Inside the Apple

Greenwich Village: Today and Yesterday

2019-09-04T12:20:00.001-04:00

Eighth Street, ca. 1945, by Berenice Abbott

Seventy years ago, photographer Berenice Abbott and writer Henry Lanier published Greenwich Village: Yesterday and Today, a book that was one part photographic portrait of the neighborhood, one part history, and one part (quasi) walking tour.

Earlier this summer, James headed out with a copy of the book to see how much of Lanier and Abbott's neighborhood still exists. The results were published today by Curbed NY and can be read at

https://ny.curbed.com/2019/9/4/20847376/greenwich-village-berenice-abbott-history-tour

Abbott's photos, while not as famous as those she took in the 1930s for Changing New York, capture the Village on the cusp of change. As James notes in the article, many of the places Abbott photographed were already on the verge of closing when she captured the images. Some of the Abbott photos that weren't reproduced in the story are included below.

The Lafayette Hotel, ca. 1945, by Berenice Abbott

Edward Hopper in his studio, ca. 1945-48, by Berenice Abbott

Children playing in Washington Square Park, ca. 1945, by Berenice Abbott

* * * *

Want more updates on NYC history?

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/JamesNevius (main account)

https://twitter.com/insidetheapple

https://twitter.com/footprintsinny

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/james_nevius

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/JamesNeviusAuthor (main account)

https://www.facebook.com/insidetheapple/

https://www.facebook.com/footprintsinnewyork/

* * * *

Urban Archive's "My Archive"

2019-06-01T11:07:00.002-04:00

From June 1 to June 30, New York's Urban Archive is collecting photos shot in New York City for their "My Archive" project, which documents scenes from all around the city.

As the website explains:

New York, dig into your family archives and join us in telling the story of our city! For the entire month of June, we are once again collecting personal histories and photographs of New Yorkers captured on city streets across the five boroughs.

Submissions will be accepted between June 1 and June 28. All photographs that meet the selection criteria listed below will be added to our permanent, citywide archival collection.

With the help of our esteemed panel of Quintessential New Yorkers, we will also pick 25 stories from the submission pool to highlight in Urban Archive and feature on LinkNYC kiosks in proximity to where the photographs were originally taken. Selected submissions will be announced on July 12, 2019.

That panel of "quintessential" New Yorkers includes actor Debi Mazar, Gothamist publisher Jake Dobkin, artists James and Karla Murray, artist/entrepreneur Dave Ortiz, and.... us! So if you have a photo taken in New York City before 2005 and have a story to tell, visit

https://www.urbanarchive.nyc/myarchive

to read the official rules and submit! We're looking forward to seeing your images.

Law and Order: New York on Screen

2019-05-09T17:01:00.002-04:00

Next year, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit will launch its twenty-first season, becoming the longest-running prime-time television show in history. (The current season wraps up next week.)

For thirty years and hundreds of episodes, the various versions of Law and Order have depicted a New York City that is both real and unreal at the same time. This week for Curbed New York, James explored his personal relationship to the show and how the New York City it depicts has changed over time.

Read the full story at https://ny.curbed.com/2019/5/8/18525787/law-and-order-svu-new-york-filming-locations.

* * *

The First License Plate

2019-04-25T13:14:00.002-04:00

1902 advertisement for the Moyea, available from a deal at 3 West 29th Street

On April 25, 1901, New York State became the first in nation to require license plats on automobiles. The plates were not issued by the state -- that practice would not begin until 1903 in Massachusetts -- but instead had to be created by vehicle owners.

As explained by the website LeatherLicensePlates.com:

From 1901 thru mid-1903, New York State required automobile owners to file an application with the state, and upon receipt of a certificate in return, motorists placed their initials on the rear of their machines.... [U]se of the owner’s initials as a means of identification greatly facilitated law enforcement and made drivers more accountable for the way in which they operated their automobiles.

Holding drivers accountable was certainly on the minds of New Yorkers: the first automobile traffic fatality in the nation had occurred in New York in 1896, and skyrocketed from there. In 1913, 221 people were killed in car crashes in the city, most of them pedestrians. (To help alleviate the menace of vehicular traffic, the city installed its first tricolor traffic signal in 1920; officials have been trying to figure out other ways to calm traffic in the city ever since.)

Some Spring Updates from Michelle and James

2019-04-18T13:32:00.002-04:00

Spring Updates from

Michelle and James Nevius

Two new articles by James Nevius:

Recently, James had two interesting stories published on the architectural history of the New York.

In Curbed New York, he authored a history of the Grand Hyatt Hotel (formerly the Commodore) next to Grand Central Terminal. The hotel opened a century ago and is now slated for demolition. James chronicles the various twists and turns in the story, including Donald Trump's mid-1970s "rescue" of the hotel.

The winding history of Donald Trump’s first major Manhattan real estate project

Then, in The New York Post, James took a look at the history of tin ceilings, which were once common not just in the New York but around the country.

Why so many NYC buildings boast tin ceilings

ITALIANS IN GREENWICH VILLAGE
sponsored by the Merchant's House Museum and Village Preservation
TUESDAY, JUNE 18, at 6:00PM

After the Civil War, hundreds of thousands of Italian immigrants came to America, most of them making New York City their first stop. While the Lower East Side and Little Italy are well-known for their immigrant history, many may not remember that the area south of Washington Square was one of the most densely populated Italian precincts in the country.

This illustrated presentation will look at how the Village came to be separated into a wealthier area north and west of Washington Square and a more working-class neighborhood to the south and east. We’ll look at who paved the way for Italians in the district and talk about the importance of holding on to the Italian places that still exist in the area -- RIP Trattoria Spaghetto -- so as to preserve this heritage.

TICKETS ARE FREE BUT ARE CURRENTLY SOLD OUT

Please join the waitlist at https://gvshp.wufoo.com/forms/the-new-new-york-italians-in-the-village-waitlist/

March 21, 1831: NYC's First Bank Robbery

2019-03-21T12:32:00.000-04:00

In honor of the 188th anniversary of this notable event, enjoy this entry from the Inside the Apple archives.

* * *

When workers arrived at the City Bank at 52 Wall Street on Monday, March 21, 1831, they were in for a rude shock. Sometime over the weekend—probably the evening of March 19 or the early morning hours of March 20—the bank had been robbed of $245,000 in bank notes and Spanish doubloons. This was New York’s first-ever bank heist.

