The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Latest Episodes:

#458 Parkways and the Transformation of Brooklyn May 09, 2025

Show notes

When Prospect Park was first opened to the public in the late 1860s, the City of Brooklyn was proud to claim a landmark as beautiful and as peaceful as New York’s Central Park. But the superstar landscape designers — Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux — weren’t finished.

This park came with two grand pleasure drives, wide boulevards that emanated from the north and south ends of the park. Eastern Parkway, the first parkway in the United States, is the home of the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, its leafy pedestrian malls running through the neighborhood of Crown Heights.

But it’s Ocean Parkway that is the most unusual today, an almost six-mile stretch which takes drivers, bikers, runners and (at one point) horse riders all the way to Coney Island, at a time when people were just beginning to appreciate the beach’s calming and restorative values.

Due to its wide, straight surface, Ocean Parkway even became an active speedway for fast horses. When bicycles became all the rage in the late 1880s, they also took to the parkway and avid cyclists eventually got their first bike lane in 1894 — the first in the United States.

FEATURING: A tale of two cemeteries — one that was demolished to make way for one parkway, and another which apparently (given its ‘no vacancy’ status) thrives next to another.

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#457 FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD Apr 25, 2025

Show notes

On October 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford walked into a press conference at the National Press Club and, using more precise, more eloquent words than legend remembers, but in no uncertain terms, told New York City that the federal government was not going to bail it out.

The following day the New York Daily News -- the city's first tabloid newspaper summarized his blunt, castigating speech into one succinct and memorable headline -- FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.

Of course, the president never literally said DROP DEAD. But his words did signal the severity of New York City's problem -- the city was on the brink of bankruptcy.

In this episode, Greg dives into life in New York City during the year 1975 and the circumstances surrounding its most dire financial crisis, one which threatened the livelihoods of its millions of residents and damaged New York City’s reputation for decades.

Directors Peter Yost and Michael Rohatyn join Greg to discuss their new film on the New York financial crisis Drop Dead City, which uses gritty archival footage and a series of special guests (such as Harrison J. Goldin, Charlie Rangel, Betsy Gotbaum and former Bowery Boys guest Kevin Baker) to explain this complicated story.

If Michael's name looks familiar, that's because his father Felix Rohatyn played a critical role in bailing out the bankrupt city.

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More information on DROP DEAD CITY here

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#456 Walking New York: Manhattan History on Foot with Keith Taillon Apr 18, 2025

Show notes

Join us for an interview with Instagram historian Keith Taillon (@keithyorkcity), whose detailed posts about New York's history have earned him nearly 60,000 followers and launched a successful tour business.

Keith shares the story behind his remarkable pandemic project of walking every single block of Manhattan in 2020, capturing the empty city in photographs that now appear in his first book, "Walking New York: Manhattan History on Foot."

From his childhood fascination with urban history to his graduate studies at Hunter College, Keith reveals how his personal journey led him to become one of the city's most engaging historical storytellers. You'll hear how he crafts walking tours that go beyond landmark-hopping to explain why New York looks and functions the way it does.

Plus: Listen to Keith's appearances on The Gilded Gentleman Podcast episodes on The Real Mamie Fish, The Hidden World of Gramercy Park, and a Gilded Age Tour up Manhattan.

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#455 House of Beauty: The Story of the Frick Collection Apr 11, 2025

Show notes

We invite you to come with us inside one of America’s most interesting art museums – an institution that is BOTH an art gallery and a historic home.

This is The Frick Collection, located at 1 East 70th Street, within the former Fifth Avenue mansion of Gilded Age mogul Henry Clay Frick, containing many pieces that the steel titan himself purchased, as well as many other incredible works of art from master painters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer, Goya, Turner, and Whistler.

Frick himself had a rather complicated legacy. As a master financier and chairman of Andrew Carnegie's massive steel enterprise, Frick helped create the materials for America's railroads and bridges.

But his intolerance of labor unions led to a bloody confrontation in the summer of 1892, making him, for a time, one of the most hated men in America.

New Yorkers' love for the Frick Collection, however, remains far less complicated. The institution, which has been a museum since 1935, allows visitors to experience the work of the great master painters in an often regal and intimate setting, allowing people to imagine the fanciful life of the Gilded Age.

The Frick Collection reopens this month after an extensive renovation (temporarily relocating the collection to the Breuer Building for a few years) and we've got a sneak preview, featuring Frick curator and art historian Aimee Ng.

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#454 Special Delivery: A History of the Post Office Mar 28, 2025

Show notes

The history of the United States Postal Service as it plays out in the streets of New York City -- from the first post road to the first postage stamps. From the most beautiful post office in the country to the forgotten Gilded Age landmark that was once considered the ugliest post office.

The postal service has always served as the country's circulatory system, linking the densest urban areas to the most rural outposts, a necessary link in moments when the country feels very far apart in other ways. The early American colonies knew this. Benjamin Franklin knew this The Founding Fathers who placed the postal service within the Constitution knew this.

And inventions such as the stagecoach, the steamship, the railroad, the pneumatic tube and even the electric car have helped keep the mail steadily flowing over the centuries.

New York has even played a pivotal role in the development of the American mail service, from the creation of the Boston Post Road (the first mail road which snaked through Manhattan and the Bronx) to the first mail boxes. Even the first postage stamps were sold in New York -- within former church-turned-post office in lower Manhattan.

