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The Bowery Boys: New York City History

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers, Greg Young

The tides of American history lead through the streets of New York City — from the huddled masses on Ellis Island to the sleazy theaters of 1970s Times Square. The elevated railroad to the Underground Railroad. Hamilton to Hammerstein! Greg and Tom explore more than 400 years of action-packed stories, featuring both classic and forgotten figures who have shaped the world.
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Top 10 The Bowery Boys: New York City History Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The Bowery Boys: New York City History episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The Bowery Boys: New York City History for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite The Bowery Boys: New York City History episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

The Bowery Boys: New York City History - #426 Behind the Domino Sign: Brooklyn's Bittersweet Empire
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02/16/24 • 73 min

The Brooklyn waterfront was once decorated with a yellow Domino Sugar sign, affixed to an aging refinery along a row of deteriorating industrial structures facing the East River.

The Domino Sugar Refinery, completed in 1883 (replacing an older refinery after a devastating fire), was more than a factory. During the Gilded Age and into the 20th century, this Brooklyn landmark was the center of America's sugar manufacturing, helping to fuel the country's hunger for sweet delights.

But the story goes further back in time -- back hundreds of years in New York City history. The sugar trade was one of the most important industries in New York, and for many decades, if you used sugar to make anything, you were probably using sugar that had been refined in New York.

Sugar helped to build New York. Thousands and thousands of New Yorkers were employed in sugarhouses and refineries. And of all the sugar makers, there was one name that stood above the rest -- Havemeyer!

The Havemeyers were America’s leading sugar titans and by the 1850s they had moved their empire to the Brooklyn waterfront – and the neighborhood of Williamsburg. Their massive refinery helped establish the industrial nature of Williamsburg and led a rush of sugar manufacturers to Brooklyn, most of which would then be absorbed into the Havemeyer’s operation.

But this story is even larger than New York, of course. It encompasses the transatlantic slave trade, political influence in the Caribbean, Cuba-United States relations, and the sorry working conditions faced by Hayemeyer's underpaid employees.

PLUS: It's Dumbo vs Williamsburg in the Coffee and Sugar War of the 1890s!

Visit the website for more information and images of places from this week's show

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The Bowery Boys: New York City History - #433 New Amsterdam Man: An Interview with Russell Shorto

#433 New Amsterdam Man: An Interview with Russell Shorto

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

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06/07/24 • 67 min

The Bowery Boys Podcast is going to Amsterdam and other parts of the Netherlands for a very special mini-series, marking the 400th anniversary of the Dutch first settling in North America in the region that today we call New York City.

But before they go, they're kicking off their international voyage with a special conversation -- with the man who inspired the journey.

Chances are good that if your bookshelf contains a respectable number of New York City history books, we imagine that one of those is The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America written by Russell Shorto.

The best-selling book re-introduced the Dutch presence in America to a new generation of readers and revitalized interest in New York City history when it was published in 2004.

Kevin Baker (a recent guest on our show), penning the original review for the New York Times, proclaimed, "New York history buffs will be captivated by Shorto's descriptions of Manhattan in its primordial state, of bays full of salmon and oysters, and blue plums and fields of wild strawberries in what is now Midtown."

And so before Greg and Tom begin their mini-series by speaking with Shorto about his classic book, his experiences in Amsterdam and his work with the New-York Historical Society, where he has curated a new exhibition New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam.

Russell also gives Tom and Greg some tips on places to go and advice on how to explore Amsterdam's old canals and corridors. Is it possible to find traces of New York City's past in that city's present?

And then -- immediately after the interview -- they head for the airport!

Visit the website for more information

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The Bowery Boys: New York City History - #421 Evacuation Day: Forgotten Holiday of the American Revolution
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11/22/23 • 64 min

For decades New Yorkers celebrated Evacuation Day every November 25, a holiday marking the 1783 departure of British forces from the city they had occupied for several years during the Revolutionary War.

The events of that departure -- that evacuation -- inspired annual celebrations of patriotism, unity, and a bit of rowdiness. Evacuation Day was honored well until the late 19th century. But then, gradually, the party sort of petered out.....