Though suspicion immediately fell on workers at the bank, the police had little time to investigate the employees before they received a tip from Mr. Bangs, the proprietor of a “respectable private boarding house” (according to the New-York Evening Post) who was leery of his newest tenant.

On the Monday following the robbery, a man calling himself Mr. Jones had arrived at Mr. Bangs's boarding house on Elm Street* with three small trunks, asking for a private room in which to write. He paid for the room in advance. After a few days, the landlord became suspicious over Mr. Jones’s apparent anxiety, especially concerning the contents of his trunks. When one of the trunks disappeared, Mr. Bangs contacted the police. The police—seemingly without probable cause or a warrant—picked the locks of the two remaining trunks and found bank notes they could positively identify as being from the City Bank robbery.

When Mr. Jones returned to the boarding house, he was promptly arrested. The robber was soon discovered to be Edward Smith, who lived on Division Street with his wife and two children and ran a shoe store. He was well-known to police, having been arrested for a store robbery in Brooklyn but not convicted due to lack of evidence. Stories soon began to swirl of other robberies Smith was allegedly connected to, including the attempted theft of cash from the steamer Chancellor Livingston and a daring mail coach heist in England.

Of the $245, 000, only about $176,000 was recovered from Smith. The bank soon began advertising for people to keep an eye out for the other bank notes (and the Spanish doubloons). One apparent accomplice was arrested in Philadelphia in April when some of the missing bank notes were identified on his person. But it is unclear if the remainder of the money was ever recovered or if that man was, indeed, part of the robbery.

A jury found Edward Smith guilty in a one-day trial (that one day included jury selection, testimony, and deliberations) and he was sentenced to five years hard labor in Sing-Sing prison.

* Elm Street is now Lafayette Street.

Read more about the history of Wall Street in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City
-- NOW OUT AS AN AUDIOBOOK! --

and don't forget

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Alexander Graham Bell and the St. Denis Hotel

2019-03-07T12:19:00.001-05:00

On March 7, 1876, the US Patent Office granted Alexander Graham Bell the patent for his brand-new telephone or "harmonic telegraph." Bell was in a race to secure a patent with Elisha Gray, who'd essentially invented the same device; there's been controversy ever since as to which person should get credit. At least one reason Bell received the patent is that his lawyer showed up at the patent office first.

Some in Bell's corner argue that the patent itself is less important than the fact that he was the first to get a telephone to actually work, on March 10, 1876, when Bell was able to summon his assistant by saying "Watson, come here" into a working phone.

It was also Bell who successfully demonstrated the telephone was more than just a novelty. Of particular importance was his demonstration at the St. Denis Hotel in Greenwich Village in early May 1877 was instrumental in getting the technology adopted.

The St. Denis was opened in 1853, just across from Grace Church. Both buildings had been designed by James Renwick, who would later go on to build St. Patrick's Cathedral. (James wrote a story about Renwick's buildings in the Village for The New York Post, which you can read at https://nypost.com/2018/06/06/the-secret-legacy-of-the-architect-behind-st-patricks.)

Billed as the "most centrally located hotel in the city," the St. Denis was within walking distance of most of New York's prime theaters, restaurants, and department stores, many of which lined Broadway south of Union Square. The hotel quickly developed a celebrity clientele, including first lady Mary Todd Lincoln, who stayed there during one of her frequent trips to the city. Ulysses S. Grant worked on his memoirs at the hotel and, when he was stuck with writer's block, his publisher, Mark Twain, moved in for three months to get him over the hump.

As we write in Inside the Apple:

Though [Alexander Graham Bell] had already patented the device and made public demonstrations of its efficacy—[including a call from Boston to] Providence, Rhode Island, 43 miles away—he hadn’t yet found a market for it. At the St. Denis a crowd of about 50 filled the drawing room on the second floor where Bell made telephone calls to the A and P Telegraph office in Brooklyn, using wire strung across the not-yet-completed Brooklyn Bridge. In the audience were potential financial backers, such as Cyrus Field, the president of the company that 11 years earlier had successfully laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable.

At least one observer at the St. Denis, telegraph pioneer Walter P. Phillips, derided the invention as “a toy, if not an absolute humbug.” But it is clear that others were impressed. Later that year, the first telephone was installed—connecting J.H. Haigh’s home on John Street to his factory in Brooklyn. By 1878, the first telephone directory was published: it contained 252 listings: 235 businesses and 17 people who had telephones installed at home.

Alas, the St. Denis hotel -- converted into an office building in the early part of the 20th century -- is now slated for demolition, so that it can be replaced with a 12-story glass tower.

* * *

Read more about Bell and the St. Denis in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City
-- NOW OUT AS AN AUDIOBOOK! --

and don't forget
Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

John Tyler, Julia Gardiner, and the "Awful Explosion" on the Princeton

2019-02-28T13:11:00.002-05:00

One of the most complicated legacies in presidential history is that of John Tyler, our tenth president. Elected to the vice presidency in 1840, he became president in April 1841, when President William Henry Harrison died a mere month into his term.

While the 12th Amendment had modified the Constitution so that presidents and vice presidents would run together on one ticket, the document had never fully laid out the duties of the vice president or the rules of succession.

(Amazingly, those rules would not be codified until the 25th Amendment was ratified in 1967.)

So, when Harrison died, Tyler assumed the presidency -- against the wishes of just about everyone in Washington, including his own party, the Whigs, who kicked him out. He was pejoratively known as "His Accidency" instead of "His Excellency" and most politically minded Americans probably thought he'd serve as lame duck throughout his entire term.

Tyler, meanwhile, was dealing with personal tragedy. In September 1842, his wife Letitia died in the White House of a stroke, and his daughter-in-law, actress Priscilla Cooper Tyler, took on the role of White House hostess and de facto First Lady.

Tyler, then age 52, soon began wooing Julia Gardiner -- age 22 -- the daughter of David Gardiner, a wealthy New York attorney and scion of the famous Gardiner family of Long Island.

As we write in Inside the Apple, Julia was

a rebellious and bored young woman. In 1840, she appeared in a handbill advertisement for Bogert & Mecamley, a dry goods store. Julia stands clutching a handbag that is actually a sign:

I’ll purchase at Bogert & Mecamley’s, number 86 Ninth Avenue. Their goods are beautiful and astonishingly cheap.

