Fire safety keeping Statue of Liberty's top closed

Although the House of Representatives yesterday approved $1 million to reopen the Statue of Liberty's crown, the technology does not yet exist to safely allow the public back to the top, according to a spokesman for the National Park Service.

"Regardless of what happens, a fire or post-9/11 action, we still find it does not meet the standards for egress and fire safety," Phil Sheridan, the spokesman for the Northeast region of the NPS told NewYorkology today. "Absent any new breakthrough in technology it's not likely in the near future."

In a 2004 interview, Sheridan's predecessor at NPS called the statue a "firetrap." Asked today about that characterization, Sheridan said: "It hasn't changed."

He said the Park Service was criticized starting in the late-1990s for code violations at the Statue of Liberty. Consultants were brought in to study the matter, although the stairwell remained open to the public up until September 11, 2001.

While the Park Service was able to compartmentalize the statue's base, which houses the museum and original torch, the fragility of the statue and its size prevent the Parks Service from building a new compartmentalized stairwell to the top. When the torch was still open to the public, a walk to the top could take several hours with tourists spending several minutes on each step due to the long line. Only about 1/3 of all visitors bothered going up, according to a 2004 NPS report.

In seeking the $1 million funding on Thursday, Representative Anthony Weiner (D- Brooklyn and Queens) challenged the NPS stance on the safety issue. From the transcript of Weiner's floor speech provided by his office:

Frankly, the reason that the Statue of Liberty is still closed is the lack of imagination and will on the part of the Park Service. Over the course of years, we in this House have said in many different ways either open it or tell us why you cannot. And each time they said things like,
well, we are still thinking about it, we are pondering it, we are trying to figure it out.

The final analysis is quite clear. They do not want to reopen it. They are concerned they cannot possibly make it safe. Some of us have suggested why not have no bags permitted? Why not say only a limited number of people can go in? Why not suggest that you have reservations in advance? Why not come to us and say maybe we need additional security? No. In fact, what they said is you can go to the part that was built here in the United States, but the iconic Statue of Liberty that all of us remember climbing up to when we were children is closed. It is the only national park that is.

The March 30, 2004 report (in pdf format,) issued by the Department of the Interior covered all the safety improvements made at the Statue of Liberty since 2001 and answered the question “why not higher?”

Health and safety concerns:

Safety standards of the International Building Code of the City of New York cannot be met inside the Statue itself. (National Park Service policy is to comply with safety and fire codes whenever possible.)

No code-compliant exits from the Statue.

No ability to provide adequate fire suppression or space compartmentalization.

Time required for visitors to reach exit far exceeds code standards.

Inadequate fire suppression.

Stairs to crown are unenclosed, too narrow, and too steep. (Riser height exceeds maximum allowable under codes; tread depth and stair width exceed minimum allowable.)

Heat can be oppressive in summer months (up to 20 degrees higher than outside temperature).

Prior to September 11th, less than 1/3 of visitors climbed to the crown of the statue. Its interior was not designed to accommodate tourists and does not meet local fire, building, or safety codes. The narrow and winding stairs were designed for access by a light keeper and maintenance crews only. There is little room to evacuate an injured person. The interior of the statue also lacks the compartmentalization necessary for fire safety.

The Statue of Liberty was closed on September 11, 2001. As a result of initial security improvements, the National Park Service was able to reopen Liberty Island to visitors in December 2001. The closure was only the second in Liberty's history. The first was in 1916 when German saboteurs blew up an arms depot near the New Jersey shore, just west of the Statue. The explosion impact damaged Liberty's arm, weakening the structure to the point that all public access to the torch immediately ended.

And while ticket sales so far this year for the Statue of Liberty are exceeding last year's numbers, there have been several blips since September 11, Wright said. Even after the islands reopened, many school districts prohibited their students from going to any national monuments, the public’s confusion lingered into 2005 over whether the Statue of Liberty had actually reopened, and then there was the Republican National Convention held in New York City in August 2004.

"That was such as terrible week," Wright said. "Anything in Lower Manhattan, it was dead."

"It hurt us very badly ... across the board, even Statue of Liberty during our otherwise peak time of the year," Buckley said.

May 19, 2006 12:35 PM Comments (0)

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Gramercy Park Hotel to open in August, with keys

Ian Schrager is on track to reopen the Gramercy Park Hotel in August, including a perk that residents sometimes pay millions to acquire -- a key to the park.

All 185 hotel rooms and suites will come with a key to use Manhattan's only private park, Gramercy Park, a representative for Ian Schrager Company told NewYorkology.

Room rates will start around $500 a night and will also include access to the roof terrace. The hotel will have a spa, two bars and a restaurant opening in the fall that will be run by Alan Yau, (he who "reinvented Chinese food in Britain.")

In its early heydey, the legendary hotel hosted the wedding of Humphrey Bogart and served as the home of the Kennedy family (including an 11-year-old, future President Kennedy.) The renovated hotel will share the historic building, and the hotel services, with Schrager's luxury condo development called 50 Gramercy Park North.

The hotel's web site, which has been up and down in recent days, is not yet booking reservations. The Gramercy Park Hotel is located at 2 Lexington Ave., map.

Related: history of the Gramercy Park neighborhood

Earlier: NYC's best new hotels are co-tels - even Hard Rock
Ian Schrager's overhauled Gramercy Park Hotel plan

May 16, 2006 03:57 PM Comments (0)

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007 in New York - not a love story

Ian Fleming didn’t care much for New York City as evidenced in a short story he penned in 1963. He sends Bond to America to deliver a message to an ex-Secret Service officer that her lover is actually a KGB spy, but as a side note, agent 007 plans a mini-shopping spree and takes a mental inventory of all New York has, and hasn't, to offer.

For a tour of all things James Bond in New York, see CommanderBond.net’s NYC field trip report.

Here's an excerpt from Fleming’s 1963 missive “007 in New York,” now appended in Penguin's reprint of "Octopussy" and "The Living Daylights":

Bond pressed the button that let down the glass partition and leaned forward. ‘The Astor, please.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The big black car weaved through the curves and out of the airport enclave on to the Van Wyck Expressway, now being majestically torn to pieces and rebuilt for the 1964-1965 World’s Fair.

James Bond sat back and lit one of his last Morland Specials. By lunchtime it would be king-size Chesterfields. The Astor. It was as good as another and Bond liked the Times Square jungle – the hideous souvenir shops, the sharp clothiers, the giant feedomats, the hypnotic neon signs, one of which said BOND in letters a mile high. Here was the gut of New York, the living entrails. His other favourite quarters had gone – Washington Square, the battery, Harlem, where you now needed a passport and two detectives. The Savoy Ballroom! What fun it had been in the old days! There was still Central Park which, would now be at its most beautiful – stark and bright. As for the hotels, they too had gone – the Ritz Carlton, the St. Regis that had died with Michael Arlen. The Carlyle was perhaps the lone survivor. The rest were all the same – those signing lifts, the rooms full of last month’s air and a vague memory of ancient cigars, the empty ‘You’re welcomes,’ the thin coffee, the almost blue-white boiled eggs for breakfast (Bond had once had a small apartment in New York. He had tried everywhere to buy brown eggs until finally some grocery clerk had told him, ‘We don’t stock ‘em mister. People think they’re dirty’) the dank toast (that shipment of toast racks to the Colonies must have foundered!). Ah me! Yes, the Astor would do as well as another.

Bond glanced at his watch. He would be there by eleven-thirty, then a brief shopping edition, but a very brief one because nowadays there was little to buy in the shops that wasn’t from Europe -- except the best garden furniture in the world, and Bond hadn’t got a garden. The drug-store first for a half a dozen of Owens incomparable toothbrushes. Hoffritz on Madison Avenue for one of their heavy, toothed Gillette-type razors, so much better than Gillette’s own product, Tripler’s for some of those French golf socks made by Izod, Scribner’s, because it was the last great bookshop in New York and because there was a salesman there with a nose for thrillers, and then to Abercrombie’s to look over the new gadgets and, incidentally, make a date with Solange (appropriately employed in their Indoor Games Department) for the evening. …

Then there was the question of lunch. Dinner with Solange would be easy – Lutece in the sixties, one of the great restaurants of the world. But for lunch by himself? In the old days it would certainly have been the ’21,’ but the expense-account aristocracy had captured even that stronghold, inflating the prices and, because they didn’t know good from bad, deflating the food. …

And then what about the best meal in New York – oyster stew with cream, crackers, and a Miller High Life at the Oyster Bar at Grand Central? …

May 15, 2006 04:05 PM Comments (0)

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The bovine history of Brooklyn's Buttermilk Channel

When the Queen Mary 2 arrives at the Brooklyn Cruise Ship Terminal this Saturday, it will spend 12 hours docked in the Buttermilk Channel, which separates Red Hook from Governors Island.

Here's a great bit of background from the "Red Hook Gowanus Neighborhood History Guide" published by the Brooklyn Historical Society:

The waters between Red Hook and today's Governors Island were so rough that they churned the milk that farmers brought by boat from Bay Ridge dairy farms, leading to the name Buttermilk Channel. Yet the channel was once much wider and shallower than it is today, particularly at low tide. In his newspaper articles about Brooklyn history, Walt Whitman wrote of a time "as late as the Revolutionary War (when) cattle were driven across from Brooklyn, over what is now Buttermilk Channel, to Governors Island." Dredging deepened the channel, however, and it became narrower as wharves and piers were built on both sides of the river.

April 13, 2006 02:46 PM Comments (0)

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Forgotten NY tour of Green-Wood Cemetery

Kevin Walsh, the humble creator of the Forgotten NY website chronicling the old, often obscure architecture and arcana of New York City, will be leading one of his infrequent tours later this month.

Tour No. 24 will cover the northwestern end of Green-Wood Cemetery on April 23, taking in Charlie Ebbets, Leonard Bernstein, sewing machine inventor Elias Howe, DeWitt Clinton and Henry Chadwick, who helped formulate baseball's present-day scoring system. Reservations required.

Walsh has a book based on the site coming out in fall.

April 10, 2006 09:23 AM Comments (0)

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No expense spared for Central Park horse fountain

Timed to coincide with the 140th anniversary of the founding of the American Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in New York, the city's parks department newsletter, The Daily Plant, digs into the archives to recall the history of the very fancy horse fountain on Central Park's Cherry Hill.

From The Daily Plant:

Although construction of Central Park began before 1866, the Park was far from finished when the ASPCA and its new regulations came into effect. Parks took the initiative to add a beautiful horse drinking fountain into Central Park. These plans are discussed, in detail, for the first time in a report found in the Minutes of the Board of Commissioners of the Department of Public Parks dated May 19, 1870. Architect-in-Chief Jacob Wrey Mould described his elaborate plans for the fountain in this "Report on the Structures Now in Progress and their Cost." According to Mould, this granite and bronze fountain was to be situated "on the circle northwest of the Mall." His estimate for the fountain came to $4,950 (more than $108,000 in today’s money), and more than half of that was for a "bronze ornamental terminal and fountain." The Park that turned democratic ideals into landscaped realities for the people likewise would spare no expense in the treatment of its horses. This fountain was restored in recent history and the picturesque site is now known as Cherry Hill.

April 7, 2006 11:27 AM Comments (0)

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Eqyptian Hatshepsut exhibit opens at Met Museum

"Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh" opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Tuesday, examining the reign of the world's first known major female head of state.

Nearly 300 objects, including statues, sarcophagi, paintings, manuscripts and amulets from Egypt’s 18th Dynasty are on display.

The reviewer from the Sun heaps praise on the exhibition:

One of the great pleasures of this exhibition, other than the fact that the show celebrates, for the first time, one of the greatest and least understood periods of Egyptian art, is that it frees up sculptures that can sometimes feel cramped in the museum's well-endowed yet overcrowded Egyptian galleries.

March 29, 2006 09:08 AM Comments (0)

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Organ grinders, monkeys will return to Coney Island

When Coney Island winds up for this year's summer season, the once-illegal organ grinders will be back on the boardwalk - dancing monkeys included.

Street organs, calliopes, player pianos and tanzibars will all be on display at the First Annual Coney Island USA Band Organ Rally on April 9th from noon to 6 p.m. on Coney Island's West 12th Street.

The Daily News explains why they were banned seven decades ago by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia

But in a bid to stamp out Italian stereotypes, LaGuardia banned the instruments from the streets.

"This was cranked up by every Italian immigrant who came to the United States, until it became so noisy that Fiorello LaGuardia had to shut 'em down," said Aldo Mancusi of the Molinari organs that were made in southwest Brooklyn.

March 24, 2006 03:09 PM Comments (1)

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Final days of 'Slavery in NY' at Historical Society

On Sunday, the New-York Historical Society will close its "Slavery in New York" exhibition, the first phase of the museum's 18-month examination of the city's strong ties of what had been thought of as a Southern problem.

The museum said it's seen record attendance at the exhibition, including visits from more than More than 60,000 students from 1,000 schools. Additionally the museum distributed curriculum materials to schools and libraries and trained 5,000 educators in professional development workshops.

Although the primary exhibit -- beginning with the first slaves who helped build the colony on Lower Manhattan -- will close March 26, part of it will remain in a permanent exhibition in the museum's Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture.

In November, the NYHS will open "Commerce and Conscience: New York, Slavery, and the Civil War," the second major part of the slavery series.