Of course, Americans may know late November for another historically themed holiday – Thanksgiving, a New England-oriented celebration that eventually took the place of Evacuation Day on the American calendar. But we are here to tell you listener – you should celebrate both!

Greg and Tom tell the story of the British's final years in their former colonies, now in victory known as the United States, and their final moments within New York City, their last remaining haven. The city was in shambles and the gradual handover was truly messy.

And then, on November 25, 1783, George Washington rode into town, basically traveling from tavern to tavern on his way down to the newly freed city. The Bowery Boys chart his course (down the Bowery of course) and make note of a few unusual events -- wild parties, angry women with brooms, and one very lucky tailor.

PLUS: Where and how you can celebrate Evacuation Day today.

Other Bowery Boys episodes to check out when you're done with this one:

-- New York City During the Revolutionary War
-- The Revolutionary Tavern of Samuel Fraunces
-- The Great Fire of 1776
-- The Brooklyn Navy Yard and Vinegar Hill

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The Bowery Boys: New York City History - #418 Theodore Roosevelt's Wild Kingdom

#418 Theodore Roosevelt's Wild Kingdom

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

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09/29/23 • 53 min

Theodore Roosevelt was both a New Yorker and an outdoorsman, a politician and a naturalist, a conservationist and a hunter. His connection with the natural world began at birth in his Manhattan brownstone home and ended with his death in Sagamore Hill.

He killed thousands of animals over his lifetime as a hunter-naturalist, most notably one of the last roaming bison (or American buffalo) in the Dakota Badlands. Many of his trophies hang on the walls of his home in Long Island; other specimens "live on" in institutions such as the American Museum of Natural History.

But as this episode's special guest Ken Burns reveals in his newest mini-series The American Buffalo, Roosevelt's relationship with the animal world was complicated and, in certain ways, hard to understand today.

As one of America’s great conservationists, President Roosevelt's advocacy for wildlife and public land helped to preserve so much of the natural richness of the United States.

And his involvement in the creation of the New York Zoological Society (aka the Bronx Zoo) would set the stage for one ambitious project that would help bring the American buffalo back to the Midwestern plains.

This episode marks the 165th anniversary of Roosevelt's birth in October and the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site (which plays a small but important role in today's story. )

Visit the website for more information and images from this week's show.

This show was engineered by Casey Holford at Stitcher Studios and the interview edited by Kieran Gannon.

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The Bowery Boys: New York City History - #395 Jefferson Market and the Women's House of Detention

#395 Jefferson Market and the Women's House of Detention

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

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09/02/22 • 75 min

In the heart of Greenwich Village sits the Jefferson Market Library, a branch of the New York Public Library, and a beautiful garden which offers a relaxing respite from the busy neighborhood.

But a prison once rose from this very spot -- more than one in fact. While there was indeed a market at Jefferson Market -- dating back to the 1830s -- this space is more notoriously known for America's first night court (at the Jefferson Market Courthouse, site of today's library) and the Women's House of Detention, a facility which cast a gloom over the Village for over 40 years.

Almost immediately after the original courthouse (designed by Frederick Clarke Withers and Calvert Vaux) opened in 1877, it was quickly overburdened with people arrested in the Tenderloin district. By 1910 a women's court opened here, and by the Jazz Age, the adjacent confinement was known as "the women's jail.”

When the Women's House of Detention opened in 1931 -- sometimes referred to as the world's only Art Deco prison -- it was meant to improve the conditions for women who were held there. But the dank and inadequate containment soon became symbol of abuse and injustice.

In this special episode -- recorded live at Caveat on the Lower East Side -- Tom and Greg are joined by Hugh Ryan, author of The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison to explore the detention center's place in both New York City history and LGBT history.

How did the "House of D" figure into the Stonewall Uprising of 1969? And what were the disturbing circumstances surrounding its eventual closure?

FEATURING: Stories of Mae West, Stanford White, Alva Belmont, Mayor Jimmy Walker, Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin and -- Tupac Shakur?

Visit our website for images of the things we spoke about in this week's show.

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The Bowery Boys: New York City History - #390 The Story of Flatbush: Brooklyn Old and New

#390 The Story of Flatbush: Brooklyn Old and New

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

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06/17/22 • 62 min

Over 350 years ago today's Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush was an old Dutch village, the dirt path that would one day become Flatbush Avenue, lined with wheat fields and farms.