Julia’s family was horrified. Not only was she shilling for a middle-class department store while wearing a gaudy frock, she was doing it on the arm of a man who was not a male relative. Of all the social faux pas in Victorian New York, the unchaperoned female was high on the list.

Julia was immediately sent to Europe to learn her social graces. Soon upon her return, she met President Tyler—who was less than five months a widower—and the two began an oblique romance. Within a few weeks, he had proposed to her. Julia demurred [ed: or, more likely, her parents did], but Tyler was not easily dissuaded. In February 1844, Tyler invited Julia and her father, David, to see the first demonstration of the U.S. Navy’s new twelve-inch gun, the “Peacemaker.”

The "Peacemaker" and the ship that bore it, the Princeton, were the brainchild of John Ericsson, the inventor of the screw propeller who would also go on to also design the ironclad warship. The "Peacemaker" was designed to give the US Navy an edge against older, bigger, and better trained fleets. Tyler invited a host of dignitaries for the Princeton's inaugural run up the Potomac, including David Gardiner and Julia. Perhaps Tyler thought that including the Gardiners in what was supposed to be the biggest triumph of his presidency would bring Julia's father around.

But what started as a joyful and patriotic day ended, in the words of one participant in "scenes of death, and disaster, of lamentation and unutterable woe" when the "Peacemaker"exploded in the breech.

Tyler was on his way topside from having been with Julia below deck when the accident happened. Secretary of State Abel Upshur and Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer were killed instantly, as was David Gardiner. It was, by all accounts, a gruesome scene.

Four months later,

Julia and the President were married at a secret ceremony at the Church of the Ascension, near the Gardiners’ New York City residence on Lafayette Place. Tyler was loath to tell his children about the wedding. His eldest daughter, Mary, was five years older than Julia, who was 24—and the President was himself only nine years older than Julia’s mother.

However, word soon spread of the nuptials—not least because Julia took Washington by storm, spending her nine months as First Lady in a whirl of social engagements and state functions. She established new, more rigid protocols (including the tradition that “Hail to the Chief” be played every time the President made an appearance) and catapulted herself into a lifetime career as Former First Lady Julia Tyler.

Julia and John Tyler left the White House in 1845, and she bore him numerous children. Amazingly their son Lyon Gardiner Tyler (born 1853) still has two living sons -- which means that President John Tyler, who was born in 1790, George Washington's first full year in office, has grandchildren that are still alive.

* * *

Read about 1840s New York City in
Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

and don't forget our first book with the story of John and Julia Tyler

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City
-- NOW OUT AS AN AUDIOBOOK! --

James K. Polk and Early Presidential Portraits

2019-02-14T11:04:00.001-05:00

On February 14, 1849 -- 170 years ago today -- President James K. Polk sat down in the photography studio of Mathew Brady in New York City to have his portrait taken. This photo is the earliest surviving photograph of a president taken while he was in office. Though there's a rumor that a daguerreotype of William Henry Harrison was shot during his one month in office in 1841, that photo has never been found.

Brady's studio at the time was at the corner of Broadway and Fulton streets in the Financial District and is now gone, as is Brady's famous uptown studio, where he took the photo of Abraham Lincoln (below). The only Brady studio building still standing is in Tribeca at 359 Broadway.

While Polk may have been the first president to be photographed while in office, he was not the first to sit for his portrait. That honor goes to John Quincy Adams, a daguerreotype of whom was shot in March 1843. At the time, Adams was serving in Congress; he was actually a representative from Massachusetts for nearly seventeen years after he left the presidency, overlapping briefly with Lincoln during that future president's one term in Congress.

* * *

Read more about Mathew Brady and Abraham Lincoln in New York
in
Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

and don't forget our first book

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City
>> NOW OUT AS AN AUDIOBOOK! <<

Beatlemania!

2019-02-07T11:14:00.002-05:00

On February 7, 1964 -- fifty-five years ago today -- four lads from Liverpool landed at JFK airport and took America by storm.

Coming just ten weeks after President Kennedy's assassination (and two months after Idlewild Airport's renaming in honor of the slain president), the Beatles arrival that day served for many as a tonic to the ills of the world.

The group's first British albums, Please Please Me and With the Beatles had been released in rapid succession in 1963, keeping the group at the top of the British charts for a remarkable 51 straight weeks. In America, it had taken a few months for Beatlemania to catch fire, but once it did in early 1964, the group became an unstoppable force. When they landed at JFK on February 7, 1964, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had just reached the top of the Billboard charts and a crowd of 3,000 screaming fans greeted them. (The fact that 3,000 was considered a crowd seems almost quaint.)

Two days later, on February 9, the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan. Like Elvis's appearance before them, it was a crucial moment in introducing the band to a larger audience and a record 73 million people tuned in to watch them perform "All My Loving," "Till There Was You," "She Loves You," "I Saw Her Standing There," and "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

73 million people equaled about 40% of the TV audience that night. What were the others watching instead? Up against Ed Sullivan that night were The Wonderful World of Disney, The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (starring a 12-year-old Kurt Russell), Imogene Coca in Grindl, and Arrest and Trial, the forerunner to Law and Order.

Three Beatles -- George Harrison was nursing a sore throat -- commandeer a carriage in Central Park for a publicity shoot

On February 11, the band played its first U.S. concert at the Coliseum in Washington, D.C., then returned to New York for two shows at Carnegie Hall. (The shows ran a mere 35 minutes each!) The group appeared for a second time on Ed Sullivan on February 16, playing live via satellite from a hotel in Miami where they had retreated for a vacation Though they were only in the States for less three weeks, the trip had a lasting impact, unleashing the "British Invasion" and forever changing the face of pop music.

* * *

READ ALL ABOUT NEW YORK IN

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

and don't forget our first book

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

>> NOW OUT AS AN AUDIOBOOK! <<

Happy 100th Birthday, Jackie Robinson

2019-01-31T11:34:00.003-05:00

Jackie Robinson rookie card, 1947

100 years ago today Jackie Robinson was born in Cairo, Georgia. On April 15, 1947, he broke baseball's color line went he was sent out start at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers. As a Dodger, he lived at 5224 Tilden Ave in East Flatbush (now a national historic landmark), and later at 112-40 177th St in Queens.