The show will begin around 1815 and continue through to the aftermath of the Civil War, covering how New York City's wealth was derived from the Southern plantations. The ties ran so deep that on the eve of the Civil War, New York City's mayor considered seceding from the Union. The exhibition will focus on lithography, photography and illustrations to show how New York City, as the nation's publishing center, created the images on both sides of the debate.

It will run from November 17, 2006 through April 29, 2007.

Beginning June 16, "Legacies: Contemporary Artists Reflect on Slavery" will also open at the New York Historical Society.

(Picture of Pierre Toussaint painted by Anthony Meucci provided by NYHS. Toussaint, born in Haiti, accompanied his owner to New York in 1787. Among New York's most successful hairdressers, both as a slave and a free man, he purchased the freedom of his wife Juliette Noel Toussaint and their niece and adopted daughter Euphemia Toussaint. Pierre was a devoted Catholic and assisted many of New York's large community of Haitian immigrants after the revolution that overthrew French control in 1804.)

Earlier: Downtown's connection to African-American history
NYHS extends 'Slavery' exhibit, reports record draw
'Slavery in New York' explores city's forgotten past

March 21, 2006 08:47 AM Comments (1)

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Blue Moon open, kosher restaurant coming late spring

Housed in a converted tenement building, the Lower East Side's new Blue Moon Hotel is courting guests who want to be surrounded by history even while they sleep.

Before renovation, all the upstairs living quarters had been empty for six decades, owner/developer Randy Settenbrino said, except for a lot of abandoned items now incorporated into the hotel -- from cast iron stoves and colored-glass bottles to shopping receipts and a little boy’s French and Hebrew homework. (Morris Adler, if you're still alive, your P.S. 42 homework from October 1936 is now hanging on the walls of the Blue Moon Hotel.)

Originally a five story tenement, it had 15 single-room apartments with shared bathrooms in the hallway, one double apartment, and commercial space at ground level. But as a renovated boutique hotel, three stories have been added on top but the dimensions of the rooms are nearly unchanged, save for new bathrooms in each room. Back in the day, each room would have been home to "a couple families – five, six, seven, eight children -- maybe more," Settenbrino said.

A stove salvaged from one of the apartments now serves as the lobby's coffee and tea station, some rooms have their original walnut shutters, the bathroom doors are original to building, the tile from the vestibule has been reworked into the lobby's floor, and collages have been made from ephemera found at the site. "Prince Fahmy's Marriage is Finished by Two Bullets in the Great Hotel Savoy" screams one headline from the Sunday News, July 6, 1930. A cigarette ad touts that "20,679 physicians say Luckies less irritating." Even the frames are made from wood molding saved from the building's renovation.

A two-level kosher restaurant, which Settenbrino hopes to open in late spring, will serve lunch and dinner with an "immigrant-fare menu" of East European Jewish and Italian recipes from Settenbrino's family. It will be called Sweet Dreams. By this summer, half of the hotel's lobby will be converted into a wine bar.

Settenbrino, a painter by training who also operates New Amsterdam Real Estate, was coy when asked about the real estate listing that has the Blue Moon on the block for $20 million. "If somebody wants to pay that price, if they understand what it's about, they understand the integrity, it could be for sale," he said.

The Blue Moon is as much about Settenbrino as the history of the neighborhood. He painted the mural and a series of framed paintings in the lobby, assembled the collages and oversaw all the work he didn't actually do himself.

"This is not off-the-shelf stuff," he said. "Nothing’s cookie-cutter here."

The carpet has a "Victorian feel," (which along with the bedspreads might make you think not only "period feel" but "grandma’s house.")

Although there is free wireless Internet throughout the building, not all rooms have desks. Many rooms have generous balconies, though no patio furniture as of yet. The rooms are large by Manhattan standards, with mini-refrigerators and several with convertible couches or trundle beds. The TVs get cable, including stations in German, Italian, Russian, Hebrew and Spanish.

Still in its soft opening, guests weren't evident the day NewYorkology toured the building last week. Settenbrino declined to say how many guests have stayed at the hotel thus far, but said it's "more heavily booked on the weekends."

The starting rates are $275 during the week and $330 on weekends, which he compared to three other hotels and called Blue Moon "great rooms and a steal for the money."

Nearby, the Howard Johnson Express Inn has a room for this Saturday night at $189; The Hotel on Rivington starts at $350 this Saturday and the Holiday Inn Downtown/SoHo is booked on Saturdays until April 8, when a room can be had for $259.

The Blue Moon Hotel is located at 100 Orchard St. just below Delancey, map.

Earlier: Blue Moon Hotel opens in restored tenement building

March 20, 2006 11:43 AM Comments (0)

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High Bridge opens for tours this Saturday

One of the favorite events of the annual OpenHouse New York event has been the opportunity to climb to the top of the historic High Bridge Water Tower, revealing spectacular views of the city. But no need to wait until October for that opportunity, as the Urban Park Rangers will lead tours this Saturday.

The High Bridge, completed in 1848, is New York City's oldest standing bridge. It spans the Harlem River, connecting Manhattan to the Bronx. Its construction was crucial to bringing clean, plentiful water to the city feeding New York's population boom.

Tours will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.. To get there, enter Highbridge Park at 174th Street at Amsterdam Avenue and walk east to the tower.

For a preview of the views, see Forgotton New York's High Bridge page.

March 14, 2006 02:56 PM Comments (0)

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Brooklyn is where the hip is - Sunday Times

London's Sunday Times jumps on the "Brooklyn is hip" bandwagon, surveying all the options for tourists looking to venture to New York City's largest borough.

Relying heavily on a free Big Apple Greeter guide, the article's history covers the gamut of Brooklyn's immigration and Winston Churchill's mother to Walt Whitman and the Dodgers. And the author takes a long walk through Prospect Park, no mention is made that Gen. George Washington's first great loss of the Revolutionary War happened there at the hands of British soldiers.

And although the Sunday Times map confuses Liberty Island with Governors Island, the real hurt is delivered to the borough via its hotel recommendations:

Brooklyn has few sleeping options, but is within easy reach of Manhattan’s many wonderful hotels. The stylish Soho Grand (00 1-212 965 3000, www.sohogrand.com) has doubles from £250. More modest, but spotless, is the Cosmopolitan Hotel, in TriBeCa (212 566 1900, www.cosmohotel.com); doubles from £86.

March 10, 2006 08:13 AM Comments (0)

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Transit Museum store adds new posters, old maps

The New York Transit Museum has beefed up its offerings through its online store, including new posters and "archive quality" map reproductions of subway and elevated railroad maps dating to 1925.

Retail shops are located in both Transit Museum locations: at the corner of Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street in downtown Brooklyn and in the Grand Central Terminal museum annex, located in a shuttle passage next the Station Masters' office.

Pictured: David Calver's "Commuters"

March 6, 2006 09:55 AM Comments (0)

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18th Century seawall maybe destined as subway art

Subway construction workers digging in Battery Park have discovered a third even bigger section of an 18th century seawall, according to the New York Times.

The paper outlines potential plans:

Once the construction of the terminal is finished, the City Department of Parks and Recreation plans to reassemble the first large section at ground level in Battery Park and to spread stones from the third one in other parks in Lower Manhattan. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is considering embedding part of the second section in a glass wall inside the new terminal.

March 1, 2006 11:00 PM Comments (0)

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African Burial Ground designated national monument

President Bush today designated the African Burial Ground as a national monument, recognizing the 7-acre site where 20,000 enslaved and free blacks were buried in the 1690s through the 1790s.

Rediscovered 15 years ago by construction workers at Elk and Duane streets, map, the site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993.

NY1 points out that much of the 7-acre site "has long since been covered by buildings, streets and sidewalks," but an $8 million memorial, is planned for 290 Broadway, where the remains were found.

Earlier: Downtown's connection to African-American history
Obit: Joan Maynard, champion of historic Weeksville
Underground Railroad in more Brooklyn basements?

February 28, 2006 11:47 PM Comments (0)

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Exploring New York from top to extreme underground

February 28, 2006 11:28 AM Comments (1)

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13th anniversary of first terror attack on WTC

It was 13 years ago today that terrorists parked a truck in the garage under the World Trade Center, setting off an explosion that killed six people and injured 1,000.

NY1 notes that while Sheik Abdel Rahman is serving a life sentence for that attack, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is appealing a civil-trial decision made this past October that holds the agency financially liable for the attack because of its lax security at the towers.

Plans for the World Trade Center memorial call for tribute to the victims of the 1993 attack as well as the Sept. 11, 2001 attack-by-planes that leveled both towers and the adjacent WTC 7 skyscraper.

Earlier:
Freedom Tower opening delayed to end of 2011 - NYT
Chinese firm leases five top floors of WTC 7 - Crain's
Tribute Center begins Ground Zero tour program
Sept. 11 timeline installed at Ground Zero

February 26, 2006 11:46 AM Comments (0)

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Forgotten NY visits Meatpacking District in transition

Manhattan's Meatpacking District, emanating southward from the spot where 14th Street approaches the Hudson River, is quickly losing its meat packers as the area is taken over by trendy clubs, designers, restaurants, art galleries and soon, the High Line park.

Kevin Walsh of Forgotten NY has put together an extensive snapshot of the Meatpacking District in transition. The neighborhood has been a thriving meat market for more than a century, with meat juices slicking the sidewalks and cleaned carcasses piled high in the dumpsters. Some of that's still there, but more prevalent is the stilletto-shod, cell-phone earred paparrazzi-bait emerging from a triple-parked limo. Forgotten NY captures it before it's all gone.

February 23, 2006 08:29 AM Comments (0)

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Downtown's connection to African-American history

The African Burial Ground at Duane and Elk streets, (map) rediscovered by construction workers in 1991, may currently be the most well-known African-American historic landmark downtown. Now awaiting confirmation as a national monument, the long-forgotten site was holding the remains of more than four hundred 17th and 18th century Africans.

Although the burial site may be the most well known, downtown holds an abundance of the black history sites. The South Street Seaport Museum leads an occasional tour of the African-American History in Lower Manhattan; the next one's scheduled Saturday, March 25. Several of the sites are listed in the winter/spring 2004 issue of Seaport, the museum's history magazine, which addressed slavery in New York City from 1626 to 1827.

From Seaport's list:

32-34 South William Street, map - site of Dutch West India Company barracks used to house African slaves around 1643 to 1662.

Fraunces Tavern at Pearl and Broad Street - owned by "Black Sam Fraunces," a wealthy West Indian believed of African and French descent.

36 Lispenard, map - home of free black abolitionist David Ruggels, who founded the Committee on Vigilance in 1835 and helped more than 1,000 people escape slavery.

Pearl and Chatham streets, map - In 1854 schoolteacher Elizabeth Jennings refused to give up space in a whites-only streetcar. Her lawsuit led to the desegregation of most of Manhattan's "street railroads."

Related: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture tours
Big Onion walking tours of Historic Harlem
Black History Month events at NY Public Library and NYC & Co.
New-York Historical Society "Slavery in NY" programs
New York state's Underground Railroad map

Earlier: 2-for-1 entry at Louis Armstrong Museum for Feb.
Obit: Joan Maynard, champion of historic Weeksville
NYHS extends 'Slavery' exhibit, reports record draw
'Slavery in New York' explores city's forgotten past
Underground Railroad in more Brooklyn basements?

February 9, 2006 05:09 PM Comments (0)

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Waldorf-Astoria's private rail platform forever closed

Down under the Waldorf-Astoria sits an abandoned train platform and a few cars, once used as a private entrance to the grand hotel by presidents and at least one general.

The Waldorf, which was built on top of the New York Central RailRoad tracks from 1929 to '31, is supported by steel columns placed between the tracks. The closest most people will ever get to the hotel' private platform are the shiny gold doors at street level on the Waldorf's 49th Street side. The lore around the storied underground entrance is often too good to check. A recently-aired "Secrets of New York" TV show hinted that one of the rail cars abandoned under the hotel may have belonged to President Franklin Roosevelt; unfortunately it's just not true, according to researchers at the FDR Museum. President Roosevelt's Pullman car, the Ferdinand Magellan, is a star attraction at the Gold Coast Railroad Museum -- in Miami.

Even Eric Long, the Waldorf's general manager until recently thought the entrance had been used by Joseph Stalin, who it turns out, hated to travel and never visited New York. (Nikita Khrushchev did in fact stay at the Waldorf-Astoria, but arrived by motorcade.)

Long told NewYorkology that the entrance to the platform has been reconfigured and is no longer easy to access. He went down there 12 years ago when he started his job at the hotel, but that was the only time.

Because of the current configuration, tours of the space are out of the question, he said, even as part of OpenHouse New York, which the Waldorf-Astoria participated in last year. The hotel will likely take part in OpenHouseNY again this year, (scheduled for October 7 and 8, 2006,) but tours to many otherwise off-limits sections of the Waldorf-Astoria can be arranged at any time through the hotel's concierge, Long said.

As for who was actually important enough to arrive to the Waldorf-Astoria via the private rail siding, Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman were definitely among them, along with General John J. Pershing. For more background on the platform, see Joseph Brennan's Abandoned Stations web site, which has an extensive page with pictures and maps of the Waldorf-Astoria platform.

The very detailed bit of information was pulled together for NewYorkology by Robert H. Parks at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum in Hyde Park, NY. While FDR did use the entrance, it was not with the frequency that some now believe.