Contrast that with today's Flatbush, a bustling urban destination diverse in both housing styles and commercial retail shops. It's also an anchor of Brooklyn’s Caribbean community -- Little Caribbean.

There have been many different Flatbushes -- rural, suburban and urban. In today's show we highlight several stories from these phases in this neighborhood's life.

If you are a Brooklynite of a certain age, the first thing that might come to mind is maybe the Brooklyn Dodgers who once played baseball in Ebbets Field here. Or maybe you know of a famous person who was born or grew up there -- Barbra Streisand, Norman Mailer or Bernie Sanders.

But the story of Flatbush reflects the many transformative changes of New York City itself. And it holds a special place in the identity of Brooklyn -- so much so that it is often considered the heart of Brooklyn.

FEATURING STORIES OF Erasmus Hall, the Kings Theater, Lefferts Historic House, the Flatbush African Burial Ground and the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church.

PLUS We chat with Shelley Worrell of I Am CaribBEING about her work preserving and celebrating the neighborhood's Caribbean community.

This episode is brought to you by the Historic Districts Council. Funding for this episode is provided by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and Council Member Benjamin Kallos.

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The Bowery Boys: New York City History - #370 Tragic Muse: The Life of Audrey Munson

#370 Tragic Muse: The Life of Audrey Munson

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

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08/27/21 • 39 min

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 public sculpture and museum masterpieces. And they do to this day.

But just a few years after working with these great artists, Audrey Munson disappeared from the New York art world, caught up in a murder scandal that would unfairly ruin her reputation.

And on her 40th birthday she would be locked away forever.

boweryboyshistory.com

Join the Bowery Boys Podcast on Patreon for extra audio features, access to cool merchandise and early access to tickets for live events.

Please consider writing a review of our podcast on Apple Podcasts. Brand new reviews are useful in getting the show more visibility. We greatly appreciate it.

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

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The Bowery Boys: New York City History - #363 The Sunny Saga of Jones Beach

#363 The Sunny Saga of Jones Beach

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

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05/21/21 • 66 min

Our new mini-series Road Trip to Long Island featuring tales of historic sites outside of New York City. In the next leg of our journey, we visit Jones Beach State Park, the popular beach paradise created by Robert Moses on Long Island's South Shore .

Well before he transformed New York City with expressways and bridges, Moses was an idealistic public servant working for new governor Al Smith. In 1924 he became president of the Long Island State Parks Commission, tasked with creating new state parks for public enjoyment and the preservation of the region's natural beauty.

But preserving, in the mind of Moses, often meant radical reinvention. The new Jones Beach featured glamorous bathhouses, proper athletic recreations (no roller coasters here!), an endless boardwalk and even new sand, anchored to the coast with newly grown beach grass.

Sometimes called 'the American Riviera', Jones Beach made Moses' reputation and became one of the most popular beach fronts on the East Coast. But more than that, Moses and the Jones Beach project transformed the fate of Long Island's highways (or should we say parkways).

PLUS: Greg and Tom hit the road to give you a tour of Jones Beach up close -- from one end of the boardwalk to the other!

AND The overpass bridges of Southern State Parkway. Did Moses develop them with low clearance to prevent buses (i.e. transportation for low income families) from coming to Jones Beach?

boweryboyshistory.com

Get a Bowery Boys tee-shirt from our official Tee Public store!

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

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The Bowery Boys: New York City History - #357 Edith Wharton's New York

#357 Edith Wharton's New York

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

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03/26/21 • 72 min

New York's upper class families of the late 19th century lived lives of old-money pursuits and rigid, self-maintained social restrictions -- from the opera boxes to the carriages, from the well-appointed parlors to the table settings. It was leisure without relaxation.

In this episode we examine the story of Edith Wharton -- the acclaimed American novelist who was born in New York City and raised inside this very Gilded Age social world that she would bring to life in her prose.

She was a true "insider" of New York's wealthy class -- giving the reader an honest look at what it was like to live in the mansions of Fifth Avenue, to attend an elite dinner soiree featuring tableaux vivants and to carry forth an exhausting agenda of travels to Hudson River estates, grand Newport manors and gardened European villas.

