The Bowery Boys: New York City History

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#124 Idlewild/JFK Airport May 13, 2011

Show notes

Come fly with us through a history of New York City's largest airport, once known as Idlewild (for a former golf course) and called John F. Kennedy International Airport since 1964. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia wanted a new and improved facility to relieve the pressure from that other Queens airport (you know, the one with his name on it), but a greater challenge faced developers of the Jamaica Bay project -- the coming of the jet age and the growth of commercial travel.
The solution for Idlewild was truly unique -- a series of vastly different and striking-looking terminals assigned to individual airlines. This arrangement certainly had its critics, but it has provided New York with some of the most inventive architecture found within its borders.
From stained glass to zodiac sculptures, from the out-of-this-world dramatics of the Pan Am WorldPort to the strangely lifting concrete masterpiece by Eero Saarinen, we take you on a tour of the original '60s terminals and the airport’s peculiar history.
With guest appearances by Robert Moses, Martin Scorsese, the Beatles and a pretty awesome dog named Brandy.
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#123 TRUMP Apr 29, 2011

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Donald Trump - financial wizard, reality star, or political distraction? The secret in figuring him out may be contained in the roots of his wealth -- a saga that stretches back to the 1880s and begins with a 16-year-old boy named Drumpf who made his living in a barber shop. From there, the story unfolds during the early days of Queens, a borough once sparsely populated and ready for development.
Donald's father Fred built thousands of middle-class homes throughout Queens and Brooklyn and embroiled himself in some controversy regarding the remains of TWO Coney Island theme parks. The Donald built upon the reputation of his father to become a successful Manhattan developer and a flamboyant celebrity with seemingly bottomless levels of lucre. But of course everyone has their limit.
Featuring trivia about Trump Tower, Riverside South and other Trump-labeled properties, this is the brief history of the family behind the New York's glitziest name brand.
CORRECTION TO THE PODCAST: I say the GM Building when I meant the Gulf Western Building

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#122: The Grid - Commissioners Plan of 1811 Apr 15, 2011

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How did Manhattan get its orderly rows of numbered streets and avenues? In the early 18th century, New York was growing rapidly, but the new development was confined on an island, giving city planners a rare opportunity to mold a modern city that was orderly, sophisticated and even (they thought at the time) healthy. With the Commissioners Plan of 1811, uniform blocks were created without regards to hills and streams or even to the owners of the property!
Join us as we recount this monumental event in New York's history -- how land above Houston Street was radically transformed and also how the city revolted in many places. What about those avenues A, B, C and D? Why doesn't the West Village snap to the grid? And why on earth did the early planners not arrange for any major parks?!
ALSO: A podcast within a podcast as we focus on the biography of one of those commissioners. Give it up for Gouverneur Morris, the casanova with Constitutional connections, a Bronx estate and a wooden pegleg.
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#121 Fraunces Tavern Mar 18, 2011

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Fraunces Tavern is one of America's most important historical sites of the Revolutionary War and a reminder of the great importance of tavern culture on the New York way of life during the Colonial era. This revered building at the corner of Pearl and Broad streets was the location of George Washington's emotional farewell speech to his Continental Army officers and some of the very first government offices of the young United States of America.
As with places this famous -- where fact and legend intermingle -- many mysteries still remain, and we attempt to find some answers. Was the tavern owner Samuel Fraunces one of America's first great black patriots? Did Sam use his position here to spy upon the British during the years of occupation between 1776 and 1783? Was his daughter on hand to prevent an assassination attempt on the life of Washington? And is it possible that the basement of Fraunces Tavern once housed a dungeon?
ALSO: Learn about the two deadly attacks on Fraunces Tavern -- one by a British war vessel in the 1770s, and another, more violent act of terror that occurred in its doorway over 200 years later!
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#120 NYC and the Birth of the Movies Feb 17, 2011

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New York City inspires cinema, but it has also consistently manufactured it. And long before anybody had heard of Hollywood, New York and the surrounding region was a movie capital too, the home to the earliest American film studios and inventors who revolutionized the medium.
It began with Thomas Edison's invention of the Kinetoscope out in his New Jersey laboratory. Soon his former employees would spread out through New York, evolving the inventor's work into entertainments that could be projected in front of audiences. By the mid 1900s, New Yorkers fell in love with Nickelodeons and gasped as their first look at moving pictures.
We also take a look at the medium's first superstar director D.W. Griffith and how he helped hasten the move out west. But even as studios fled for sunny California weather, movie making never left New York. Find out where you can still find some relics of New York's pre-Hollywood movie career.
NOTE: As this is of course a New York podcast, we are very NYC-centric here. Our apologies to Georges Melies and to Fort Lee, NJ!
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#119 The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Jan 21, 2011

