The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Hyde Park, New York, was the home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States. He was born here, he lived here throughout his life, and he's buried here -- alongside his wife Eleanor Roosevelt. But it was more than just a home. The Hyde Park presence of the Roosevelts expands outwardly from the Roosevelt ancestral mansion of Springwood, over hundreds of forested acres fro...

What 19th century American engineering landmark invites you through nature, past historic sites and into people's backyards? Where can you experience the grandeur of the Hudson Valley in (mostly) secluded peace and tranquility -- while learning something about Old New York? Welcome to the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail , 26.5 miles of dusty pathway through some of the most interesting and beautiful tow...

We wanted to present to you one of our favorite new podcasts of the year -- and one we think you'll love. It's called History Daily . And yes, it really is history, daily! Every weekday host Lindsay Graham ( American Scandal , American History Tellers ) takes you back in time to explore a momentous event that happened ‘on this day’ in history. Whether it’s to remember the tragedy of December 7th,...

Frederick Law Olmsted , America's preeminent landscape architect of the 19th century, designed dozens of parks, parkways and college campuses across the country. With Calvert Vaux , he created two of New York City's greatest parks -- Central Park and Prospect Park. Yet before Central Park, he had never worked on any significant landscape project and he wasn't formally trained in any kind of archit...

This episode focuses on the special relationship between New York City and Puerto Rico, via the tales of pioneros, the first migrants to make the city their home and the many hundreds of thousands who came to the city during the great migration of the 1950s and 60s.  Today there are more Puerto Ricans and people of Puerto Rican descent in New York City than in any other city in the nation — save f...

Temple Emanu-El, home to New York's first Reform Jewish congregation and the largest synagogue in the city, sits on the spot of Mrs. Caroline Astor 's former Gilded Age mansion. Out with the old, in with the new. The synagogue shimmers with Jazz Age style from vibrant stained-glass windows to its Art Deco tiles and mosaics. When its doors opened in 1929, the congregation was making a very powerful...

Richard Morris Hunt was one of the most important architects in American history. His talent and vision brought respect to his profession in the mid-19th century and helped to craft the seductive style of the Gilded Age. So why are there so few examples of his extraordinary work still standing in New York City today? You're certainly familiar with the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and the gran...

New York City has an impressive collection of historic homes, but none as unique and or as joyful as the Louis Armstrong House and Museum , located in Corona, Queens. What other historic home in the United States has a gift shop in its garage, aqua blue kitchen cabinets, bathroom speakers behind silver wallpaper, mirrored bathrooms and chandeliers over the bed? Elvis Presley's Graceland perhaps co...

Dorothy Parker was not only the wittiest writer of the Jazz Age, she was also obsessively morbid . Her talents rose at a very receptive moment for such a sharp, dour outlook, after the first world war and right as the country went dry. Dorothy Parker’s greatest lines are as bracing and intoxicating as a hard spirit. Her most successful verse often veers into somber moods, loaded with thoughts of s...

PODCAST What does the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea mean to you ? Religion and architecture? Art galleries and gay bars? Shopping and brunch after a stroll on the High Line ? Tens of thousands of people, of course, call it home. But before it was a neighborhood, it was the Colonial-era estate of a British military officer who named his bucolic property after a London veterans hospital. His des...

The strange, scandalous and sex-filled story of the Ansonia, an Upper West Side architectural gem and a legendary musical landmark. In the television show Only Murders in the Building , Martin Short, Steve Martin and Selena Gomez play podcasters attempting to solve a mystery in a building full of eccentric personalities. Their fictional apartment building is called The Arconia, a name partially in...

Believe it or not, we've got one more brand new Bowery Boys: New York City History podcast for 2021. Look for it on January 31. But for today we wanted to give you another sampling of our new spin-off podcast called The Gilded Gentleman , a look at America's Gilded Age period, hosted by social and culinary historian Carl Raymond . In this new episode, Carl looks at one of the most legendary figure...

Steven Spielberg's new version of West Side Story is here -- and it's fantastic -- so we're re-visiting our 2016 show on the story of Lincoln Center , with a new podcast introduction discussing the film and the passing of musical icon Stephen Sondheim . The fine arts campus assembles some of the city's finest music and theatrical institutions to create the classiest 16.3 acres in New York City. It...