President Roosevelt did NOT attend any of the forty birthday balls in his honor in New York City on January 30, 1934. He was in Washington, D.C. He made a radio speech from the White House.

His mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, attended various events in New York City that day, including birthday balls to honor FDR and raise money for the Warm Springs Foundation at both the Waldorf-Astoria and the Astor Hotel. A detailed account describing her strenuous schedule of activities appeared on page three of the New York Times, January 31, 1934. The Times account included photos of Sara Roosevelt with Mayor LaGuardia at the Waldorf-Astoria and the Roosevelt birthday cake at the Waldorf-Astoria.

President Roosevelt made speeches at the Waldorf-Astoria on October 4, 1933 and October 21, 1944.

On October 3, 1933, President Roosevelt arrived in New York City by train. He spent the night at his townhouse on East 65th Street. On October 4, he was driven to the Waldorf Astoria where he addressed the National Conference of Catholic Charities.

After the speech Roosevelt was driven to Jersey City where his special train was waiting to take him to Washington, DC.

At 7 a.m. on October 21, 1944, President Roosevelt's special train arrived at the Army Supply Base in Brooklyn. Roosevelt spent that rainy day in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan traveling in an open limousine. After a stop at Eleanor Roosevelt's apartment to dry off and rest he was driven to the Waldorf-Astoria for his address at the Foreign Policy Association Dinner. Afterward he boarded his railroad car, the Ferdinand Magellan, parked on the railroad spur track under the Waldorf-Astoria. His special train then proceeded to Hyde Park.

The events of that day were described in detail in the diary kept by Roosevelt's aide William D. Hassett. Hassett's diary was published as OFF THE RECORD WITH FDR, 1942-1945 (Rutgers University Press, 1958). You will find the October 21, 1944 entry on pages 278-282.

According to Hassett, the spur track beneath the Waldorf-Astoria built to accommodate private cars had been used up to that time only once before by General Pershing. You will also find an account of Roosevelt's activities in the New York Times, October 22, 1944.

February 7, 2006 01:28 PM Comments (0)

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Obit: Joan Maynard, champion of historic Weeksville

The Daily News notes the passing of Joan Maynard, a 77-year-old artist who spent 30 years working to preserve Weeksville, one of the oldest free African-American communities in the United States.

Brooklyn's Weeksville dates to 1838, but when its history was rediscovered in 1968, only four small Hunterfly Road Houses remained on the edge of Crown Heights.

From the Daily News:

Largely through efforts led by Maynard, schoolchildren and a small group of volunteers, the houses were designated a city landmark in 1970 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

Maynard oversaw several renovations to the houses over the years. In 2004, the most extensive renovations ever were completed.

January 24, 2006 11:31 AM Comments (0)

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First 28 subway stations celebrated at Forgotten NY

New York City's subway system has 468 stations, but when the 101-year old system got statrted, the first line had 28 stations, including the grand old City Hall station.

Forgotten NY has put together a two-part photo extravaganza of the first stations, throwing in bits of history about the stations now and then.

Part One gets as far as 33rd Street. And Part Two covers East 42nd to 145th streets.

New mosaics, old tiles, dusty chandeliers, peeling paint and grand renovations -- the pictures run the gamut and do a great job capturing all the good and bad of the stretch now used by the 4/5/6 trains.

January 23, 2006 05:11 PM Comments (0)

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Subway construction hits another historic wall

Construction workers digging up Battery Park to make way for subway expansion have hit another wall. Literally.

"It's a historic wall of some kind," Adrian Benepe, the commissioner of the city's Department of Parks and Recreation told the New York Times.

Two months ago, the workers hit a 45-foot stone section archaeologists believe is several centuries old. The second was found at the end of December.

Both will be removed and preserved during the next couple months, hopefully at a cost less than $1 million, according to transit officials.

More from the Times:

The second wall, made of stone blocks and mortar, is similar to the first, but is longer and taller and appears to have been constructed with logs near its base that extend to the east, Ms. Berkowitz said.

It is several feet below street level and about 300 feet south of the first wall, which archaeologists believe may have been part of the original defensive battery, which gave the park its name.

The first wall, which is more than 40 feet long and about 8 feet thick, was constructed as two stacks of stones sandwiching a pile of rubble. It is in the northeast corner of Battery Park, near the island's original shoreline, and archaeologists working on the project said British soldiers may have built it in the mid-1700's to protect one of the forts that dominated the settlement at the southern tip of the island.

But some of them believe the wall may have been part of one of the forts and could have been built as long ago as the late 1600's.

Either way, it would be the oldest fortification that still exists in Manhattan, they said.

January 23, 2006 12:39 AM Comments (0)

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Roof collapse at 150-year-old synagogue

The roof of a 150-year-old synagogue on the Lower East Side collapsed Sunday and may face demolition, the New York Times reports.

In its heyday, the First Roumanian-American Congregation, located at 89-93 Rivington Street, (map,) was known as the Cantors' Carnegie Hall, with a choir that included Red Buttons and Eddie Cantor.

More from the Times:

But Rabbi Spiegel said that water damage became apparent in the building's roof about seven weeks ago, and that he retained an engineer to assess the risk after the congregation's insurance company had refused to honor a claim for repairs.

The engineer concluded that "it would be safest to keep it closed for a while," Rabbi Spiegel said yesterday. As a result, he said, services have been held in his mother's apartment, not far away on Grand Street, and the synagogue was closed.

January 22, 2006 11:56 PM Comments (0)

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Fraunces Tavern, proud American Whiskey Trail spot

The Fraunces Tavern Museum, most famous as the location where Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers on December 4, 1783 after running the Red Coats off the island, holds a spot on the American Whiskey Trail.

Fraunces Tavern Museum, which still operates a restaurant and bar, is the only New York location on the whiskey map. Other stops include Jim Beam and Jack Daniels distilleries, the Woodville Plantation and President Washington's distillery at Mt. Vernon.

The Fraunces Tavern Museum is located at 54 Pearl St. at Broad Street, map.

Earlier: New York opens Heritage Tourism Center
Drinking your way through New York's oldest bars
Mixing history and beer at Fraunces Tavern

January 20, 2006 08:51 AM Comments (0)

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Peale's Washington portrait on view at Christie's

A Charles Willson Peale portrait of "Washington at Princeton" is expected to fetch between $10 million and $15 million when it goes on auction in New York this Saturday, Christie's said in a statement carried by Reuters.

If the prediction is right, the sale would make it the most expensive American portrait ever sold at auction.

The 8-foot-tall 1779 oil on canvas can be viewed at Christie's through Thursday. Alternately, the Christie's web site also features a video about the painting narrated by John Hays, the deputy chairman of Christie's and Martha Willoughby, the auction house's senior specialist for American decorative arts.

Christie's is located at 20 Rockefeller Plaza, map.

Update: The painting sold for $21.3 million, setting a record for an American portrait.

Earlier: Sotheby's to auction NYPL's Stuarts, and then some

January 17, 2006 04:48 PM Comments (0)

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Last call for McHale's

Today may be the final day to get a drink or burger at McHale's, the 50-year-old theater-district watering hole closing to make way for a 42-story highrise, according to both Playbill and WNYC, which has an online audio report from the scene.

Second-generation owner Jimmy McHale said people have been coming by to share old stories about the bar, like coming in with their grandfather, eating their first meal there after appearing in their first Broadway show or about proposing marriage there.

One customer described McHale's as "a dark seedy, dimly lit bar, like and old mans bar, but its great." Yahoo Travel ranks it as the second-best bar in New York City.

Manager Paula Stevens told WNYC: "Very little has changed over the years, very precious little. And I think in an ever-changing world in the city they want that stability, those things that don't change. They crave it, and thats what we have here."

The bar hasn't had a lease since 1984, operating only on a handshake agreement with the building's owner. The only good news is that McHale intends to disassemble the bar piece by piece, possibly for an opening in a new location. "I always say if you have the alter, you can build a church," he told WNYC.

McHale's is located at 750 Eighth Avenue at 46th Street, map.

Earlier: It looks official: 2nd Avenue Deli closed forever
CBGB's final night: Halloween 2006
Howard Johnson's closes on Times Square
Footlight Records closing store, going Internet only
The Plaza closes for 18-month renovation
Little Italy shrinks, making way for tourist version

January 16, 2006 09:06 AM Comments (0)

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NY's golden hotel era architects: Schultze & Weaver

January 10, 2006 06:05 PM Comments (0)

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It looks official: 2nd Avenue Deli closed forever

The sign came down letter by letter this morning. The all-kosher 2nd Avenue Deli is no more. See Curbed and Eater for the sad photographic play-by-play.

Earlier: 2nd Avenue Deli closes, possibly forever - NY Times

January 10, 2006 03:54 PM Comments (0)

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New landmark for Historic Richmond Town

Staten Island's Historic Richmond Town is getting a new landmark for its building collection, a modest Greek Revival-style cottage built around 1836-37 by developer Henry I. Seaman, according to Justin Ferate, who is often referred to as the dean of New York City tour guides.

The Seaman Cottage will join the 27 other preserved buildings at the museum village.

Ferate plugs the museum in his latest e-mail newsletter:

"For those who have never been to Historic Richmond Town, I often note that Williamsburg, Virginia is mostly made of "invented" historic buildings ­some of which were constructed as long ago as 1930.

On the other hand, Historic Richmond Town in Staten Island is comprised entirely of genuine historic structures ­ one of which dates back a to circa1695. The village area occupies 25 acres of a 100-acre site with about 27 buildings, many of which have been restored and are open for viewing, including homes and commercial and civic buildings, as well as a museum.

January 9, 2006 08:52 AM Comments (0)

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A little New York rock history in Bill Graham's vault

When legendary rock promoter Bill Graham died in 1991, he left behind a serious stash of memorabilia, including posters, tickets, pictures, VIP badges and buttons for stars such as the Rolling Stones, Cream, The Who, Madonna, the Grateful Dead, Nelson Mandela and U2.

Among them are many items important to New York rock and political history, and a lot of its for sale on Wolfgang's Vault.

There's a huge gallery of items from Graham's Fillmore East, including this Jimi Hendrix poster, at right, for the May 10, 1968 show, suported by Sly & the Family Stone. The Fillmore East was located at 2nd Avenue and 6th Street.

Graham, incidentally, grew up in a Jewish foster home in the Bronx after escaping Nazi Germany. He was born Wolfgang Grajonca in 1931 to Russian Jews in Berlin.

(Link found via U2Log.)

January 6, 2006 05:13 PM Comments (0)

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Ellis Island gets closer to opening Ferry Building

December 28, 2005 01:19 PM Comments (0)

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Subway expansion hits centuries-old Battery Wall

Workers digging a tunnel for subway expansion in battery park may have found the oldest standing wall in Manhattan, the New York Times reports.

The 45-foot stone section may be a remnant of the original battery built as early as 1700 to protect the colony at its southern tip.

"It's one of the most important archaeological discoveries in several decades in New York City," Adrian Benepe, commissioner of the Department of Parks and Recreation, told the Times.

Yet it's directly in the way of a $400-million, four-year MTA project to build a new South Ferry station for the No. 1 subway train. Thus begins the drama:

"It's premature to discuss this thing at all, other than to say that we have made this find and we are protecting it," Mr. (MTA spokesman Tom) Kelly said.

The authority's handling of the site has already rankled some preservationists.

When an excavation crew discovered the eight-foot-thick wall in early November, it was one continuous stretch of cut and mortared stones about 45 feet long, archaeologists familiar with the project said. But pictures and drawings produced by the authority's employees show that the wall is now in two smaller pieces about 10 feet apart. The gap, the archaeologists said, was created by the steel claw of a backhoe before they could halt work at the site.

December 11, 2005 11:56 PM Comments (0)

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Seventh Regiment Armory to get $30 mln restoration

The landmarked Seventh Regiment Armory, with interiors by Louis C. Tiffany and Stanford White, will get $30 million in state funds to restore the 1879 structure, Gov. George Pataki announced last week. Officials hope to raise an extra $90 million from private sources for additional work.

The Armory, now used for antique shows and military training, played a part in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and both World Wars.

It also has a great bar, as detailed earlier this year by CityRag.

The Seventh Regiment Armory is located at 643 Park Ave., map.

Earlier: Tippling at the Seventh Regiment Armory

December 5, 2005 08:35 AM Comments (0)

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Tribute Center begins Ground Zero tour program

Survivors of the September 11 attacks and relatives of those who were killed at the World Trade Center have begun leading public tours of the area for the Tribute Center.

The first tours have begun somewhat quietly with a more public announcement scheduled for next month after all the kinks are worked out, Sally Yerkovich, president of The Tribute Center, told NewYorkology via e-mail.

The 75-minute walking tours around the site's perimeter cost $10. The tours will be led by "people who lost loved ones, survivors who were in the buildings, commuters, lower Manhattan residents and workers, rescue workers, police, firemen, and the volunteers who came to help," according to the tour description at Telecharge.

Yerkovich passed along these details, which will also be available on online at www.tributenyc.org sometime soon:

From now through December 18, we offer one tour each weekday at 1:00 p.m. and two tours each weekend day, at Noon and 2:00 p.m. Starting December 19th, we will offer two tours each weekday (1:00 and 3:00) and four tours each weekend (at Noon, 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00).

Visitors can go to 'Other Events' at www.telecharge.com to make reservations for the tours. Starting November 28, 2005, they can also call 212-422-3520.