The Dodgers were founded in Brooklyn in 1883 as the Brooklyn Grays, but by 1895 had acquired the nickname "Trolley Dodgers" after the increasing need for residents of Brooklyn to speed across streets to avoid oncoming trolleys. Not everyone was successful, and news reports of the era are filled with trolley accidents.

For years the team went by many names, including the Brooklyn Bridgegrooms and Hanlon's Superbas and did not officially adopt the Dodgers moniker until 1933.

To get some sense of what trolley dodging was like, watch this film from the early 1900s taken from the front of a trolley making its way around Manhattan.

Robinson spent his entire Major League career with the Dodgers, retiring in January 1957. That year, he took a job as vice president for personnel at Chock Full O' Nuts coffee, becoming the first black person to serve as vice president of a major American corporation.

Robinson died in 1972. His funeral was held at Riverside Church in Morningside Heights. That year, the Dodgers retired his number, 42, and in 1997, all other Major League Baseball teams followed suit, making his number the first to be retired by every team.

* * *

Read more about the evolution of Brooklyn in
Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

and don't forget our first book

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City
NOW OUT AS AN AUDIOBOOK!

Thought I'd Seen Some Ups and Downs: Bob Dylan Arrives in Greenwich Village

2019-01-24T10:56:00.000-05:00

Ramblin' outa the wild West,
Leavin' the towns I love the best.
Thought I'd seen some ups and down,
‘Til I come into New York town.
People goin' down to the ground,
Buildings goin' up to the sky.

-- Bob Dylan, Talkin’ New York

As we've blogged about before, Bob Dylan -- Nobel Laureate and towering figure in American popular music -- arrived in Greenwich Village either on January 23 or 24, 1961.

As we write in Footprints in New York, Dylan

grew up in the tight-knit Jewish community in Hibbing, his mother’s hometown. After graduating high school in 1959, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota but only lasted one year. While he was there, he tapped into the burgeoning folk scene and began consistently using the stage name Bob Dylan. Having been a rock and roller, Dylan’s musical trajectory changed around this time when he was introduced to the music of Woody Guthrie, which, in Dylan’s words, “made my head spin.”

In January 1961, he arrived in New York City determined to do two things: perform in Greenwich Village, the center of America’s folk music revival, and meet Woody Guthrie. By the end of his first week, he’d done both. Dylan probably got to the city January 23, the day the front page of the New York Times proclaimed it the “coldest winter in seventeen years,” a line Dylan would borrow for one of his earliest compositions, “Talkin’ New York.” In No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese’s documentary on Dylan’s early career, the singer remembers that first day: “I took the subway down to the Village. I went to the Cafe Wha?, I looked out at the crowd, and I most likely asked from the stage ‘Does anybody know where a couple of people could stay tonight?’”

Dylan joins Karen Dalton and Fred Neil onstage at Cafe Wha? in 1961

Singer-songwriter Fred Neil presided over the bar’s eclectic all-day lineup. Dylan showed his chops by backing up Neil and singer Karen Dalton on the harmonica and was hired to “blow my lungs out for a dollar a day.”

Immersing himself in the music scene, Dylan soaked up everything he heard, from live acts in the bars and coffee houses south of Washington Square to the records he’d spin at Izzy Young’s Folklore Center down the street from Cafe Wha?. In the meantime he continued to embellish his back story. In No Direction Home, Izzy Young recalls Dylan telling him, “I was born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941, moved to Gallup, New Mexico; then until now lived in Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas, North Dakota (for a little bit). Started playing in carnivals when I was fourteen, with guitar and piano. . . .”

Later, newspapers picked up the fake biography, writing about the cowboy singer from Gallup. Stretching all the way back to the city’s Dutch pioneers, people have come to New York to reinvent themselves, to cast off their old identities and strike out in new directions. Dylan’s fanciful back story may have been an extreme case, but it was effective.

* * *

Read the entire Dylan chapter in
Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

and don't forget our first book

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City
NOW OUT AS AN AUDIOBOOK!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Franklin's Birthday

2019-01-17T11:33:00.001-05:00

Benjamin Franklin on the facade of the Brooklyn Historical Society

On January 17, 1706, Benjamin Franklin -- printer, author, inventor, statesman, Postmaster General, and ladies' man -- was born.

Or was it January 6, 1705?

While it is not unusual to have people shave off a few years to appear younger -- or add a year or two when they are young to give themselves more gravitas (see also: Alexander Hamilton) -- the discrepancy in Franklin's birth date isn't vanity.

Franklin was, in fact, born on January 6, 1705, according to what is now termed the "old style" calendar. When Franklin was born, Great Britain and its colonies still followed the Julian calendar. In 1752, when the British finally moved to the Gregorian system, everything was bumped forward by eleven days. Many people born prior to the shift kept their old birthdays, but Franklin happily shifted his forward as a sign that he was in favor of the move. (Most of the rest of Europe had been on the Gregorian calendar since the 16th century; Protestant England's distaste for all things "popish" was one reason they stayed behind.)

However, the switch in 1752 from January 6 to January 17 doesn't explain the discrepancy in Franklin's birth year.

That, too, is a result of the calendar change. Prior to the adoption of the Gregorian system, New Year's Day in Britain was March 25, which roughly coincides with the first day of Spring (and which is also the date of the Feast of the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel revealed to Mary that she was going to give birth to Jesus Christ).

With the switch to new calendar, the first day of the year was moved back to January 1. Thus anyone born in the period January 1-March 25 under the Julian system also had the year of their birth retroactively bumped forward a year, and Franklin's January 6, 1705, birth date was transformed to January 17, 1706.

* * *

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Rear Views

2019-01-10T16:11:00.000-05:00

James has a story in today's New York Post that examines many of the hidden homes in New York City that were once carriage houses, rear tenements, or -- as is the case in the photo above -- an artist's studio and theater.

"Washington Square, New York" (1910) courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The artist was Everett Shinn, a member of the Ashcan School, who lived and painted in New York starting in the late 1890s. Like many Greenwich Village bohemians of the era, Shinn wasn't content to merely paint and founded a small theatrical company to perform plays he'd written. These melodramas had

titles like “Lucy Moore, the Prune Hater’s Daughter.” Though not home to high art — the New York Times called one participant “the worst actor in the New World” — Shinn’s theater is credited with paving the way for the Off-Off-Broadway theaters of today.