Why are there so many post offices from the 1930s? Why is New York's largest post office next to Penn Station? And why does New York City have so many individual ZIP codes? And who, pray tell, is Barnabas Bates?

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More information here on the Bowery Boys: Gilded Age Weekend

This episode was produced and edited by Kieran Gannon

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#453 All The Beauty In The World: Guarding the Met with Patrick Bringley Mar 21, 2025

Show notes

A special bonus episode! Two years ago we featured Patrick Bringley on the show, the author of All The Beauty In The World (Simon & Schuster), regarding his experiences as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Artand the life lessons he learned strolling silently past priceless works of art.

The book has become a massive best-seller worldwide and has even become a cultural phenomenon in South Korea, selling more than a quarter million copies in that country alone. So we thought we'd bring Patrick back to the show, on the occasion of his new off-Broadway show based on the book.

How do you transform an off-Broadway stage into the Metropolitan Museum of Art? What life lessons can you absorb from walking around museum

This episode was edited and produced by Kieran Gannon

Tickets to All The Beauty In the World here.

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#452 How New York Got Its Name Mar 14, 2025

Show notes

It's one of the most foundational questions we could ever ask on this show -- how did New York City get its name?

You may know that the English conquered the Dutch settlement of New Netherland (and its port town of New Amsterdam) in 1664, but the details of this history-making day have remained hazy -- until now.

Russell Shorto brought the world of New Amsterdam and the early years before New York to life in his classic history The Island At The Center of The World. His new book Taking Manhattan: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America functions as a sequel of sorts, revisiting the moment when New Amsterdam ceased to be -- and New York was born.

Shorto joins Greg and Tom for a very spirited discussion of international warfare, displaced princes, frantic letter writing and ominous warships in the harbor.

At the end of this story, you will not only know how New York -- the city, the state, the whole place, from Buffalo to Long Island -- got its name, you will know the exact forgotten historical figure who gave it that name.

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Get Russell Shorto's new book Taking Manhattan

This episode was produced and edited by Kieran Gannon

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#451 The New Yorker Magazine: Talk of the Town for 100 Years Feb 28, 2025

Show notes

The New Yorker turns one century old -- and it hasn't aged a day! The witty, cosmopolitan magazine was first published on February 21, 1925. And even though present-day issues are often quite contemporary in content, the magazine's tone and style still recall its glamorous Jazz Age origins.

The New Yorker traces itself to members of that legendary group of wits known as the Algonquin Round Table -- renowned artists, critics and playwrights who met every day for lunch at the Algonquin Hotel.

And in particular, to two married journalists – Harold Ross and Jane Grant – who infused the magazine with a very distinct cosmopolitan zest. High fashion, martinis and Midtown Manhattan mixed with the droll wit of a worldly literati.

A new exhibition at the New York Public Library -- “A Century of the New Yorker” -- chronicles the magazine’s history, from its origins and creation by Harold Ross and Jane Grant to its current era, under the editorship of David Remnick.

Greg and Tom interview the show's two curators Julie Golia and Julie Carlsen about the treasures on display from the New Yorker's glorious past -- from the magazine's first cover (featuring everybody's favorite snob Eustace Tilly) to artifacts and manuscripts from the world's greatest writers.

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This episode was edited by Kieran Gannon

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At The Movies with Meyers and Young (Side Streets) Feb 21, 2025

Show notes

Greg and Tom have taken off their historian hats and have become -- movie critics? Close but not quite!

This week we're giving you a 'sneak preview' of their Patreon podcast called Side Streets, a conversational show about New York City and, well, whatever interests them that week. In honor of the Academy Awards, the Bowery Boys hosts pay homage to the great Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert while looking at five award-worthy films with strong New York City connections:

-- Anora with its captivating south Brooklyn locations

-- A Complete Unknown, taking us back 1960s Greenwich Village

-- Wicked, a spritely interpretation of the Broadway musical

-- The Brutalist, an epic about more than just architecture

-- Saturday Night, a frenetic tribute to the comedy-show icon which turns 50 years old this year

To listen to all episodes of Side Streets, support the Bowery Boys on Patreon

This episode was edited by Kieran Gannon

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#450 Harlem in the Jazz Age: A Renaissance in New York Feb 14, 2025

Show notes

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Alain Locke's classic essay "The New Negro" and the literary anthology featuring the work of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen and other significant black writers of the day.

The rising artistic scene would soon be known as the Harlem Renaissance, one of the most important cultural movements in American history. And it would be centered within America's largest black neighborhood -- Harlem, the "great black city," as described by Wallace Thurman, with a rising population and growing political and cultural influence.

During the 1920s, Harlem became even more. Along "Swing Street" and Lenox Avenue, nightclubs and speakeasies gave birth to American music and fostered great musical talents like Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington. Ballrooms like the Savoy and the Alhambra helped turn Harlem into a destination for adventure and romance.

What were these two worlds like -- the literary salons and the nightclubs? How removed were these spheres from the everyday lives of regular Harlem residents? How did the neighborhood develop both an energetic and raucous music scene and a diverse number of churches -- many (like the Abyssinian Baptist Church) still around today?

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Get tickets to our March 31 City Vineyard event Bowery Boys HISTORY LIVE! here

And join us for our Gilded Age Weekend in New York, May 29-June 1, 2025. More info here.

This episode was edited by Kieran Gannon

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