November 20, 2005 10:49 AM Comments (0)

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Historic Fulton Fish Market closes, moves to Bronx

Ending its 183-year run at the South Street Seaport, the Fulton Fish Market has officially shut down this weekend, moving to a more modern facilty in the Bronx.

The East River commercial market opened on Feb. 5, 1822 as a meat and vegetable market but within a decade, fish mongers moved in and eventually took over, according to the Associated Press.

The fish market's been on the verge of moving for nearly a year due to numerous court challenges, the most recent one involving an allegation that one contract going out to bid could invite organized crime back into the mix.

Earlier: Nearly the last whiff of the Fulton Fish Market
Tour Fulton Fish Market -- without the cold, or fish smell
6 a.m. tour of the final days of Fulton Fish Market

November 13, 2005 10:22 PM Comments (0)

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Buckingham Hotel reopens Martinelli Penthouse

November 11, 2005 02:54 PM Comments (0)

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Staten Island Ferry turns 100 years old

The Staten Island Ferry turns 100 today.

When service started between Lower Manhattan and Staten Island, the ride cost a nickel. By 1997 it was up to 50 cents. But since then, it's been free.

Events are set all week to celebrate the anniversary though Ferry Fest.

For more info about the ferry, see NYC.gov, SIFerry.com and NY1's coverage of today's ceremony.

October 25, 2005 05:39 PM Comments (0)

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Lombardi's to sell 5 cent pizzas for 100th anniversary

To celebrate its 100th year in business, Lombardi's will be selling pizza for 5 cents each on Nov. 10, according to the Post. Luckily for pizza lovers, Lombardi's doesn't sell by the slice, so that means 5 cents a pie.

Lombardi's is located at 32 Spring St. Map.

Related: Slice's New York pizza map
Slice's response to the Daily News pizza round up

Earlier: New bus tour hits Brooklyn's pizza emporiums
Grimaldi's is no pizza patsy

October 21, 2005 01:33 PM Comments (1)

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New Rockefeller Center roof decks offer a 360 of NYC

October 12, 2005 10:38 AM Comments (0)

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The celebrated ghosts of Manhattan

On the night before her wedding, 22-year-old Elma Sands was strangled by her fiancee, Levi Weeks, and thrown in a well near the corner of Greene and Spring streets. The year was 1799.

In a trial marked by bribery and jury tampering, Weeks was never convicted, owing to his star-powered attorneys, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.

As the not-guilty verdict was read, the dead woman's cousin screamed in the courtroom and cursed Hamilton, condemning him to an "unnatural death." A mere four years later, Hamilton was killed in the infamous duel with Burr.

The details of the trail are found on the menu at the Manhattan Bistro, which not only houses the well where Elma Sands was dumped, but apparently also her ghost.

"The sightings describe the same image of a floating, young woman, wearing a long, green emerald robe, her hair is gray and her eyes are piercing. Her expression is unsettled as she repeats something over and over again for no one to hear," according to the menu at the diner-like Soho restaurant.

The well is in the basement, out of sight from diners.

But of course Elma Sands isn't the only ghost stuck on the island of Manhattan. On Sunday, Oct. 16, urban historian Gordon Linzer will lead a pre-Halloween downtown walking tour of Haunted New York for 92nd Street Y.

For all the armchair walking tour enthusiasts, see the 92Y blog for more tales of ghosts in New York, including Mark Twain, who is apparently fond of a stairwell at 14 West 10th St. near Fifth Avenue. Map.

The Manhattan Bistro is located at 129 Spring St. Map.

October 11, 2005 12:22 PM Comments (0)

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'Slavery in New York' explores city's forgotten past

"Slavery in New York," the new exhibit at the New-York Historical Society, sets out to debunk the popular notion of the North as the great liberator of the slave-owning South.

The history of the colonies and New York City, even before it was renamed New York, is intertwined with slavery. The "wall" of Wall Street was built by slaves, and later, Wall Street bankers insured the slave ships, Southern plantations and traded their agriculture commodities. New York's economy was so dependent on slavery that on the eve of the Civil War, New York City's mayor proposed secession to join with the South, said Richard Rabinowitz, the show's curator and writer.

"Slavery" at the NYHS is not only the largest show ever exhibited at the museum, but it's also one of the first major exhibits in the U.S. on the history of slavery in the colonies.

In 1703, 42 percent of New York's households had slaves; the only city with more was Charleston, South Carolina. By 1775, in New York there were 3,100 slaves, accounting for 30 percent to 40 percent of the city's workforce.

Slavery was part of every American colony until Vermont got rid of it in 1777; emancipation "came grudgingly and not completely" in New York until 1827.

At the preview of the exhibit earlier this summer, curators explained the challenges of finding documents and artifacts that actually belonged to slaves. Most of the items in the show come from the existing collection of N-YHS, which was actually founded by a slave owner.

The exhibit is rich in documentation from the white man's side: bills of sale, ships' ledgers, newspaper ads offering rewards for runaway slaves and household items crafted by slaves, but not owned by them.

The exhibit fills all the galleries on the main floor, and until Oct. 16, Abraham Lincoln's hand-written draft of the Emancipation Proclamation is on display downstairs.

The current show, which continues until March 5, covers the city's early history of slavery. In November 2006, the second part of the show will cover slavery in New York after 1815.

The exhibit takes great pains to make exhibit appeal to children, and indeed one of the curators' goals is to change the curriculum in schools to better teach the country's history. Among the unique installations is a "water well" that requires viewers to look down into a video well to see the reflection of several slave women gossiping. There is also a "respond to the exhibit" video booth where visitors can record their own thoughts, which will later appear on videos in the exhibit.

Related:
Old North: Recalling the Real Slaves of New York (Washington Post)
The Peculiar Institution as Lived in New York (New York Times)

October 10, 2005 07:15 PM Comments (2)

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Exploring secret Ellis Island during Open House NY

October 8, 2005 08:05 PM Comments (0)

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Celebration unceasing: Brooklyn Dodgers championship

Today is the 50 year anniversary of the Brooklyn Dodgers' only World Series win, a victory still far from forgotten in the city's largest borough.

On Oct. 4, 1955 the Dodgers beat the Yankees in the seventh game with a 2-0 shutout pitched by Johnny Podres. Two years later, team owner Walter O'Malley had moved the team to Los Angeles.

Due to its popularity, "Dodgers Do It: Celebrating Brooklyn's 1955 Big Win!" has been extended at the Brooklyn Historical Society. The exhibit will now run through the end of the 2005.

The Historical Society has also extended its operating hours by two days. The museum is now open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. It is located at 128 Pierrepont Street. Map.

For more Brooklyn Dodgers nostalgia, see the New York Times, which has run its 1955 coverage of the Dodgers' win, Newsday, which caught up with Podres, the Daily News, which lets Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz relive the day, and Forgotten New York, for a look at what little is left standing of Dodgers' history in Brooklyn.

Earlier: Restored Brooklyn Historical Society short on cash

October 4, 2005 07:34 AM Comments (0)

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OpenHouseNY's Waldorf, Ellis Island tours already full

Bad news: Spots for this year's most sought-after Open House New York tours have already filled up.

Already out of your reach are Ellis Island's hospital buildings, the Waldorf-Astoria tours and the Radio City Music Hall opendialogue tour.

Still there are more than 150 other sites that will be open for free to the public on October 8 and 9. Most don't require a reservation.

See the OHNY web site for a full list of venues in all five boroughs.

Earlier: Ellis Island hospital, Navy Yard on Open House NY list
Shuttered Ellis Island buildings could open to public

September 27, 2005 04:32 PM Comments (2)

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Legendary Algonquin to sell for $74 million

The Algonquin is in contract to sell for $74 million and will likely continue operating as a hotel, despite the trend toward condo conversion, the Post reports.

The buyer, Norwalk-based HEI Hospitality, will use its Merritt Hospitality group to manage the 174-room hotel, according to the Post.

The hotel's Oak Room and its prominent round table was famously used by Dorothy Parker and friends from 1919 to 1929 as a meeting to place to talk and drink lunch. "They were the most celebrated literary group gathering in American letters, ever," the Dorothy Parker Society of New York's web site says on its page devoted to the history of The Algonquin.

Built in 1902, it was originally operated as The Puritan Hotel, according to the AIA Guide to New York City. By 1903, the price for a sitting room, library, dining room, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths and a private hall was $10 a day, while a simple bedroom with bath was a mere $2 per day, according to the AIA.

The Algonquin is located at 59 W. 44th St. between Fifth and Sixth avenues. Map.

Earlier: Parkerfest 2005 kicks off Sept. 30 at The Algonquin
The Plaza closes for 18-month renovation
NYC's lost 3,300 hotel rooms to condo conversions
Hotels going condo can't keep pace with demand

September 21, 2005 07:53 AM Comments (0)

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Parkerfest 2005 kicks off Sept. 30 at The Algonquin

Dorothy Parker fans take note, Parkerfest 2005 will be held in Manhattan from Sept. 30 through Oct. 2.

This year's festivities kick off with a cocktail hour at The Algonquin and run through the weekend with cabaret shows, a Round Table walking tour, the Bathtub Gin Ball & Speakeasy Cruise and performances of "The Talk of the Town" musical in the Oak Room.

The event is organized by the Dorothy Parker Society of New York.

September 19, 2005 01:17 PM Comments (1)

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Do you see dead people? Famous dead people?

For the love of macabre, wouldn't you know the Internet has a database of where you can see dead celebrities' graves?

Find A Grave has 3,474 famous burial locations in New York state, including Bella Abzug in Queens, President Ulysses S. Grant in Manhattan and Richard Nixon's dog Checkers.

You can even sort by "very famous" and "somewhat famous." What you thought the A-list wouldn't matter when you're dead?

(Find A Grave link found via NYC Stories.)

Related links: Tours of Green-Wood Cemetery
Forgotten Cemeteries pages at Forgotten NY

September 14, 2005 11:38 AM Comments (0)

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Madison Square Garden may be demolished, moved

The owners of Madison Square Garden want to tear down the arena and build a new one several blocks to the west to "improve on the arena's cramped and inefficient quarters by featuring wide concourses with stores and restaurants, luxury boxes with better sight lines for basketball and hockey games, a museum and a hall of fame," the New York Times reports.

The new MSG would be located at the west end of the Farley Post Office, (the main post office,) which is bordered by Eighth and Ninth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets. Plans already in the works call for the post office's conversion into Moynihan Station, a giant transit hub.

The Garden, which is home to the Rangers and Knicks, also hosts concerts and conventions throughout the year. If the current arena is demolished at its current location -- between Seventh and Eighth Avenues from 31st and 33rd Streets -- it would be replaced by skyscrapers with luxury apartments, office space and stores.

The Times story also has a great summary of the Garden's colorful history:

In 1874, P. T. Barnum opened Barnum's Monster Classical and Geological Hippodrome in an old train depot at Madison Avenue and 26th Street. He was succeeded by another impresario, Patrick S. Gilmore, who took over the building in 1876 and renamed it Gilmore's Garden. Then, in 1879, William H. Vanderbilt took control of the building and christened it Madison Square Garden.

Mr. Vanderbilt focused on sports rather than oddities, creating a track for competitive cycling, building the first artificial ice rink in North America and sponsoring boxing exhibitions with John L. Sullivan. He knocked the building down in 1889, replacing it with an entertainment hall designed by McKim, Mead & White. It had the country's largest auditorium, a concert hall and cabaret, becoming home to the National Horse Show, the Westminster Kennel Club show, boxing matches, bicycle races, circuses and rodeos.

But in 1925, Garden II was demolished to make way for the headquarters of New York Life Insurance. A new Garden opened uptown, at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street, becoming famous for boxing, college basketball's National Invitation Tournament and the New York Knicks. Sonja Henie took her Hollywood Ice Revue there in 1938. But the building had poor sight lines and few amenities. (It is now the site of the Worldwide Plaza office tower.)

It was replaced in 1968 by the current Garden, a circular arena atop Pennsylvania Station. It was here that Joe Frazier beat Muhammad Ali on points in 1971, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon presided over the marriages of 2,075 couples in 1982, and the Rangers won Game 7 of the Stanley Cup championship in 1994.

September 12, 2005 08:31 AM Comments (0)

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Decades of detritus comes out of hiding in LES

Forgotten New York, which always excels at documenting the best of the city's otherwise ephemeral objects, has a photo gallery of decades old posters you can still see near the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

Pamela Keech of Curious Curators is helping to preserve the old posters, sent Forgotten NY the details of the removal process for one old sign:

"When we pulled down the Trenk sign about 40 rubber balls rolled out and bounced all over the street. There were also Tab cans, beer cans that till required a church key, an O.J. Simpson football card and a cap gun."

September 7, 2005 03:32 PM Comments (0)

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Restored Brooklyn Historical Society short on cash

The Brooklyn Historical Society occupies a gorgeous Queen Anne building in Brooklyn Heights, but after a four-year, $23 million renovation, the museum is only open three days a week, reports the New York Times.

The Society's collection includes a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Lincoln and the Brooklyn Dodgers' 1955 World Series Championship banner. It also holds extensive genealogical, property and municipal records but its library has been closed since renovations began in 1998.

The current exhibitions include one on the Brooklyn Dodgers and another on Walt Whitman. The museum's permanent installation, Brooklyn Works, focuses on how immigration shaped Brooklyn, which was its own city until 1898.