You can read the entire story at https://nypost.com/2019/01/09/back-houses-are-nycs-best-kept-secrets/

* * *

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Alaska Admitted to the Union

2019-01-03T11:17:00.001-05:00

On January 3, 1959--sixty years ago today--Alaska was admitted to the union as the forty-ninth state.

There had been some jockeying in congress to decide whether Alaska or Hawaii would become a state first. Alaska--then predominantly home to Democrats--was championed by Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson as it would add two Democratic Senators to the chamber. To counter this, the GOP pushed hard for Hawaii to be admitted, which would add two Republican Senators and restore the status quo.

Today, those roles are largely reversed. Hawaii is a reliably blue state, and while Alaska's politics are harder to pigeon-hole, it is mostly represented nationally by the GOP.

Alaska became a territory in 1867 when Secretary of State William Seward purchased the land from the Russians for $7.2 million. Known as "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox," the acquisition of such a large swath of mostly uninhabited land was seen as a waste to many Americans. A couple of years ago, we traveled to Sitka, Alaska, the former Russian capital, for the 150th anniversary of the handover. You can read more about those commemorations in James's story for The New York Post.

Alaska is both the largest and least densely populated state, with a mere 1.1 people per square mile. By contrast, at its peak in the early 20th century, parts of New York City's Lower East Side were home to 1,000 people per acre--that's 640,000 people per square mile--which some historians estimate made it the most densely populated place on the planet earth ever.

* * *

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Manifest Destiny

2018-12-27T12:37:00.000-05:00

On December 27, 1845, John L. O'Sullivan wrote an influential editorial for the New York Morning News that is credited as the first use of "manifest destiny" to describe and justify the continental expansion of the United States. O'Sullivan wrote:

And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.

Article in which John L. O'Sullivan first used the term Manifest Destiny, reprinted in a newspaper Wed, Sep 10, 1845 – 1 · Mississippi Democrat (Carrollton, Mississippi, United States of America) · Newspapers.com

However, O'Sullivan certainly didn't coin the phrase, despite the fact that he is often credited with it.

For example, the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Advertiser used the phrase in connection to Louis Napoleon in 1840. It seems the future Emperor of France had been caught at a brothel (presumably in New York City), and the Daily Advertiser used "manifest destiny" to describe Louis's fate:

Even earlier, the term was being used to describe one group conquering another. In an address to the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association in 1824, Alphaeus Cary used the term "manifest destiny" to describe the spread of the Roman Empire:

There are even older examples stretching back at least to 1800, though all that we've found seem to refer not to a nation's destiny but -- as with Louis Napoleon -- and individual's. Are there examples in the 18th century? I'd bet a careful sleuth could find them.

Forget to get someone a present for the holidays?
Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York look great on anyone's shelves!

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: The Year at Curbed

2018-12-20T11:27:00.001-05:00

The Elevated Railway near Morningside Park

'Tis the season for year-end wrap-ups and "Best of 2018" lists.

James is pleased to have been awarded two slots in Curbed New York's list of the "Thirteen Best Longreads of 2018" for his history of Co-op City in the Bronx and his look back at the 150th anniversary of the first elevated railway to be erected in the city.

If you aren't already a reader of Curbed NY, it is a great resource for journalism on architecture, urbanism, transportation, and more. The other stories in the "best of" list include Karrie Jacobs's trek to La Guardia airport on foot, Nathan Kensinger's photo essays about Canal Street and Long Island City, and a first-hand look at "glamping" on Governors Island.

Check out the entire list at https://ny.curbed.com/2018/12/19/18146998/best-longreads-new-york-city-history-architecture-2018.

James had a number of other pieces published by Curbed NY this year, including

Thank you for your support this year. We hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!

Michelle and James Nevius

If you are looking for a great gifts this holiday season, Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York look great on anyone's shelves!

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Mary Todd Lincoln

2018-12-13T12:16:00.003-05:00

Two hundred years ago, on December 13, 1818, Mary Ann Todd was born in Lexington, Kentucky. She met Abraham Lincoln after she'd moved to Springfield, Illinois; they married in 1842.

We devote a chapter to the Lincolns in Footprints in New York, as New York and Brooklyn were important to both the president and the First Lady.

As we note:

During Lincoln’s first term, he was usually stuck in Washington, DC, but Mary Todd Lincoln came to New York frequently. Mrs. Lincoln’s first trip after her husband’s inauguration was in May 1861, just one month after the attack on Fort Sumter, and seems typical of her city sojourns. Mrs. Lincoln checked into the posh, new Metropolitan Hotel at Broadway and Prince Street, in the heart of the shopping quarter. This section of Broadway south of Bleecker Street had almost everything an out-of-towner could hope for: hotels, theaters, shops, restaurants. It was the Times Square of its day, and like its modern counter- point, there were probably visitors who checked into the Metropolitan Hotel and never left the environs of Broadway and Prince Street.

Mrs. Lincoln arrived on a Saturday; the next day, she attended services at the Plymouth Church. On Monday, she shopped at A. T. Stewart’s marble palace; on Tuesday, Lord & Taylor’s was on the agenda, as well as a trip to Laura Keene’s theater, which stood on Broadway near Bleecker, just a five-minute walk from the hotel. On Wednesday, Mrs. Lincoln made what was probably her most lasting purchase: new White House china from E. V. Haughwout’s emporium at Broadway and Broome.

The next day, Mrs. Lincoln toured the Brooklyn Navy Yard; the following morning, Mrs. Lincoln inspected the “Park Barracks”—perhaps those in City Hall Park outside the Astor Hotel. Amazingly, the barracks were just about the only sign that America was at war.

Mrs. Lincoln would return to New York many times, ostensibly as shopping excursions, but also, certainly, to get away from the mounting war pressures in Washington. In the summer of 1863, Mrs. Lincoln spent four days in New York, seeing friends, and being entertained on the French frigate Guerriere. It had been less than a month since the draft riots, but Haughwout’s and Stewart’s were open for business, and the theaters on Broadway were full. It was almost as if nothing had happened.

Not only did Mary Lincoln survive the assassination of her husband, she lost two of her four sons in childhood and a third, Thomas ("Tad"), six years after Abraham Lincoln's murder. Only her eldest son, Robert, survived her--he would go on to serve as Secretary of War under presidents Garfield and Arthur.

Mrs. Lincoln died in 1882 at her sister's home in Springfield, Illinois.

* * *

Happy Holidays! If you are looking for a great gifts this holiday season, Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York look great on anyone's shelves!