The following is a special presentation — the first episode of brand spin-off podcast called The Gilded Gentleman , hosted by social and culinary historian Carl Raymond. In this debut episode, recorded at Greenwich Village's Salmagundi Club , Tom and Greg sit with Carl to formally introduce him to listeners and also to discuss the ideas surrounding the Gilded Age, a period of great wealth and grea...

The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has brought joy and sparkle to Midtown Manhattan since the early 1930s. The annual festivities may seem steady and timeless but this holiday icon actually has a surprisingly dramatic history. Millions tune in each year to watch the tree lighting in a music-filled ceremony on NBC, and tens of thousands more will crowd around the tree's massive branches during t...

Presenting a new history podcast produced by Tom Meyers and Greg Young from the Bowery Boys: New York City History . If you’re a fan of Downton Abbey , The Age of Innocence or Upstairs Downstairs , then we know The Gilded Gentleman podcast will be your cup of tea. You’re cordially invited to join social and culinary historian Carl Raymond for a look behind the velvet curtains of America’s Gilded A...

Presenting a history of the Bowery in the 20th century when this street became known as the most notorious place in America. And the stories of the lonely and desperate men whose experiences have been mostly forgotten. From the moment that elevated train went up in 1878, the historic Bowery became a street of deteriorating fortunes. And by the 1940s, things had gotten so bad that the Bowery had ta...

November 24, 1966. Millions of spectators flood Broadway in New York City to watch the Macy’s Day Parade on Thanksgiving morning. The iconic floats – Superman, Popeye, Smokey the Bear – are set against a sky that can only be described as noxious. A smog of pollutants is trapped over New York City, and it will ultimately kill nearly 200 people. How did the 1966 Thanksgiving Smog help usher in a new...

The thrilling tale of a classic heist from the Gilded Age, perpetrated by a host of wicked and colorful characters from New York's criminal underworld. Jesse James and Butch Cassidy may be more infamous as American bank robbers, but neither could match the skill or the audacity of George Leonidas Leslie , a mastermind known in his day as the "King of the Bank Robbers". On October 27, 1878, Leslie'...

What are the greatest ghost stories and haunted legends in New York City history? Since 2007 -- every October for fourteen years -- the Bowery Boys podcast has shared the city's most notorious and frightening ghost stories and urban legends. Over fifty-five stories and counting -- from malevolent wraiths who walk the avenues to strange spirits forever at home in some of New York's greatest landmar...

The following podcast may look like the history of New York City cemeteries -- from the early churchyards of the Colonial era to the monument-filled rural cemeteries of Brooklyn and Queens. But it's much more than that! This is a story about New York City itself, a tale of real estate, urban growth, class and racial disparity, superstition and architecture. Cemeteries and burial grounds in New Yor...

There's no business like show business -- thanks to Lee, Sam and J.J. Shubert, the Syracuse brothers who forever changed the American theatrical business in the 20th century. At last Broadway is back! And the marquees of New York's theater district are again glowing with the excitement of live entertainment. And many of these theaters were built and operated by the Shubert Brothers, impresarios wh...

On the occasion of the 245th anniversary of the Revolutionary War in New York City, we revisit the story of the Great Fire of 1776 , the drumbeat of war leading up to the disaster, and the tragic story of the American patriot Nathan Hale. This is a reedited, remastered version of an episode that we recorded in 2015. A little after midnight on September 21, 1776, the Fighting Cocks Tavern on Whiteh...

Just south of the World Trade Center district sits the location of a forgotten Manhattan immigrant community. Curious outsiders called it "Little Syria" although the residents themselves would have known it as the Syrian Colony. Starting in the 1880s people from the Middle East began arriving at New York's immigrant processing station -- immigrants from Greater Syria which at that time was a part...

By the time Audrey Munson turned 25 years old, she had became a muse for some of the most famous artists in America, the busiest artist’s model of her day, She was such a fixture of the Greenwich Village art world in the early 20th century that she was called the Venus of Washington Square, although by 1913 the press had given her a grander nickname — Miss Manhattan. Her face and figure adorned pu...