The museum is open from noon to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday for a $6 entrance fee. The financially strapped institution, which only had 20,000 visitors last year, hopes to resume a five-day schedule in the fall, according to the Times. It will be open for free on Oct 8 and 9 as part of Open House New York.

It's located at 128 Pierrepont St., not far from Borough Hall. Map.

August 16, 2005 01:43 PM Comments (0)

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New York opens Heritage Tourism Center

In conjunction with the History Channel, the city has opened a Heritage Tourism Center in a booth next to City Hall Park.

The center (a.k.a. a kiosk) will serve as a central location for information about history-themed tours, activities and events at historical sites throughout the city's five boroughs, according to the city's official tourism outlet, NYC & Co.
Among the locations highlighted are Historic Richmond Town, Fraunces Tavern Museum, the Green-Wood Cemetery and the Morris-Jumel Mansion.

Gray Line is also running a daily, 90-minute heritage bus tour, with a costumed tour guide, that will take in Times Square, Herald Square, Chinatown and Five Points, the World Trade Center site, Bowling Green, the Police Museum, the Titanic Lighthouse Memorial, Greenwich Village and the Empire State Building.

The complementary web site provides a brief history of New York City.

The new tourism center is located at Broadway and Barclay Street. Map.

August 14, 2005 11:44 AM Comments (0)

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Scientists probing Central Park's Seneca Village

Scientists are using ground-probing radar in hopes of finding more remains of the Seneca Village that was razed to make way for Central Park before 1850.

It's situated between 81st and 89th streets between Seventh and Eighth avenues.

From the Associated Press report:

Often described as one of several "squatters camps" of huts and shacks that were displaced by the building of Central Park, Seneca Village actually was a more permanent and well-ordered community, with three churches, a school, and some inhabitants who owned their property, experts now say.

Although founded by free blacks, it later became a multi-ethnic settlement that included Irish and German immigrants and possibly some native Americans, according to various historical sources.

August 11, 2005 05:30 PM Comments (0)

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Governors Island tour season coming to an end

The mostly abandoned Governors Island, now open to the public part of the year, is about to wrap up "Set and Drift," described as a "summer-long project with art installations, radio transmissions, and video projections set among the Island's forts, mess halls, and officers' housing."

"Set and Drift" closes Aug. 13.

Sept. 2 will be the last weekday tour of the island, but Saturday public access will still be available Sept. 3 and 10, according to the National Park Service. Ferry tickets are $6 for adults; $3 for children.

Tours will resume in June 2006.

(Link found via Frogma, a kayaker's blog.)

Resources: National Park Service guide to Governors Island
Upcoming events at Governors Island
Forgotten NY's photo Governors Island photo page

Earlier: Governor's Island open until September

August 11, 2005 02:35 PM Comments (0)

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OpenHouse NY 2005 set for weekend of Oct. 8

This year's Open House New York will open up 150 architecturally interesting locations for a weekend - many of them normally off limits to the public such as the Chrysler Building and the grounds of the Ellis Island Hospital.

This year's event is set for Oct. 8 and 9.

Still free -- this year's main sponsor is Target -- will also feature new programs this year. "Full details will be listed on our website and in our printed event guide in September," event organizers promise.

Earlier: Open House New York photo winners announced
Don't sleep in: Open House New York this weekend
Open House NY set for weekend of Oct. 9

August 3, 2005 09:04 PM Comments (0)

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Experiencing New York ... from Seattle

Although the Experience Music Project is in Seattle, there's actually a lot of New York music history crammed into the walls of this museum designed by Frank Gehry and bankrolled by Paul Allen.

Washington Square Park and Greenwich Village get a lot of attention. "The park was one of the central gathering places of the Village folk scene and folksingers often played for free to appreciative crowds. On April 9, 1961, Izzy Young, owner of the Folklore Center, led 3,000 people in peaceful protest against a city ordinance that banned singing on Sundays in Washington Square Park. The rally deteriorated into a riot when police started arresting protestors."

Bob Dylan's first apartment in New York was a third-floor walk-up at 161 W. 4th St., above Bruno's spaghetti parlor. Rent was $60 a month; the year was 1961.

Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Sound Studios, the first high-tech private studio built for a musician, was located at 52 w. 8th Street. He only used it briefly before heading off to London, where he died at 27.

And in the history of hip-hop exhibit, there is a lot of New York subway graffiti, including a public service card placed in some of the cars. It had picture of "Fame" stars Irene Cara and Gene Ray looking very serious. It read "Fame is seeing your name in lights. Not seeing it sprayed on the subway. ... Make your mark in society. Not on society." Sponsored by the mayor's task force on graffiti. Not Giuliani, but Mayor Edward Koch.

July 20, 2005 02:14 PM Comments (0)

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The Plaza's Oak Bar and Palm Court get landmarked

The Oak Bar, Palm Court, Terrace Room and several other public spaces in The Plaza have been granted landmark status just as the new owner of the historic hotel begins a massive renovation to convert much of the structure into condominiums.

The renovation will also recreate a 1907 domed glass ceiling in the Palm Court, according to the New York Times:

Walter B. Melvin, an architect for Elad, said he had spent the past two weeks planning a recreation of the original Palm Court "laylight," the glass ceiling with patterned lead canes that once formed the decorative interior of a 40-foot skylight.

A 1921 addition to the hotel blocked the natural light, and the skylight itself was removed around World War II, according to Elad representatives, to prevent it from being a beacon during air raids. The new plan calls for artificial lights above the glass ceiling to create the impression of sunlight.

July 13, 2005 02:19 PM Comments (0)

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Howard Johnson's closes on Times Square

After 46 years, the Howard Johnson's restaurant on Times Square has served its last meal.

One of the final patrons was Walter L. Mann, who runs HojoLand.com. He had many thoughts on the final closing:

That little world inside HoJo's really stood still for 46 years, while everything outside changed. While people say that change is for the better, there was one good thing about the lack of change inside HoJo's....familiarity. You've heard the expression, "stop the world, I want to get off," well, many, including myself, believe that's what really happened everytime you stepped into the Times Sqaure HoJo's. Yes, the carpet, booths, tables, walls, counters, were worn, heck, everything was worn. But isn't there something special and comfortable about your favorite worn t-shirt or shoes? Some say the Times Square HoJo's could, and should have lasted forever. Even the original owner, the late Morris Rubenstein, indicated in his will, his wishes for his "pride and joy" of restaurants to stay open forever. Unfortunately, his heirs didn't seem to agree with him. But, let's face it, whether we like it or not, this HoJo's shouldn't have lasted as long as it did. With the "Disney-fying" of Times Square, begun by the Giuliani administration, everything old was obliterated, and nobody thought the last remaining old establishment would have been HoJo's.

July 12, 2005 02:01 PM Comments (0)

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Even Charles Dickens had ticket scalpers in NYC

The state's new scalping law limits the ticket resale to only 45 percent more than the face value of the ticket. Yet there is an exemption for venues with fewer than 6,000 seats, such as Broadway theaters. That's means its entirely legal to buy a seat for Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane's "The Odd Couple" for more than $1,000.

For a little historical perspective, take a look at this antique New-York Daily Tribune currently for auction at eBay. Charles Dickens was in New York in 1868, giving a number of readings. Most readings had a $2 cover charge, but there is also an advertisement for "Reserved seats for Mr. Dickens’s last readings in New York can be procured at a slight advance over the regular price ..." Though maybe that "slight advance" was more like the TicketMaster surcharge, or one of those now-ubiquitous "theater restoration fees."

The same newspaper also carries an amusing little commentary about New Yorkers’ waning admiration for the writer:

Charles Dickens gives to-night his last reading for the present in New-York. The excitement which attended his arrival and first public appearance among us has subsided, and the impression one receives from a remarkable man, and from the remarkable spectacle of a great author embodying and enacting his own literary conception, are becoming more dispassionate. Admiration begets fault-finding. Questions outside the true merits od the reading come up. Is the reader as perfect in acting as he is owerful in writing? As an artist is he superior or inferior to Franny Kemble? Other questions, too. Was it fair or generous in a man who had been received with adulation at his first coming among us, to reprove so sharply as he did in his American Notes? Can one gather a fair estimate of character from the pages of Martin Chuzzlewit? We are a thin-skinned nation yet. Young people and young nations generally are. ...

July 8, 2005 09:23 AM Comments (0)

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Underground Railroad in more Brooklyn basements?

A group of residents in downtown Brooklyn are trying to find out if their basements were used as part of the Underground Railroad, according to the New York Times. Lewis Greenstein of 233 Duffield St. (map) is spearheading the research, hoping to provide proof before the Downtown Brooklyn redevelopment plan tears up the block.

On the lowest level were two alcoves that seemed to be fireplaces, two shafts leading to street level, and a circular spot on the floor, three feet in diameter, that seemed to have been filled in with stones and cemented over.

These clues, plus months of research into property records, convinced Mr. Greenstein that his house and several others on the block warranted further study as possible historic sites along the Underground Railroad, a route used by escaped slaves.

July 5, 2005 12:56 PM Comments (0)

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Free Ellis Island passenger records through July 4

Here's a deal perfect for everyone who's been meaning to start researching their family's history.

Through July 4th, the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation is offering a free passenger record (normally $25,) with the purchase of a matching Ellis Island ship manifest ($25 and up.)

No need to take the ferry to Ellis Island; you can actually do it all online. The search itself is free, though you'll need to go through a free registration process to see your results. To get started, all you need is an ancestor's last name and an approximate year of birth.

June 24, 2005 10:31 AM Comments (0)

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Living with Legends at Hotel Chelsea

Maybe you're no Andy Warhol, Sarah Bernhardt or Jimi Hendrix - let alone Sid & Nancy. But you can still suck in the spirit of the life and history of the Chelsea Hotel through the new Living with Legends: the Hotel Chelsea Blog.

Part apartment complex and part hotel, The Hotel Chelsea has a storied past - and present, especially if you believe the ghost stories.

Living with Legends focuses on the art, music and literature created by the Hotel Chelsea's guests, though you'll also find interview with residents and quirky things such as an old $10 check written to the hotel in 1938 by Thomas Wolfe.

May 8, 2005 08:52 AM Comments (0)

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Seaport Museum: antique graffiti to seagull poop

The South Street Seaport Museum may be one of the most poorly publicized sights in Manhattan, which is quite a shame considering it's recently undergone a renovation and is home to plenty of quirky and slightly dark remnants of early New York.

There is a print of the Titanic's maiden voyage, signed by the artist -- and six survivors. A business postcard touts the sale of seagull poo. Another charming full-color card for the insurance industry hoped to encourage business with a wacky series of illustrations of the hazards of modern life: a man getting run over by a trolley car, two children falling through the ice on a lake, robbers busting into a bedroom and frightening mom and pop in their undies, a man slipping on a banana peel.

Another neat little item is an English-made umbrella that doubles as a telescope if the dandy unscrewed the tip and handle. Upstairs, there are exquisite antique toys - including models of Coney Island in its heyday. But not far away, you'll find elaborate sculptures cut from bone by prisoners of war.

Located in the old houses of Schermerhorn Row between Water and South streets, the buildings' thick plank ceilings are exposed, in some places revealing fire damage. One recently re-exposed wall shows antique graffiti, faded, but the goofy caricatures are clearly there. Mostly Irish in flavor, it bears sayings such as "Erin Go Bragh"

The Seaport has resumed summer hours and is now open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults; $6 for students and seniors; $4 for children 5 to 12; children under 5 are free.

Earlier: Archaeological artifacts at NY Unearthed may leave city
New York Unearthed by appointment only

May 5, 2005 11:12 AM Comments (0)

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Pre-condo Plaza -- only three nights to go

In these final days of pre-condo Plaza, New York magazine puts together a photo montage of the (almost) century-old hotel -- ranging from Richard Burton adorned with an Elizabeth Taylor dressed like a snow bunny with thigh-high white boots to the closed-off, water-damaged Room 1011, with chunks of ceiling littering the carpeted floor in front of a fireplace.

Little quote snippets tell the story from the mouths of employees, guests, owners with names like Trump, Vanderbilt, Bogdanovich and Simmons, (as in Gene Simmons of Kiss.) But my favorite bit comes from Jerry Dimitratos, bell captain for 27 years.

I served room service to King Hassan of Morocco. This man brought ten trucks full of food, rugs and his own mattresses. He was the only king I've seen that traveled like that. He took a minimum of three floors.

April 28, 2005 12:20 PM Comments (0)

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New York - you must be crazy to live there

How long have the inhabitants of Manhattan been a little crazy? Quite some time, it seems. For proof, get thee -- courtesy of e-Bay -- the 1845 edition of the Annual Report of the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane, New-York City. The first mental hospital in New York state, Bloomingdale opened in Morningside Heights in 1821, according to the book's seller. More:

Males and females admitted to the insane asylum suffered from Religious Excitement, Mania, Self-Abuse, Epilepsy, Cerebral Congestion, Head Injury, Change of Life, Anxiety, Melancholia, Dementia, Congenital Imbecility, DT’s, Delirium of Phrenitis, Millerism. ...