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Co-op City at 50

2018-12-06T08:50:00.000-05:00

Co-op City in the Bronx under construction in the early 1970s

Fifty years ago, on December 10, 1968, the first families moved into Co-op City in the Bronx. Within five years, it would become the largest cooperative apartment complex ever built.

James took a deep dive into the history of the project for Curbed, examining the legacy of New York's efforts to build limited-equity housing to help alleviate the city's middle-class housing woes.

You can read the story at https://ny.curbed.com/2018/12/5/18126231/co-op-city-rental-apartment-prices-history-nyc.

Meanwhile, if you're dying to own a construction photo of Co-op City, the image above is available from Walmart, of all places, for a mere $62.73 -- a bargain!

* * *

Happy Holidays! If you are looking for a great gifts this holiday season, Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York look great on anyone's shelves!

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Edison's Phonograph and "I Want to Hold Your Hand"

2018-11-29T11:19:00.006-05:00

On November 29, 1877 -- one hundred and forty-one years ago today -- Thomas Edison first demonstrated the device that he would patent seven months later as the phonograph.

Edison's first crude phonograph used tin foil and doubled as both the recording and playback instrument.

At the demonstration, Edison spoke Sarah Josepha Hale's poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb" into a crude microphone. Flipping the phonograph into playback mode, Edison immediately played back the words he'd just recorded to the assembled audience.

And just like that, the future of entertainment was irrevocably changed.

Realizing that tin wasn't the right medium, Edison soon switched to wax cylinders (as shown in the photo of the inventor, above). Wax cylinders were then replaced by round discs and the modern record player was born.

It's a fun coincidence that November 29 is also the anniversary of the Beatles single "I Want to Hold Your Hand," the song that came out in 1963 and catapulted the group into super-stardom. The single was released in the US in December, launching Beatlemania -- and again changing popular entertainment forever.

* * *

Happy Holidays! If you are looking for a great gifts this holiday season, Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York look great on anyone's shelves!

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Some Thanksgiving Thoughts

2018-11-22T12:13:00.000-05:00

The modern holiday of Thanksgiving has become totally enmeshed with the story of the Pilgrims and The Mayflower, though the feast held by those denizens of Plymouth, Massachusetts, was certainly not the first such commemoration in the New World. (Indeed, not only were there early thanksgivings, such as the one at Berkeley Plantation in Virginia in 1619, but often these events were more somber and religious in nature than our current feasts.)

Plymouth Rock

However, the story of the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving is extremely relevant to the history of New York City, because Manhattan was their intended destination.

As we write in Inside the Apple:

The Pilgrims’ voyage to the New World, which started out from the Dutch city of Leiden where they’d lived in exile, worried the fur traders. In the common Thanksgiving story, it’s usually left out that the Pilgrims weren’t en route to Massachusetts at all (which lay outside English territory) but instead had been granted the island at the northern limit of the Virginia colony: Manhattan. (Virginia’s claim to Manhattan was long-standing. When John Smith wrote to Henry Hudson about a Northwest Passage, it was because the river he was describing was part of Virginia.)

After a rocky start, where the Pilgrims were forced to abandon one of their two ships—perhaps because of sabotage by Dutch merchants—they continued on to the New World on the Mayflower, disembarking in Plymouth after a half-hearted attempt to sail further south. When it became clear that the English settlers were not going to move to Manhattan, Dutch traders hurriedly began staking a firmer claim to their territory.

By 1820 — the 200th anniversary of their arrival — the Pilgrims had long been an important part of the cultural DNA of New England, a section of the country that saw itself as separate from (and inherently better than) both the south and the Mid Atlantic states. As an anonymous contributor to the second volume of the New England Quarterly wrote in 1802: “If the inhabitants of New-England are superior to the people of other countries, their superiority is to be attributed to their moral habits.”

In the 1740s, a 94-year-old man named Thomas Faunce had first identified Plymouth Rock as the spot where the Pilgrims had come ashore; on the eve of the Revolution, the boulder was dragged by a team of twenty oxen to Plymouth’s town square to be placed at the foot of a liberty pole. During the move the rock broke in two — a sign of America’s impending war with Britain, some thought — which only served to endow it with greater meaning.

* * *

Modern Thanksgiving didn't really get started until after the Civil War. James wrote a history of that holiday for the Guardian in 2016:

Sarah Hale

We owe our modern holiday to a writer named Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor, novelist and poet (she penned “Mary Had a Little Lamb”).... In her first novel, 1827’s Northwood, Hale devoted multiple chapters to Thanksgiving; at one point, the character Squire opines that Thanksgiving will eventually be celebrated “on the same day, throughout all the states and territories” and “will be a grand spectacle of moral power and human happiness, such as the world has never yet witnessed."

[Hale] took over Godey’s Lady’s Book, which she grew into America’s most popular periodical. Though she insisted that Godey’s remain apolitical, each year Hale would advocate in the magazine’s pages for a New England-style Thanksgiving holiday to be “celebrated throughout the whole country on the same day”. She also wrote to every state governor each year asking that a Thursday in November (sometimes the third, often the last) be dedicated to Thanksgiving.

Many southern politicians were less than enthused. Governor Henry Wise of Virginia wrote back in 1856 that the “theatrical national claptrap of Thanksgiving” was merely a mask to aid “other causes”. By other causes, Wise meant abolition. He knew Thanksgiving was a Trojan horse; cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie would get the northerners through the front door, and they’d soon be spreading their “claptrap” throughout the slaveholding south.

That same year, the Evening Star in Washington DC, along with other southern newspapers, complained that Thanksgiving was an attempt to replace the “legitimate Christian holiday” of Christmas with a secular day where “an astonishing quantity of execrable liquor will be guzzled”.

Still, by 1863, Hale had convinced Abraham Lincoln to declare a Day of National Thanksgiving, though it would not become a true national holiday until Franklin D Roosevelt signed it into law in 1941.

* * *

Abraham Lincoln actually declared Thanksgiving Day twice.

