The Bowery Boys: New York City History

The ultimate bar crawl of Old New York continues through a survey of classic bars and taverns that trace their origins from the 1850s through the 1880s. And this time we're recording within two of America's most famous establishments, joined by the people who know that history the best. In Part One , we introduced you to the origin story of New York City tavern life in the Dutch and colonial perio...

We’ve put together the ultimate New York City historic bar crawl , a celebration of the city’s old taverns, pubs, and ale houses with 18th- and 19th-century connections. And along the way, you’ll learn so much about the city’s overall history — from its changing shoreline to the everyday lives of its working-class immigrant populations. Being an old historic bar isn’t just a novel curiosity for hi...

Once upon a time New York City oysters were not only plentiful and healthy in the harbor, they were an everyday, common food source. The original fast food! For that reason, the oyster could be an official New York City mascot. Oyster farming was a major occupation. Oyster houses were an incredibly common place for people to eat. The greatest restaurants in the city served oysters, as did the smal...

A special presentation of our live show Bowery Boys History Live, recorded at City Winery, July 2, 2025 Bowery Boys History Live is a storytelling cabaret of all-true tales and spellbinding secrets from the past, hosted by Greg Young of the Bowery Boys Podcast and brought to you by a rotating roster of the city’s greatest historians. And for this show, Greg’s has invited a premier lineup of specia...

Ready for a little summertime spookfest? This week we're thrilled to present to you a podcast appearance Greg made back in April on the Spirits Podcast . Hosted by Amanda McLoughlin and Julia Schifini, the Spirits Podcast is a weekly conversational show about all things ghosts, mythology, folklore and urban legends. If you like fun spooky things, add the podcast to your regular rotation!  And as a...

TERROR ON THE BEACH! Seaside resorts from Cape May, New Jersey, to Montauk, Long Island, were paralyzed in fear during the summer of 1916. Not because of the threat of lurking German U-boats and saboteurs. But because of sharks. On July 1, 1916, Charles Epting Vansant was killed by a shark while swimming at a resort in Beach Haven, a popular destination on the Jersey Shore. At first, this terrible...

At the heart of New York’s Gilded Age — the late 19th-century era of unprecedented American wealth and excess — were families with the names Astor , Waldorf , Schermerhorn , and Vanderbilt , alongside power players like A.T. Stewart , Jay Gould and William “Boss” Tweed . They would all make their homes — and in the case of the Vanderbilts, their great many homes — on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The...

People who live in Inwood know how truly special it is. Manhattan's northernmost neighborhood (aside from Marble Hill) feels like it's outside of the city -- and in some places, even outside of time and space. Unlike the lower Manhattan's flat avenues and organized streets, Inwood varies wildly in elevation and its streets wind up hills and down into valleys. It's a twenty minute walk from the mys...

The children of the Gilded Age were seen but not heard. Until now! Listener favorite Esther Crain , author and creator of  Ephemeral New York  joins The Gilded Gentleman for a look at the world of children during the Gilded Age.  As she shared in the episode  “Invisible Magicians: Domestic Servants in Gilded Age New York”  with writings by actual servants, Esther has uncovered documents written in...

While you may know the Brooklyn Museum for its wildly popular cutting-edge exhibitions, the borough's premier art institution can actually trace its origins back to a more rustic era -- and to the birth of the city of Brooklyn itself. On July 4, 1825, the growing village laid a cornerstone for its new Brooklyn Apprentices Library, an educational institution to support its young "clerks, journeymen...

In 1939, Robert Moses sprung his latest project upon the world -- the Brooklyn-Battery Bridge , connecting the tip of Manhattan to the Brooklyn waterfront, slicing through New York Harbor just to the north of Governor's Island. To build it, Moses dictated that the historic Battery Park would need to be redesigned. And its star attraction the New York Aquarium would have to be demolished. The aquar...

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 print a four-page newspaper called the New York Weekly Journal. This is pretty remarkable in itself, as there was only one other newspaper in town called the New York Gazette , an organ of the British crown an...