William Miller of Northern NY was a religious cult leader with a huge and zealous following, known as Millerites. The religion was called Millerism; the origin of the Seventh-Day Adventists. Miller used complex prophetic number systems and calculated the date of the Second Coming. The date of this event was November 22, 1844. Jesus did not appear as expected. Following "The Great Disappointment," institutions for the insane were furnishing proofs of the mental ravages Millerism was causing throughout the country. "Miller Maniacs" were brought to the doors of insane asylums nearly every day, including an admission noted here at Bloomingdale’s. "Worn out and exhausted by ceaseless religious orgies, many broke down completely and became hopelessly insane."

April 24, 2005 10:36 PM Comments (0)

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East River Industrial Heritage Trail in the works

An "East River Industrial Heritage Trail" is in the works to highlight "points of historical and industrial interest along the East River that, when linked together, will help tell the story of not only the East River's, but also New York City's industrial past."

Among the sites slated for the trail is the 1905 Long Island City Power House, which is facing demolition.

The project is the work of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance and the Roebling Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archaeology. (Link found via Sea Level: New York.)

April 21, 2005 11:25 AM Comments (0)

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Wrecking ball to level Howard Johnson's in Times Sq.

The Howard Johnson's restaurant at Broadway and 46th Street will be torn down by the end of the year by a new owner who plans to build a high-end retail complex, the Post reports today.

Jeff Sutton's Wharton Acquisitions paid more than $100 million for the 50-year-old diner along with the adjacent property on Broadway and another site on West 34th. The Post says to expect another "retail box" store much like the Toys 'R' Us on the other side of Times Square. Wharton has developed properties such as the Fifth Avenue sites of Hugo Boss, American Girl Place, and the new Abercrombie & Fitch. From the Post:

The Times Square HoJo's is the last of the once-sprawling nationwide chain's New York City locations, and the only one left of the three that once served the Theater District.

Its blue-and-brown booths, old-fashioned counter and bar serving $3.75 cocktails — "except premium brands" — seems an anachronism amidst the "new" Times Square's concentration of media and financial skyscrapers, hip hotels and bright electronic displays.

April 19, 2005 08:29 AM Comments (0)

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Thomas Edison 1903 East River movies now online

At The East River, there is a neat online collection of four movies filmed by Thomas Edison along the East River on May 20, 1903.

Panorama Water Front and Brooklyn Bridge from the East River is packed with images of Manhattan's old working waterfront with the Brooklyn Bridge pay off showing up at the end of the clip.

Even more interesting is the Blackwell's Island Panorama, which is now known as Roosevelt Island. Edison was apparently on a swift-moving boat sailing south on the East River as it passes on the east side of the island. He captures the lighthouse on the northern tip, construction of the Queensboro Bridge -- which didn't open until 1909 -- and the now-abandoned hospital buildings.

(Links found via Sea Level, a new blog about New York watersports. It has a great collection of links thus far.)

April 13, 2005 10:11 AM Comments (0)

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'Dickens in America' to recount New York's dirty past

The BBC is set to air a modern-day update of Charles Dickens' travels through the U.S., including his stay in New York City and the disgusting conditions he encountered in Five Points. The travelogue, "Dickens in America," is hosted by British actress Miriam Margolyes, who is also a patron of London's Dickens House Museum. The Herald says her journey will follow in the steps of the writer's "1842 whistle-stop tour of the newly founded United States of America." But don't look for it to air in America anytime soon.

"Things haven't changed," Margolyes says. "One thing that doesn't change is that the Americans don't like criticism. I don't think this show will be seen there," she says, "which makes me sad. That's why Dickens didn't go back to America for 25 years. When he went back, in 1868, that was a journey of forgiveness.

March 31, 2005 12:35 PM Comments (0)

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When oyster bars were New York's fast food

When Grand Central Terminal opened for business on Feb. 2, 1913, there was a famous restaurant downstairs selling one of the city's main staples, the Oyster Bar & Restaurant.

Oysters were so prevalent in New York waters, the bars were considered "the fast-food eateries of the 19th Century," urban historian Francis Morrone said while leading a tour of the rail terminal a few months back. "They were like McDonald's. They were all over our city."

Even Liberty Island, before becoming home to the Statue of Liberty, was known as Oyster Island, according to the book Touring Gotham's Archaeological Past.

Whatever that my say about old New York, add to the mix a story in this week's New Scientist:

Fabled for its power to turn ordinary mortals into sex gods, nothing beats the oyster as the prelude to a night of passion. And no, it's not all hype.

High levels of a chemical that boosts libido have been found in clams, a close relative of the oyster, suggesting that their reputation is not undeserved.

(In) the 19th century, New York City shipped shellfish all over the world. Oysters and clams became some of the City’s biggest exports, with clam boats filling Little Neck Bay in Queens and Prince’s Bay in Staten Island. People all over the world enjoyed raw New York City oysters with lemon. However, in 1916 several cases of typhoid fever were traced to oysters taken from New York Harbor. This led the city Board of Health to condemn the oyster beds. The harbor, which was seen by many as an open sewer and garbage dump, became too polluted for the oysters it contained to be eaten. Although shellfish thrive on the floor of the harbor and pollution inputs have been decreased, persisting contaminants from decades past remain in the shellfish tissue, making them unsafe to eat.

March 24, 2005 12:18 AM Comments (0)

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Tippling at the Seventh Regiment Armory

CityRag.com has an excellent feature today on one of the city's hidden drinking establishments: the Seventh Regiment Armory at 66th Street and Park Ave.

stepping up to the building's main doors, Gail tells the armed guards we're going to the restaurant and they allow us entry. it's hard to begin to describe the musty, forgotten treasure chest of artifacts you walk into. the articles below give a sense of the incredible architecture, art and antiques, and layers of history that surround you. but it's the creepiness, dim lighting and layers of dust that entrance us. torn flags from battle fields, huge paintings, and gothic iron work chandlers line the walls (they seem to only maintain one working/lit bulb per fixture.)

taking the elevator to the 4th floor, the doors open to a long hall set up as a bar that's straight out of a Knights of Columbus Hall; moose heads, funky furniture, a cool old bar. and clenching the deal - beer and drinks are super cheap!

March 23, 2005 05:38 PM Comments (0)

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Drinking your way through New York's oldest bars

Beer has long been important to New York. In "Water for Gotham: A History," Gerard Koeppel explains that the drinking water in New Amsterdam was so scarce and of such reprehensible quality that most residents drank beer.

In a town surrounded by salt water and swamp, turning limited fresh water into beer was an essential industry. A tile-roofed brewery built in 1633, was among New Amsterdam's first substantial buildings. Brewers were among the town's most notable citizens.

March 14, 2005 12:12 PM Comments (0)

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Antique Times Square postcards - when Bond sold suits

The typical tourist might buy a few postcards of Times Square and send them off to Idaho. But for the more clever folk, there are antique postcards of New York City.

This one, currently on sale at ebay for $2.99, features a picture of Bond clothiers, which was only recently reopened as a restaurant called Bond 45.

For more history of old Times Sqaure, try New York Architecture Images.

March 10, 2005 10:53 AM Comments (0)

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Historic views from Fort Wadsworth

Out on Staten Island just where the Verrazano Bridge hits land, there is a seldom-visited yet exceptional piece of New York City that has one of the best views you may ever see.

Standing atop a hill of the 19th Century Fort Wadsworth, scanning the horizon from left to right, you'll take in the Staten Island Ferries at their docks, the Statue of Liberty, a dozen massive ships laden with cargo arriving from foreign ports, New Jersey's budding skyline, downtown Manhattan's historic skyscrapers in clear view, Brooklyn - from Red Hook to the parachute jump at Coney Island - with the Verrazano Narrows bridge only partially obscuring the view of a couple of tiny islands you probably didn't know existed, and off in the distance, the Jersey shore. Unlike most places in New York, here you feel that the city is indeed mostly just a group of little islands.

In part because of its awesome view, Fort Wadsworth was a lynchpin to the city's defense, along with several other forts built to keep enemies at bay - and out of the mouth of the harbor. Built mainly in the 1800s, it was used by the military up until World War II and now is operated by the National Park Service.

You'll see the beautifully maintained multi-story granite battery that housed more than 100 cannons pointing out to the one-mile wide channel. The nearby torpedo shed - which is missing most of its roof due to a fire in the 1980s - housed the underwater mines that were used to create a "submarine net" in the Narrows. And because the site occupies 226 hilly acres, it affords enough wide-open spaces to let the kids run loose. While we were there this past weekend, a family parked near the overlook and only seconds later several young boys emerged with their toy guns, running to find excellent positions amid the very real fortifications.

Wadsworth is open daily from dawn until dusk, though the visitor's center is open only Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The main buildings of the fort are accessible only via the 90-minute guided tours, at 2:30 each day the visitor's center is open. It's an entirely free excursion, though a little inconvenient to reach except by car.

March 7, 2005 03:39 PM Comments (0)

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The 50-cent short beer still exists in Brooklyn

For another look back at New York drinking nostalgia, go no farther than last weekend's New York Times. The Grey Lady finds several places keeping old drinking traditions alive, such as the "short beer."

This wonderful drink, which can still be had for 50 cents at places like Kelly's Tavern in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, is a dignified holdover from an age before the mighty pint became the irreducible unit of consumption. The short beer is a mere half-mug, served more often than not in a small stemmed glass, and it remains the order of choice for scores of seasoned old drinkers who like to know they can still buy a round for the house once in a while. Behind the portal of many an unfashionable old bar awaits the not inconsequential delight of being able to enjoy a night of drinking in New York without using up a $10 bill.

Also in the category of places you wouldn't mind taking your grandmother to for a drink is Schaffer's Tavern, in the Westerleigh section of Staten Island. Unlike the Five Corners, Schaffer's is in a neighborhood that was once famous for its sobriety: A beachhead for the temperance movement, Westerleigh briefly went by the far more dour name Prohibition Park, and many nearby streets, like Neal Dow Avenue, are named for prominent prohibitionists.

March 2, 2005 10:46 PM Comments (1)

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Drinking with Sadie the Goat on Water Street

The approach to St. Patrick's Day seems a good time for a short, random history of drinking in New York, doesn't it? Let's start in 1869 with Sadie the Goat, one of the hard-drinking maidens from "Booty, Girl Pirates on the High Seas," by Sara Lorimer.

Sadie was a regular on Water Street, the Fourth Ward's main drag and a favorite of sailors and those looking for underworld fun. A travel guide of the day called it the most violent street on the continent; another warned readers absolutely to steer clear after dark. The Fourth Ward Hotel kept a trapdoor to dump corpses into the East River. The street had no shortage of saloons and their unlicensed cousins, called "blind tigers," which served the locals, slumming gentry and the criminals who preyed on all alike. On the corner of Water and Dover Streets was one of the roughest taverns of all, the Hole-in-the-Wall, the favorite basement hangout of Sadie the Goat.

By far the scariest bouncer at the Hole-in-the-Wall was Gallus Mag - a six-foot-plus Englishwoman with a truncheon tied to her wrist and a revolver tucked in her belt. Mag had a unique way of dealing with rowdy drunks: smacking the lout with her truncheon, dragging him to the door with his ear held firmly in her teeth, and if she was in the mood, biting off the ear before tossing its owner into the street. The ears were added to her collection, which she kept in a pickling jar behind the bar. One spring night Sadie ran afoul of Mag, and the next ear in the pickling jar was Sadie's.

March 1, 2005 10:54 PM Comments (0)

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Archaeological artifacts at NY Unearthed may leave city

The oft-overlooked archaeological collection at New York Unearthed may be heading to Albany, Newsday reports.

The NY Unearthed collection dates back 300 years, with 2 million items such as china cups, glass bottles, clay smoking pipes, shoe buckles and building fixtures. Since July, the museum (located at the site of author Herman Melville's birthplace,) has been open by appointment only and the South Street Seaport Museum no longer wants to manage it.

Newsday says that as a result of budget cuts and too few visitors, members of the archaeology department have been let go, "including its former curator, effectively shutting the lab."

When I visited the museum about a year ago, admission was free and their hours were so obscure it was obvious why they attracted so few visitors. From my notes at the time: "it's only open from noon to 5 or 6 p.m. Closed Sundays, maybe even Saturdays, too. Their signs contradicted the little brochure I picked up." My favorite item on display was the false teeth found near the Sullivan Street tenements.

I was at the location again while on a walking tour with Kevin Walsh of Forgotten New York, who said the museum once had 500,000 artifacts dug up from Five Points. However, all but 18 of those items were stored at the World Trade Center and were destroyed Sept. 11.

As for the South Street Seaport Museum itself, it is only open Friday though Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Beginning April 1, it will open every day of the week. Admission is $8.

Earlier: New York Unearthed by appointment only
Touring Gotham's archaeology with book in hand

February 27, 2005 11:06 AM Comments (0)

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On 40th anniversary, Malcolm X memorialized

Later today, on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X, his family will be joined by about 400 others at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights to honor his memory. From the New York Times story:

"It's hard for people to come back to a place he was assassinated," said Ilyasah Shabazz, who is planning to attend tonight's memorial with another sister, Gamilah, and Malaak. "But we've taken a tragic place and turned it into something beautiful."

February 21, 2005 10:29 AM Comments (0)

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New York Social Etiquette in 1882 - on eBay

Need to know what type of font to place on your calling card if you're a newcomer to New York? Is square dancing in this year? What should you wear to the theater? If you're still living in 1882 (and I suspect some of you are,) there is a fascinating book up for auction on eBay: "Social Etiquette of New York." The seller has kindly scanned in several pages from the book:

"A faint smile and a formal bow are all that the most refined lady accords to the visitor of her family when she passes him in her walks or drives. If a gentleman lifts his hat and stops after she has recognized him, he may ask her permission to turn and accompany her for a little, or even a long distance. Under no circumstances will he stand in the street to converse with her, or be offended if she excuse herself and pass on. She may be in haste, or otherwise absorbed, and his conversation may be an interruption to her thoughts, even though she be at other times graciously pleased to entertain him with her social accomplishments."