In the words of the original proclamation, issued in October 1863 and actually written by Secretary of State William Seward, the former senator from and governor of New York:

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

However, this was actually Lincoln's second Thanksgiving proclamation of the year. On July 16, he had issued the following proclamation (again, likely by Seward):

Now, therefore, be it known that I do set apart Thursday, the sixth day of August next, to be observed as a day for National Thanksgiving, praise and prayer, and I invite the people of the United States to assemble on that occasion in their customary places of worship, and in the form approved by their own conscience, render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the wonderful things He has done in the Nation's behalf, and invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit, to subdue the anger which has produced, and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion; to change the hearts of the insurgents; to guide the counsels of the Government with wisdom adequate to so great a National emergency, and to visit with tender care, and consolation throughout the length and breadth of our land, all those who, through the vicissitudes of marches, voyages, battles and sieges, have been brought to suffer in mind, body or estate, and finally to lead the whole nation through paths of repentance and submission to the Divine will, back to the perfect enjoyment of union and fraternal peace.

(FYI: That's one sentence.)

The first Thanksgiving of 1863, August 6, was celebrated with proper solemnity. As the New York Times noted the next day, "The National Thanksgiving was observed throughout the City yesterday by an almost entire abstaining from secular pursuits. The stores throughout were closed, and there appeared to be a very general desire to unite in the purposes of the day -- Thanksgiving and Praise. Very many of the churches were open, where proper observances were had, and each was crowded to overflowing." What they were praising and/or hoping for was continued Union success; with the Union victory at Gettysburg in July, many hoped that tide of the war had finally turned in favor of the North.

Of course, on the minds of New Yorkers would have been the fighting closer to home -- the Civil War draft riots -- which had waged on the streets less than a month earlier. However, it is unclear if the riots played any role in the Thanksgiving commemorations.

Having celebrated Thanksgiving in August, why did Lincoln then proclaim another one in November? The declaration for this second Thanksgiving seems little different from the first; there had been no major Union victories in the meantime for which the nation could express thanks; and Lincoln's proclamation doesn't make any ties to harvest festivals, the Pilgrims, or any of the things we now firmly associate with the holiday.

* * *

Happy Thanksgiving! If you are looking for a great gifts this holiday season, Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York look great on anyone's shelves!

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Hans Haacke

2018-11-15T17:11:00.001-05:00

Installation view; Whitney Museum of American Art. Photography by Ronald Amstutz

A few years ago, James wrote a story for Curbed about the artist Hans Haacke and one of his most famous artworks, Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971.
This work was one of the controversial pieces that caused Haacke's 1971 solo show at the Guggenheim Museum to be cancelled. As James writes, Haacke

undertook to map out the holdings of prolific real estate investor Harry J. Shapolsky, who at the peak of his career had owned as many as 200 tenements in Harlem, the East Village, and the Lower East Side. Using public records, Haacke painstakingly unearthed the dozens of shell corporations that Shapolsky and his relatives had created to control properties around the city. Haacke then photographed each property and presented his findings—142 buildings in all—as gelatin silver prints, each accompanied by a dossier of facts: the building's address, block and lot number, lot size, and building type. Below that was information on ownership: corporate entity, date of acquisition, cost of the mortgage, the names of which of Shapolsky's associates were involved, and the assessed land value.

That same year, Haacke also researched and created a second piece: Sol Goldman and Alex DiLorenzo Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971. That piece is now owned by the Tate, but is currently on view at the Met Breuer as part of its exhibition "Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy," which is on view at the Met's Madison Avenue outpost through March 31, 2019. As New York spirals toward ever-increased gentrification, Haacke's sobering take on real-estate chicanery are well worth exploring.

* * *

Want to hear more about NYC history?

Inside the Apple has recently been released for the first time as an audio book!

Visit Amazon or Audible to download today

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: What's in a Street Name?

2018-11-01T16:25:00.005-04:00

image of the Malbone Street subway crash courtesy of the New York Transit Museum

When Governor Andrew Cuomo jokingly (?) suggested the other day that the Newtown Creek be renamed the Amazon River in a bid to woo Amazon's HQ2 to New York, it was easy for historians to get worried. All joking aside, Newtown was the colonial name for the Elmhurst section of Queens, and if the creek were to be renamed, another chapter in the city's history--already all-but forgotten--would be further erased.

But New York has a long history of such street renaming. In Lower Manhattan, as we write in Footprints in New York:

most of the other English names that once defined the city are gone.... [To the English, the Dutch] Pearl Street...was known as Great Dock Street. The nearby Beaver Path—where pelts had once been carried to waiting ships—became Princess Street. During the eighteenth century, new roads were constructed north of Wall Street and given names like Crown, King, and Little Queen.

In a fit of patriotism in 1794, all these British names were swept away. Great Dock reverted to Pearl; in a sort of reverse fairy-tale move, the Princess was turned back into a Beaver. Pointedly, Crown Street became Liberty Street. In this case, history was written by the winners on the street signs.

It isn't just the Newtown Creek renaming that has brought this topic to mind. Today marks the centennial of the worst subway disaster in New York City history, the Malbone Street Wreck. On November 1, 1918, a Brooklyn Rapid Transit subway train traveling at a high rate of speed and piloted by a driver with no experience crashed during the evening rush hour, killing at least 93 people and injuring hundreds.

Today, most people have never heard of Malbone Street. That's because the crash was so horrific that Malbone Street was renamed Empire Boulevard so that people wouldn't associate it with the tragedy. Just as it had done in the early American era, the city was renaming the street in order to forget the past.

However, because so many streets in New York are a little off-kilter, this doesn't always work.

In Lower Manhattan, for example, we still have Hanover Square--named for the British royal family--and Thames Street stands near Trinity Church as a reminder of the city's English roots.

In Brooklyn, one block in Crown Heights remains Malbone Street to this day, as you can see in the Google street view photo above. The map below is from 1898 and shows the issue. Malbone Street had an odd spur--probably the result of street names being appended in the area before there was any sort of comprehensive urban planning--which meant that in the 19th century, Malbone essentially ran parallel to itself for a block. (This is very similar to the issues we still have with Waverley Place in Greenwich Village.)

So, when most of Malbone Street became Empire Boulevard after the subway crash, the spur stayed Malbone--as it remains to this day.

* * *

Want to hear more about NYC history?

Inside the Apple has recently been released for the first time as an audio book!