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The longest suspension bridge in the United States, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge was one of Robert Moses' most ambitious projects, a commanding structure that would finally link Staten Island with Brooklyn. Today it soars above New York Harbor as one of the finest examples of architecture from the 1960s. But it didn't get built without some serious community outcry, from a neighborhood that would be partially destroyed in its wake -- Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
This is the tale of a 16th century explorer, a 20th century builder and a timeless marvel of the harbor, with a design that takes the curvature of the earth -- and one very, very large boat -- into consideration.
ALSO: The bridge's shining moment from a classic 1970s film.
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#118 Times Square Dec 17, 2010

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Times Square is the centerpiece of New York for most visitors and a place that sharply divides city residents. Nothing about it sits still. Even its oldest buildings are severely transformed and slathered with electronic imagery.

In 1900, the neighborhood surrounding the intersection of Broadway and Seventh Avenue was Longacre Square, the heart of the horse and carriage industry, and few dared put a legitimate theater or restaurant so far north. But with the construction of the subway came big changes, and when the new headquarters for the New York Times arrived, so did a new name.

Listen along as we travel through the decades, through Times Square's glory days of lobster palaces and celebrities, the introduction of electric advertisements, its gritty slide and eventual rebound. Is the new Times Square an extraordinary transformation? Or a travesty?

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#117 Mark Twain's New York Dec 03, 2010

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You hear the name Mark Twain and think of his classic characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, his locales along the Mississippi River and his folksy wit. But he was equal parts New York as well, and the city helped shape his sharp, flamboyant character. Follow his course, from his first visit as an opinionated young man in 1853, to his later years in 1906 as a Fifth Avenue tenant, decked out with a cigar and signature white suit.
His tale offers a glimpse into the glamorous life of turn-of-the-century New York, from the smoke-filled billiard room at the Players Club to late nights at New York's dining palace Delmonico's. Tune in and find out which parts of Mark Twain's city are still around and which of his old homes you can still visit today.
With co-stars Ulysses S. Grant, Helen Keller, Artemus Ward, and the frog that helped make Samuel Clemens famous.
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A slight correction: I mentioned in the show that Mark Twain only worked on one play in his lifetime, called 'Is He Dead?'. That might have been his only solo attempt, but he did try many years earlier to pen one in collaboration with Bret Harte. The play, called "Ah Sin: The Heathen Chinee", opened and closed in 1877. It was an unmitigated flop and a total creative failure. He worked on another collaborative play called "Cap'n Wheeler" the next year.

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#116 American Museum of Natural History Nov 24, 2010

Show notes

Millions of years of space rocks, fossils, artifacts and specimens are housed in New York's world famous natural history complex on the Upper West Side. But few know the whole story about the museum itself.
Residents of New York tried a few times to establish a legitimate natural history venue in the city, including an aborted plan for a Central Park dinosaur pavilion. With the American Museum of Natural History, the city had a premier institution that sent expeditions to the four corners of the earth.
Tune in to hear the stories of some of the museum's most treasured artifacts and the origins of its collection. And find out the tragic tale of Minik the Eskimo, a boy subject by museum directors to bizarre and cruel lie.
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#115 African Burial Ground Nov 05, 2010

Show notes

During the construction of a downtown federal administration building, an extraordinary find was discovered -- the remnants of a burial ground used by African slaves during the 18th century.

In the earliest days of New Amsterdam, the first Africans were brought against their will to help build the new Dutch port, slaves for a city that would be built upon their backs. Later, forced to repress the cultural expressions of their forefathers, the early black population of British New York did preserve their heritage in the form of burial rites, in a small 'Negro Burial Ground' to the south of Collect Pond (and just a couple short blocks to today's City Hall).

How did this small plot of land -- and its astounding contents -- become preserved in the middle of the most bustling area of the most bustling city in the world? And why is it considered one of the most spectacular archaelogical finds in New York City history?

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