February 17, 2005 11:39 AM Comments (0)

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The whispering gallery of Grand Central Terminal

Among the secrets of the Grand Central Terminal is the "whispering gallery" in front of the famous Oyster Bar & Restaurant. There is no sign marking the gallery or how to make it work. But if you wait a few minutes, a couple will undoubtedly walk up and head to separate corners and elicit its magic.

The low ceramic arches, built for the 1913 opening of Grand Central, are designed in such a perfect way that if two people stand at diagonal arches and whisper into a corner, they should be able to hear each other as if they were face to face – not far across the way.

"I was raised in New York and my father taught me about it when I was just a little, little girl," said Catherine Wiley, who was visiting recently from Brookings, Ore. On this trip, she was traveling with her boyfriend, Ed McDonald, and she brought him to Grand Central to show him the trick.

It’s also a popular scene for marriage proposals. "I see them all the time," said Mary Sitter, a hostess at the Oyster Bar. "There’s a lot at Valentine’s Day."

Sitter, who grew up in Queens, is also a good gauge of how few people know the secret of the arches. Until she started working at the Oyster Bar, she knew nothing of the whispering arches. "I’m a New Yorker and I hadn’t ever heard of this."

So how does it work?

"The voice actually follows the curvature of the ceiling,” said urban historian Justin Ferate, who leads tours of Grand Central. It’s called "telegraphing."

The arches were designed by a father and son team, Rafael Guastavino and Rafael Guastavino Jr. Their work has become a signature style for the city, found in hundreds of places, such as in the Great Hall at Ellis Island, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University, the space under the Queensboro Bridge – which can be viewed from the pricey Guastavino’s restaurant - or next door at the Food Emporium grocery store.

The acoustics of the Guastavino arches have fascinated many people, according to architecture critic Francis Morrone, who is working on a book about Grand Central Terminal. Jazz composer Charles Mingus not only liked to play his bass under the whispering arches at Grand Central, but he also proposed to his wife there, Morrone said.

The acoustics of the arches can hold other surprises – especially for diners at the Oyster Bar, which also has Guastavino ceilings. It’s not the place you want to go if you have any secrets to discuss. "We’re still finding spots in the restaurant where your conversation carries across the room," Sitter said.

February 8, 2005 10:16 AM Comments (0)

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Will Smith's 'Hitch' premiers on Ellis Island

The new Will Smith comedy, "Hitch," last night premiered at a celebrity event on Ellis Island, with red carpets leading into the grand center earlier used by 12 million U.S. immigrants.

Sony Pictures built a massive, heated theater under tents on the lawn. For the after-party, the Grand Hall of Ellis Island was transformed into an elegant nightclub, where the main act was Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff, rapping and singing hits such as "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" and "Miami."

I should disclose that my husband and I got to attend the whole shebang free of charge courtesy of an old college friend who does indeed have an interest in seeing "Hitch" do well. That said, I honestly think the movie will become one of the top New York romantic comedies ever. The city features prominently in the movie, especially downtown, and a key scene takes places at Ellis Island.

The point is made in the movie that tourists are far more likely to visit Ellis than the people who live here. "A lot of you guys are New Yorkers and you've never been to Ellis Island," Smith said last night as he stood in the front of the theater with Sir Howard Stringer, head of Sony America, and co-stars Eva Mendes, Kevin James and Amber Valletta. "I wanted you all to come out and have a good time - and know."

At the after-party, Smith on the mic again, said his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, found out earlier that night that her grandfather came through Ellis. Though Smith also made a "Roots" joke about how many of his ancestors arrived to America not via Ellis but "through the back door."

However, everyone attending the party last night arrived to Ellis in a way unlike any of the immigrants ever did. A single searchlight combed the sky from Battery Park, where guests checked in for their credentials. From there, a red-carpeted, heated, white-tented walkway led guests all the way to the security center at the dock. There, every guest went through the airport-style security check point, just like the tourists do every day. Coats came off, belts came off, watches came off, my tall black boots got patted down. I even had to take off the jacket over my sleeveless dress before passing through the metal detector. I said something about being cold and the security guy smiled and said "I think you look hot," as he waved me along. It was actually pretty funny watching a room of dressed-up VIPs fumbling partially dressed in this big tent.

Out of security and to the Circle Line Ferry -- the exact same boats used by tourists all day long. Almost everyone stayed on the unglamorous bottom deck - including Will and Jada (as everyone there was calling them) -- but my husband and I ventured to the top deck, because it just wasn't cold enough last night to forego that skyline view. (Had the event been held even a week earlier, everything could have gone haywire since ice hindered much ferry operation around the New York Harbor.)

Paparazzi greeted the ferry at the dock of Ellis Island, as a red carpet led into the main building. The less-fabulous guests walked adjacent to the red carpet, separated by handrails, as the more glamorous posed for the flashes. And good heavens if our unfabulous line didn't move ungodly slow, because if you lingered, you were in the background of the celebrity shot. "Jada! Jada! Jada!" the cameramen yelled non-stop. The older couple in front of us halted traffic yet again when the woman sounded surprised: "Oh honey, is that Jada?" "Oh my, where?" They just happened to be in frame as they stopped to make this observation.

National Park Service rangers stood as casual guards all over the place, answering history questions and giving directions to the bathrooms. They all seemed at ease, enjoying the show, and apparently at least some got to preview the movie as well.

The cocktail party before the movie was held in Ellis' arrival hall. Guests passed the display of immigrants' luggage and into the area set with educational displays on the history of U.S. immigration. Many guests headed for the stations where they typed in ancestors' names, looking for information. (You can also search Ellis Island passenger records online.)

The temporary "Sony Theater at Ellis Island," seated more than a thousand people by my estimate. Popcorn was served in "Hitch" paper bags and whenever an emergency exit door opened, sections of the Manhattan skyline peeped in.

The Grand Hall, I was told, was open to tourists in pristine condition until regular closing time at 5 p.m. and only then did teams move in to install a stage at the end of the grand hall. It fronted a set of stairs that are important for the fact that immigrants only got to go through them once they’ve passed all inspections and could finally be reunited with loved ones through the door at the bottom of the stairs.

Open bars serving martinis, champagne and wine were set up in front of each of the huge arched windows all around the room. From one side of the room you could see the lights of the Manhattan skyline; from the other peered the Statue of Liberty just an island away, and closer, the shadows of snow-covered and still unrepaired Ellis Island buildings, including the hospital's quarantine quarters.

Buffet-style food stations ringed the room while the dessert table featured running fountains of milk chocolate and pieces of strawberries, pineapple, marshmallows and cookies for dipping. I tried very hard to imagine what my Slavic great grandparents might have looked like in that room a century ago, but frankly the space was so elegantly transformed last night it was impossible to picture.

The celebrities were extremely accessible through the night, signing autographs for the handful of pre-teen girls there, mixing in the crowd and posing for autographs. Jada, changed into jeans and comfy boots for the after-party, danced at the edge of the stage even before her husband took to the mic.

When we left at midnight, the party was still going on upstairs. Though Will and Jada got on the boat just ahead of us, so maybe we didn't miss too much.

The movie will be in theaters Feb. 11.

Earlier: Shuttered Ellis Island buildings could open to public
Touring Gotham's archaeology with book in hand

February 4, 2005 08:28 AM Comments (2)

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'Boozy' Robert Moses opening Off-Broadway

In Jasper Fforde's "Eyre Affair" the characters live in a world quite like ours, though different. The Crimean War has been raging for 131 years, dodo birds are bred for fun, the Brits have yet to hear of anyone by the name of Winston Churchill and Shakespeare's "Richard III" is performed weekly to a packed house who behave as though they're at "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." (Audience: When is the winter of our discontent? Richard: Now is the winter of our discontent.)

Fforde's books really have nothing at all to do with New York, but they come to mind when I read about what's in store at a new Off-Broadway show about Robert Moses, the love him/hate him uber-planner of modern New York City.

The play, "Boozy: The Life, Death, and Subsequent Vilification of Le Corbusier and, More Importantly, Robert Moses," starts its limited run on Feb. 12. Tickets are a mere $15. Here's the paragraph that is likely to appear frequently in serious media all over the globe, as it's already done in Playbill and Curbed:

"Amidst a blaze of streaming media, ridiculous choreography, and dozens of live fornicating rabbits, famed French architect Le Corbusier inspires builder Robert Moses in his desperate battle to recreate New York," the Off-Broadway company announced. "Boozy: The Life, Death, and Subsequent Vilification of Le Corbusier and, More Importantly, Robert Moses tracks the life of Robert Moses, from idealistic youth to unstoppable power broker, able to turn parched land into glorious bridges, highways, and public housing with a mere flick of the wrist. With guest appearances by Benito Mussolini, FDR, and the ghost of Baron von Haussmann, Moses learns from the greats until true power is finally his. Freemasons dance, FDR levitates, and Daniel Libeskind silently weeps. None shall be spared."

February 1, 2005 09:27 PM Comments (0)

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Bell from General Slocum disaster heading to NYHS

A historic bell thought lost in the depths of the East River a century ago will return to New York after a tourist mentioned to her tour guide that she has the General Sloucum relic at home in California, the Post reports.

When the General Slocum steamboat sank on a sightseeing cruise for a church group on June 15, 1904, a total of 1,031 people died, making it the city's worst disaster prior to Sept. 11.

From the Post:

But it has actually been hanging in the home of Deborah Sidas, a California woman whose great-uncle helped recover remains of the Slocum from the river bottom after the tragedy.

And the bell might still be in Sidas' house if she hadn't asked Big Apple tour guide Don Slovin if he'd heard of the disaster.

"When I'm giving a tour, I don't usually take questions, but when she started talking about the Slocum, I shut up," Slovin said.

January 31, 2005 08:22 AM Comments (0)

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Celebrating the era of grand ocean liners

There was an elegant time in travel -- before the arrival of those magnificent men with their flying machines -- when a trip to America was done only by ocean liner. The Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool will be celebrating that era starting today with today's opening of "Liverpool to New York: The Only Way To Cross." The exhibit -- with loads of information online -- aims to recreate the six-day voyage from preparations made before the sail, to exploring the ships, meeting your fellow passengers and finally arriving in New York. From the exhibit, (be sure to read aloud with your best Beatles accent):

Passing the Ambrose Lightship was the sign that the crossing was nearly over; only another twenty miles to Pier 90. Passengers lined the railings for their first sight of land, the coastline of Long Island. The ship dropped speed and picked up a pilot at Sandy Hook at the entrance to the Ambrose Channel. As it entered New York Harbour it hooted a greeting.

For some passengers, the Manhattan skyline was an old friend. Others marvelled at its drama for the first time. As in Liverpool, liners sailed into the very heart of the city. The skyscrapers looked like a giant sea wall. A 'skyscraper' was originally the term used for the highest sail on the mast of a sailing ship. Disembarking passengers faced a number of challenges before they were free to enter the city.


First and second class passengers were cleared through immigration as the liner sailed into New York Harbour. Until 1954 third class passengers faced one last journey - a ferry to Ellis Island beside the Statue of Liberty. There they were questioned by doctors and immigration officials to check that they were 'fit to enter'. Around 2% were sent back home. The rest met up with relatives at the Kissing Gate before catching the ferry back to Manhattan.

The US Customs Service was famous as being the toughest in the world. After disembarking, passengers stood by their luggage in the Customs Hall for inspection. Little escaped the eagle eye of the Customs men.

Once on land, passengers faced the twin hazards of dishonest porters and taxi cab drivers who overcharged. Luggage was regularly 'lost' so that the porters would be tipped twice, once for finding it and once for carrying it. In the 1930s and 1940s the rackets of the Manhattan waterfront, controlled by four master criminals, were legendary.

‘Vultures’ watched passengers closely as they disembarked in the 1950s. These unscrupulous lawyers were on the lookout for passengers with a limp or wearing a bandage. They volunteered to sue the shipping line for injuries suffered on board, splitting any costs awarded 50/50 with the passenger.

January 28, 2005 10:00 AM Comments (0)

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'Multipurpose' Plaza courting super-fine dept. store

The new owner of The Plaza confirmed to the New York Times and the Post that he plans to convert most of the hotel rooms into condos, fill lower floors will retail shops and is seeking a "very high-end retail operator, even more exclusive than Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue or Harrods," to occupy a five- or six-story department store.

The good news is that some of the Plaza's most fabled areas will remain unchanged, including the Oak Room and the Oak Bar, the Palm Court and the Edwardian Room (which until recently was home to the restaurant One CPS.)

The Plaza is "worn down," new owner Miki Naftali told the Times. And this:

"It's amazing people think it's one of the best hotels in the world," he said. "It's not. But look at the space."

January 26, 2005 09:34 AM Comments (1)

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Say it ain't so! The Plaza to go 'condo/retail center'

The new owner of legendary New York landmark The Plaza has very sad plans, the Post reports.