We can read her works today and enjoy them simply as wonderful fiction -- and incredible character studies -- but as lovers of New York City history, we can also read her New York-based works for these recreations of another era.

Is it possible to glimpse a bit of Edith Wharton's New York in the modern city today?

Tom and Greg are joined by Wharton lecturer and tour guide Carl Raymond, a historian who has traced her footsteps many times on the streets of New York (and through the halls of her country home The Mount in Lenox, MA.)

Also: Join us on April 13, 2013 for a virtual celebration of Gilded Age dining, hosted by Carl, Greg and Tom.

boweryboyshistory.com

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

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The Bowery Boys: New York City History - #423 Leonard Bernstein's New York, New York

#423 Leonard Bernstein's New York, New York

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

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12/21/23 • 70 min

On the morning of November 14th, 1943, Leonard Bernstein, the talented 25-year-old assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, got a phone call saying he would at last be leading the respected orchestral group — in six hours, that afternoon, with no time to rehearse.

The sudden thrust into the spotlight transformed Bernstein into a national celebrity. For almost five decades, the wunderkind would be at the forefront of American music, as a conductor, composer, virtuoso performer, writer, television personality and teacher.

He would also help create the most important Broadway musicals of the mid-20th century — On The Town, Wonderful Town and West Side Story. These shows would not only spotlight the talents of its young creator. They would also spotlight the romance and rhythm of New York City.

Bernstein is one of New York’s most influential cultural figures. He spent most of his life in the city, and that’s the focus of today’s story – Leonard Bernstein’s New York.

The new film Maestro, starring Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan, focuses on Bernstein’s personal story and intimate life. That specific angle is not our objective today – for the most part. We’re looking at the relationship between the creator and his urban inspiration. Where did Bernstein make his name in New York City and how did his work change the city?

FEATURING The Village Vanguard, City Center, Carnegie Hall, the old Metropolitan Opera and the Dakota Apartments

And co-starring Jerome Robbins, Aaron Copland, Stephen Sondheim, Comden and Green, Lauren Bacall, Tom Wolfe of course Felicia Montealegre

Visit the website for more information and images

Music snippet information

“On The Town: Act I: Opening: New York, New York” (Studio Cast Recording 1961)

CBS Broadcast, Manfred Overture, Op 115 (New York Philharmonic)

“Joan Crawford Fan Club” The Revuers

Symphony No. 1 Jeremiah (New York Philharmonic)

CBS Broadcast, Don Quixote, Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character, op. 35 (New York Philharmonic)

Fancy Free Ballet_ VII. Finale

I Get Carried Away, On The Town

Christopher Street (From Wonderful Town Original Cast Recording 1953)

On the Waterfront Main Title (Revised)

Candide, Act II - No. 31, Make Our Garden Grow (Finale)

West Side Story_ Act II_ Somewhere

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 (New York Philharmonic)

Leonard Bernstein - Young People's Concerts - What Does Music Mean? (1958)

Kaddish, Symphony No. 3 (To the Beloved Memory of John F. Kennedy) I. Invocation - Kaddish 1

The Ladies Who Lunch / Company Original Broadway Cast

Mass - Hymn and Psalm_ A Simple Song

Dybbuk Suite No. 2 - Leah (New York Philharmonic)

Leonard Bernstein and Shirley Verrett at GMHC Circus Benefit, Madison Square Garden

Mahler - Symphony No.5 (New York Philharmonic)

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FAQ

How many episodes does The Bowery Boys: New York City History have?

The Bowery Boys: New York City History currently has 494 episodes available.

What topics does The Bowery Boys: New York City History cover?

The podcast is about Places & Travel, Society & Culture, History and Podcasts.

What is the most popular episode on The Bowery Boys: New York City History?

The episode title '#420 Garbo Walks: Old Hollywood in New York' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on The Bowery Boys: New York City History?

The average episode length on The Bowery Boys: New York City History is 49 minutes.

How often are episodes of The Bowery Boys: New York City History released?

Episodes of The Bowery Boys: New York City History are typically released every 13 days, 20 hours.

When was the first episode of The Bowery Boys: New York City History?

The first episode of The Bowery Boys: New York City History was released on Sep 19, 2008.

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