealthy citizens, and anybody standing in the way of blind anger. Mobs filled the streets, destroying businesses (from corner stores to Brooks Brothers) and threatening to throw the city into permanent chaos.Visit the website for more informationFURTHER LISTENINGFernando Wood: The Scoundrel Mayor of New YorkThe Hoaxes and Conspiracies of New YorkAnd did you see this performance from the musical Paradise Square, set during the Draft Riots?

The Pledge of Allegiance has a surprisingly recent origin, dating back just to 1892. Crafted by a Christian socialist minister, it initially served as a marketing tool! Discover how its wording evolved dramatically, reflecting changes in American society. The history includes a controversial salute that accompanied the pledge. Explore the key figures and events that transformed it into a staple of national identity and patriotism, all amid growing societal shifts and immigration fears.

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 facto legalized with the advent of alternate-side parking rules, and soon parking meters and 'meter maids' were attempting to keep a handle on the chaotic situation.Eventually the car took over. Will it always be this way?In this special episode, Tom and Greg are joined by Slate Magazine writer Henry Grabar, author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains The World, who exposes some shocking parking violations and even offers a few couple solutions for the future.Visit the website for more images

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 title mean in 2023?FEATURING A visit to the New York Transit Museum, the City Reliquary, Coney Island USA's Seashore Theater and Ellen's Stardust DinerVISIT THE WEBSITE for more information and many photographs

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-STARRING: Well, some of the biggest names in songwriting, composing and singing. And even a dog who talks in German!  At right: Billie Burke from a latter-year Follies. (NYPL)Visit the website for more information and images.This episode was originally recorded in 2013. Since then we have recorded many shows on the Broadway theater district. Please check out these shows for more information:-- Mae West: 'Sex' On Broadway-- Rodgers and Hammerstein-- West Side Story: The Making of Lincoln Center-- The Shuberts: The Brothers Who Built Broadway-- The Cotton Club: The Aristocrat of Harlem-- Tin Pan Alley and the creation of modern American music

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 Greg are joined by the prince of pizza himself Scott Wiener of the long-running Scott's Pizza Tours.Perhaps nobody in New York City knows more about pizza than Scott, and he takes the Bowery Boys on a culinary adventure which includes two of New York's most famous pizza restaurants -- Lombardi's Pizza and John's of Bleecker Street.And a stop at the most important restaurant-supply store in American pizza history, a place were dreams (and pizza ovens) were once made.Visit our website for pictures and other informationOur deep thanks to Chicago pizza historian Peter Regas whose research was used in this show.FURTHER LISTENING: Episodes of the Bowery Boys with similar or related themesThe Big History of Little ItalyThe History of the BagelChop Suey City: The History of Chinese Food in New YorkA Walk Through Little Caribbean in BrooklynA Culinary Tour of the Lower East Side

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 reality for most people. Where survivors were greeted with joy and where many hundreds of people faced the reality that their loved ones were never coming home. Visit our website for images and more information.FURTHER READING:A short history of New York City’s various Titanic memorialsThe doctor, the heiress and the accidental nanny: New York women who survived the TitanicA haunting look inside the LusitaniaFURTHER LISTENING:Chelsea Piers: New York City in the Age of the Ocean LinerThe Complicated History of the Waldorf-AstoriaHow Chelsea Became A NeighborhoodSupport the Bowery Boys Podcast on Patreon