Visit Amazon or Audible to download today

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: The Erie Canal

2018-10-25T11:32:00.000-04:00

I've got an old mule and her name is Sal
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
She's a good old worker and a good old pal
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal
We've hauled some barges in our day
Filled with lumber, coal, and hay
And every inch of the way we know
From Albany to Buffalo

-- From "Low Bridge Everybody Down" aka "Erie Canal"

from the collection of the New-York Historical Society

On October 26, 1825, one of the most important engineering feats of the 19th century was completed with the opening of the Erie Canal. A cannon was fired in Buffalo to mark the moment. Then, a series of cannons along the canal and the Hudson River had been set up for the occasion and as each gunner heard the shot, he fired his own; in 90 minutes the news passed, cannon to cannon, along the waterway to New York City.

Ten days later, New York's governor, DeWitt Clinton, stood on the deck of a packet boat anchored off Sandy Hook and poured a barrel of water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean. This "wedding of the waters," as it came to be known, was the symbolic completion of the Erie Canal, the most important waterway of its day and the engineering project that once and for all sealed New York's fate as the most important commercial city in America.

An entire chapter of Footprints in New York is dedicated to Governor (and NYC mayor) Clinton, the unsung hero of 19th-century New York politics. As we write in the book, Clinton

was the most important politician of his generation—perhaps the most important politician New York has ever had—which, considering the company, is quite an achievement.

Clinton was New York’s junior senator; then, he served ten one-year terms as the city’s mayor between 1803 and 1815. Later, as governor, he oversaw the building of the Erie Canal, the biggest engineering project of its day, which radically transformed New York’s economy. Had Clinton carried the state of Pennsylvania in the election of 1812—which he nearly did—he would have been president of the United States, and might have brought a quick resolution to the war with Great Britain.

Clinton’s influence is incalculable. From expanding trade through the Erie Canal to overseeing the real estate revolution embodied in the city’s rigid grid plan, the effects of Clinton’s years in politics are still felt today by every New Yorker.

On November 4, 1825, in a ceremony for dignitaries and the press, Governor Clinton poured a small cask of water into the Atlantic Ocean. An artist captured the moment: Clinton stands on the edge of a barge, the miniature cask grasped in his hands, as the water—collected ten days earlier in Lake Erie—gracefully cascades into the sea.

Prior to the canal's opening, it was cheaper to bring goods from Liverpool to New York than to haul them overland from Illinois. Once the canal was finished, not only did New York have access to plentiful raw materials from the Midwest, finished products could now also speed to the heartland, opening up new markets for the city's burgeoning manufacturing base. By the time of the Civil War, New York's control over shipping was so complete that nearly all the cotton being shipped from the south to Europe was being sent out of New York harbor rather than directly from southern ports.

* * *

Want to hear more about NYC history?

Inside the Apple has recently been released for the first time as an audio book!

Visit Amazon or Audible to download today

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Melville's Whale

2018-10-18T12:45:00.002-04:00

site for processing whale oil, Antarctica

On October 18, 1851, a novel called The Whale by Herman Melville was published in England. It would come out in America about a month later under the title Moby Dick and would become a landmark of 19th-century American literature. (Though not immediately -- the first edition was a failure.)

Melville was born in Lower Manhattan and -- when he wasn't working on square-rigged sailing ships -- spent most of his life in the city.

"There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward…. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries."

-- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

For years, there was a bust of Melville inset into the wall behind 17 State Street, a 1988 office tower built by Emory Roth & Sons in the Financial District. The bust marked the spot (sort of) where Melville was born at 6 Pearl Street.

However, a recent renovation of the plaza has erased the Melville memorial. Do any readers know what happened to the bust? We've reached out to the leasing agent for the building, but so far have not heard back.

* * *

Want to hear more about NYC history?

Inside the Apple has recently been released for the first time as an audio book!

Visit Amazon or Audible to download today

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Inside the Apple

Greenwich Village: Today and Yesterday

Urban Archive's "My Archive"

Law and Order: New York on Screen

The First License Plate

Some Spring Updates from Michelle and James

Spring Updates from

Michelle and James Nevius

Two new articles by James Nevius:

ITALIANS IN GREENWICH VILLAGEsponsored by the Merchant's House Museum and Village PreservationTUESDAY, JUNE 18, at 6:00PM

March 21, 1831: NYC's First Bank Robbery

Alexander Graham Bell and the St. Denis Hotel

* * *

John Tyler, Julia Gardiner, and the "Awful Explosion" on the Princeton

* * *

James K. Polk and Early Presidential Portraits

* * *

Beatlemania!

* * *

Happy 100th Birthday, Jackie Robinson

* * *

Thought I'd Seen Some Ups and Downs: Bob Dylan Arrives in Greenwich Village

* * *

The Curious Case of Benjamin Franklin's Birthday

* * *

Postcard Thursday: Rear Views

* * *

Postcard Thursday: Alaska Admitted to the Union

* * *

Postcard Thursday: Manifest Destiny

Forget to get someone a present for the holidays?Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York look great on anyone's shelves!

Postcard Thursday: The Year at Curbed

If you are looking for a great gifts this holiday season, Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York look great on anyone's shelves!

Postcard Thursday: Mary Todd Lincoln

* * *

Happy Holidays! If you are looking for a great gifts this holiday season, Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York look great on anyone's shelves!

Postcard Thursday: Co-op City at 50

Postcard Thursday: Edison's Phonograph and "I Want to Hold Your Hand"

Postcard Thursday: Some Thanksgiving Thoughts

Postcard Thursday: Hans Haacke

Want to hear more about NYC history? Inside the Apple has recently been released for the first time as an audio book! Visit Amazon or Audible to download today

Postcard Thursday: What's in a Street Name?

Want to hear more about NYC history? Inside the Apple has recently been released for the first time as an audio book! Visit Amazon or Audible to download today

Postcard Thursday: The Erie Canal

Want to hear more about NYC history?

Inside the Apple has recently been released for the first time as an audio book!

Visit Amazon or Audible to download today

Postcard Thursday: Melville's Whale

Want to hear more about NYC history?

Inside the Apple has recently been released for the first time as an audio book!

Visit Amazon or Audible to download today

ITALIANS IN GREENWICH VILLAGE
sponsored by the Merchant's House Museum and Village Preservation
TUESDAY, JUNE 18, at 6:00PM

Forget to get someone a present for the holidays?
Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York look great on anyone's shelves!

Want to hear more about NYC history?

Inside the Apple has recently been released for the first time as an audio book!

Visit Amazon or Audible to download today

Want to hear more about NYC history?

Inside the Apple has recently been released for the first time as an audio book!

Visit Amazon or Audible to download today