When Prospect Park was first opened to the public in the late 1860s, the City of Brooklyn was proud to claim a landmark as beautiful and as peaceful as New York’s Central Park. But the superstar landscape designers — Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux — weren’t finished. This park came with two grand pleasure drives, wide boulevards that emanated from the north and south ends of the park. East...

On October 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford walked into a press conference at the National Press Club and, using more precise, more eloquent words than legend remembers, but in no uncertain terms, told New York City that the federal government was not going to bail it out. The following day the New York Daily News -- the city's first tabloid newspaper summarized his blunt, castigating speech into o...

Join us for an interview with Instagram historian Keith Taillon ( @keithyorkcity ), whose detailed posts about New York's history have earned him nearly 60,000 followers and launched a successful tour business. Keith shares the story behind his remarkable pandemic project of walking every single block of Manhattan in 2020, capturing the empty city in photographs that now appear in his first book,...

We invite you to come with us inside one of America’s most interesting art museums – an institution that is BOTH an art gallery and a historic home. This is The Frick Collection , located at 1 East 70th Street, within the former Fifth Avenue mansion of Gilded Age mogul Henry Clay Frick , containing many pieces that the steel titan himself purchased, as well as many other incredible works of art fr...

The history of the United States Postal Service  as it plays out in the streets of New York City -- from the first post road to the first postage stamps. From the most beautiful post office in the country to the forgotten Gilded Age landmark that was once considered the ugliest  post office. The postal service has always served as the country's circulatory system, linking the densest urban areas t...

A special bonus episode! Two years ago we featured Patrick Bringley on the show, the author of All The Beauty In The World (Simon & Schuster) , regarding his experiences as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the life lessons he learned strolling silently past priceless works of art. The book has become a massive best-seller worldwide and has even become a cultural phenomenon in...

It's one of the most foundational questions we could ever ask on this show -- how did New York City get its name? You may know that the English conquered the Dutch settlement of New Netherland (and its port town of New Amsterdam) in 1664, but the details of this history-making day have remained hazy -- until now. Russell Shorto  brought the world of New Amsterdam and the early years before New Yor...

The New Yorker turns one century old -- and it hasn't aged a day! The witty, cosmopolitan magazine was first published on February 21, 1925. And even though present-day issues are often quite contemporary in content, the magazine's tone and style still recall its glamorous Jazz Age origins. The New Yorker traces itself to members of that legendary group of wits known as the Algonquin Round Table -...

Greg and Tom have taken off their historian hats and have become -- movie critics? Close but not quite! This week we're giving you a 'sneak preview' of their Patreon podcast called Side Streets, a conversational show about New York City and, well, whatever interests them that week. In honor of the Academy Awards, the Bowery Boys hosts pay homage to the great Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert while looki...

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Alain Locke 's classic essay "The New Negro" and the literary anthology featuring the work of Langston Hughes , Zora Neale Hurston , Countee Cullen  and other significant black writers of the day. The rising artistic scene would soon be known as the Harlem Renaissance , one of the most important cultural movements in American history. And it would be center...

One of America's first great Italian neighborhoods was once in East Harlem, once filled with more southern Italians than Sicily itself, a neighborhood almost entirely gone today except for a couple restaurants, a church and a long-standing religious festival. This is, of course, not New York's' famous "Little Italy,"  the festive tourist area in lower Manhattan built from another 19th-century Ital...

A star of the New York City skyline is reborn -- the Waldorf Astoria is reopening in 2025!  And so we thought we'd again raise a toast to one of the world's most famous hotels, an Art Deco classic attached to the Gilded Age's most prestigious name in luxury and refinement. Now, you might think you know this story -- the famous lobby clock, Peacock Alley, cocktail bars!  -- but do we have some surp...

There were very few history podcasts around back in the year 2008, but the Bowery Boys Podcast was certainly here ... and so was The Memory Palace, hosted by Nate DiMeo , presenting small, often forgotten vignettes from history in a descriptive, narrative format. In this special interview episode, Greg talks with Nate on the occasion of his new companion book " The Memory Palace: True Short Storie...