Once home to Vanderbilts and Hitchcocks, the 98-year-old hotel will shut its doors for 18 to 24 months on April 30, after which the building will be remodeled into condominiums and retail space. Only about 80 of The Plaza's 805 rooms will remain as a hotel.

Last year, Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva spent $675 million to buy the Plaza, which has lost money since the World Trade Center attacks. Open since 1907 and first used primarily as a residence for wealthy New Yorkers, the French Renaissance building at the southeast corner of Central Park is one of the city's most treasured spaces. As those rooms go private, a one-bedroom could fetch as much as $3 million each. The Post also quotes William Costigan, a high-end broker who just sold a $12 million apartment on Central Park. "The Europeans are able to buy here for less. You are buying a piece of New York history."

Earlier: Nostalgia does not a meal make at Oak Room
Dorothy Parker Society bidding farewell to Oak Room

January 23, 2005 08:24 AM Comments (0)

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Little Italy shrinks, making way for tourist version

A few more of Little Italy's oldest shops and restaurants are being forced out by rising rents, according to The Villager.

Paolucci’s restaurant, established in 1947, closed last Friday and will move to Staten Island; The Big Cigar Company and Little Italy Gift Shop will be closing; and the E. Rossi & Co. Italian gift shop at the corner of Mulberry and Grand streets since 1936, will move at the end of the month. From The Villager:

Lillian Tozzi, a lifetime Little Italy resident, said that landlords are charging more now because Little Italy has become a tourist attraction. “The new landlords have come in and realized that these businesses are popular and not paying much rent. Now that Little Italy is a tourist attraction they’ve found a gimmick, a way of making fast money,” she said.

However, Tozzi noted, it is not just landlords raising rents that force the businesses to close. “In reality, the new businesses have pushed the old mom-and-pop businesses out. The new Little Italy is geared more toward tourism and a carnival atmosphere,” she said.

January 20, 2005 10:45 AM Comments (0)

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Shuttered Ellis Island buildings could open to public

Save Ellis Island, a non-profit group, is gearing up for a $300 million fundraising drive in hopes of renovating the rotting medical buildings on the south side of Ellis Island, the Los Angeles Times reports. The plan is to eventually open it to tourists, adding to the primary exhibits at Ellis Island's main hall, which has been open to tourists since 1990. The site includes a French Renaissance-style hospital, laundry and kitchen rooms, psychiatric detention cells, a baggage and dormitory building, a theater, morgue and autopsy rooms. From the LA Times report:

Walking into these rooms, which have deteriorated through neglect, vandalism and exposure to the elements, is like stepping into a ghostly time capsule. They offer startling reminders of the immigrants: The sinks in the isolation rooms for tuberculosis victims are still in place, one for washing and another for spitting.

And outside the psychiatric detention cells there is legible graffiti, such as "This Is the New World" and "The Merry Go Round Broke Down."

January 3, 2005 06:09 AM Comments (0)

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Five years of the French and Indian War

The state of New York is beginning a 5-year push to mark the 250th anniversary of the largely overlooked French and Indian War, the New York Times reports. Also known as the Seven Years' War, la Guerre de Sept Ans and the War of the Conquest, Winston Churchill called it "the first world war, since it was the first conflict of European countries fought out in North America, the Caribbean, West Africa, India and the Philippines," the Times says.

For its history, the story relies largely on Fred Anderson, the co-author of the upcoming "Dominion of War: Empire and Liberty in North America, 1500-2000." Here's my Sunday-morning version of what he said: Battling for economic control of the American colonies, the British beat the French (and Indians,) but they ended up with big debts and an unruly empire. The debt-ridden English raise taxes in the colonies, hello American Revolution. The French - still ticked off at the Brits - help the Americans win, but wind up with deep debts that help lead to the French Revolution.

War re-enactment events in New York are likely to include Lake George this summer, Fort Bull in 2006, Fort William Henry in 2007, Fort Ticonderoga in 2008, Fort Niagara in 2009, and Fort Levis in 2010.

Related: French and Indian War links
Newspaper coverage of the French and Indian War

January 2, 2005 10:05 AM Comments (0)

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Nostalgia does not a meal make at Oak Room

Following up on a Post story from several weeks go, the New York Times today writes the obit for The Plaza's Oak Room restaurant, which will close next month. The new owners haven't said what will go in after the renovation, but apparently not everyone is broken up that the legendary spot is fading into the sunset:

"The food's been indifferent and the prices are exorbitant," said Curt Gathje, a former Plaza historian and author of "At the Plaza: An Illustrated History of the World's Most Famous Hotel."

December 30, 2004 02:24 PM Comments (0)

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McSorley's not showing its age?

Gothamist today carries a Q&A with the daytime manager at McSorley's, one of the city's oldest and most storied bars. His comments hit a special spot here at NewYorkology, since he repeats some legends which when published here, drew the first hate mail when this site started not quite six months ago.

The problem fundamentally boils down to this: What is the oldest bar in New York?

In February 2004, McSorley's Old Ale House celebrated its 150th anniversary, under the permanent banner: Established 1854. The international media coverage at the time made nary a peep about the dubious date.

Enter Richard McDermott, a retired high school teacher and sometimes publisher of the New York Chronicle, whose research shows McSorley's opened in 1862. His sources include old insurance maps, census data and tax-assessment records. His findings are cited in the "AIA Guide to New York City" and "New York Streetscapes: Tales of Manhattan's Significant Buildings and Landmarks", by New York Times' real estate historian Christopher Gray. And yet the legend lives on, repeated not only by McSorley's but also in publications such as "The Historic Shops and Restaurants of New York."

Here's part of the Gothamist Q&A with Steve "Pepe" Zwaryczuk:

Is it true that Abraham Lincoln and J.F.K. have both come here to drink?

Wrong. The only president ever to visit McSorley’s was Abraham Lincoln, and he wasn’t president at the time. He wasn’t even a candidate. But apparently a speech he had given across the street in convinced (sic) the northern Republicans to nominate him. Peter Cooper, who was one of his supporters, allowed him to use the Great Hall at his school, the largest meeting hall in New York City at that time. He was a regular customer.

December 29, 2004 09:42 AM Comments (0)

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Unearthing the legend of the 'secret subway'

By day, Joseph Brennan helps run the e-mail system for Columbia University. Afterhours, he's something of a history buff on the workings of the New York subway system, and has assembled great web resources about its abandoned stations and his own subway diagram.

Earlier this year he added a lengthy and beautifully illustrated section on the storied Beach Pneumatic subway -- the legendary "secret" subway built in the 1870 next to City Hall. While the station did indeed exist under Warren Street, Brennan learned a lot of the lore was suspect:

As I went through the newspaper reports and other documents, the story slowly fell apart. Half of Warren St was blocked with construction equipment and the newspapers wondered how far the tunnel ran— not exactly a secret. When I got to where ‘Boss’ Tweed tried to help Beach get a franchise, I knew I was on to something. The truth was out there and I started to wonder where the now-standard history came from. I found that too: from the inventor, entrepeneur and writer, Alfred E Beach himself.

December 28, 2004 01:45 PM Comments (0)

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After 99 years, Ratner's deli to be demolished

Storied Lower East Side deli Ratner’s is closing tonight for the last time and making way for the wrecking ball. Its brief listing in The Historic Shops & Restaurants of New York says only this:

Ratner’s, 138 DeLancey Street, This Lower East Side restaurant, now open only on Sundays, has served kosher dairy food since 1905.

You're Invited to celebrate 100 Years of Ratner's
Blintzes @ 4pm / Show @ 6pm
Last chance for Blintzes, Latkes and more before the demolition of the location.

Visited by President Roosevelt and Kennedy, Nelson Rockefeller, Mayor Giuliani and many others politicians, Ratner’s was the spot to schmooze the public and get some good food. ... In the entertainment world, Ratner’s was the hip place to go from comedians on the Borscht Belt to the legends of Rock and Roll. ... Ratner’s was the “official office” for Bill Graham, who would bring everyone from Jimi Hendrix to The Grateful Dead, to Janis Joplin to his table after shows for blintzes.

December 14, 2004 01:05 PM Comments (0)

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6 a.m. tour of the final days of Fulton Fish Market

One of the final tours of the Fulton Fish Market -- the nation's oldest and largest wholesale fish market -- will be held next Wednesday, Dec. 15 at 6 a.m. In January, the fishmongers will leave the 170-year-old market at the South Street Seaport and set up shop in the Bronx at Hunts Point. The South Street Seaport Museum is offering the 6 a.m. tour - reservations required, sleepyheads.

The Seaport Museum, by the way, is operating under a winter schedule until April 1. It's open only Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Update (1/24): The Post says there are problems at the new location and the fish mongers may not move until Spring 2005.

December 9, 2004 08:52 AM Comments (0)

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Federal Hall closed for a year of rehabilitation

Federal Hall will be closed for 12 to 14 months while it undergoes restoration, Downtown Express reports. The Wall Street landmark closed to the public Dec. 2. The site was the location of New York’s City Hall in the early 18th century, it hosted President Washington's inauguration, and in 1789 became the nation's first Capitol. The building was demolished in the 19th century and replaced by the current structure, which was the first U.S. Customs House in 1842. Downtown Express has details on the rehab project:

"The problem started with the construction of buildings all around Federal Hall in the 19th century," said Steve Laise, chief of interpretation for the Park Service. "The building was on a shallow foundation and silty soil. The larger buildings all around were digging deeper for their foundations, so the soil moved and water table dropped. It wasn’t stable anymore.

"When the World Trade towers collapsed, it sent a seismic shock, which created more cracks than we had before. There was also a series of water main and steam line breaks and constant vibration from the subway running under Nassau St. So, it was a combination of different things," he said.

December 8, 2004 10:11 PM Comments (0)

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Downtown, where the streets have tree names

Ever wonder why so many street names downtown are named for trees? The "Downtown New York, where the Streets are Paved with History" exhibit at Fraunces Tavern Museum has your answer. "Trees were a sign of liberty and patriotism, so it is only fitting that their names were used in New York's streets."

Cedar Street, for example, in 1794 replaced Little Queen Street (surprisingly nowhere near Chelsea or the West Village.) Among the names that were axed was King Street, which became Pine; but later, what we now know as King Street was named for Rufus King, a delegate to the Continental Congress and the ambassador to the UK. The exhibit runs through Jan. 8.

December 7, 2004 12:11 PM Comments (0)

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Statue of Liberty exhibit opens in Paris

The Musee des Arts et Metiers (Museum of Arts and Professions) in Paris has just opened an exhibit on the construction of the Statue of Liberty. The Associated Press story covers some of the high points of the history, but better yet, the museum has an English version of the exhibit online, merci.

December 6, 2004 12:21 PM Comments (0)

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Hamill Q&A on new love letter to 'Downtown'

Pete Hamill sits for a Q&A with the The Norwalk Advocate about his new book, "Downtown: My Manhattan." This one is non-fiction and the Advocate calls it "part memoir and part neighborhood walking tour." From the interview:

Q: Very early on you make a point to tell the reader that the geographical limit of your Downtown, and I'll quote you, "extends in defiance of the conventions of guidebooks -- from The Battery to Times Square." Why did you choose those boundaries?

A: Partly because, you know, Times Square is the end of the 19th century. Once the subway starts to push up into Times Square in 1904, not exactly the end of the nineteenth century, but most of New York that I love was shaped in the 19th century and the 20th century begins when the subway opens up the other boroughs, opens up Brooklyn and Queens and the Bronx, as it had to. In 1904 when the subway first opened, 800,000 immigrants arrived in New York, I mean they had to go somewhere, there was no room left in Lower Manhattan so they had to go way uptown, and the Bronx and the other boroughs and the subway was the key to that. As primitive and short as it was in 1904, it expanded into what we have today, 700 miles of subway. So I wanted to go to the limit of the 19th century vision. All the stuff in my book that traces the history of popular music and entertainment and all that, from the Bowery and lower Broadway and Herald Square and all that, culminates in Times Square.

December 5, 2004 10:18 PM Comments (0)

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Christopher Gray's wisdom - now in pajama format

Christopher Gray, the real estate historian at the New York Times, this weekend updated his much-referenced column from a decade ago on how to research the history of a building in the city. Now he’s added all the online resources that make it easier to find the history of a building in New York. Now you can do it from home in your pajamas. Among the options are: Landmarks Preservation Commission, New York City Department of Buildings, Office for Metropolitan History (a site set up by Gray himself,) nycPropertyResearch.com, New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, and the New York Society Library.

Some of Gray’s best columns are collected in his book, New York Streetscapes : Tales of Manhattan's Significant Buidlings and Landmarks.

December 5, 2004 12:11 PM Comments (0)

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Mixing history and beer at Fraunces Tavern

New Yorkers have a long history with the drink. How long? Just spend a little time at the Fraunces Tavern Museum, the spot where Gen. Washington bid farewell to his troops after the Brits finally left in 1783. There's a full restaurant and bar downstairs, while two upper floors is devoted to the museum. The long tavern room in the museum is set up to look like it would have back in Washington's day -- a place for drinking, gaming, business meetings and a perch to watch the cargo arrive in the harbor. The city's wells weren't known for their sanitation, so stronger stuff was safer. From the museum's info cards:

When Samuel Fraunces first came to New York in 1755, the city already boasted 217 taverns to serve a population of 13,000 residents. ... Drinking was a major part of social life in 18th Century America. The average adult consumed nearly four gallons of hard liquor per year, in addition to perhaps 14 gallons of beer and hard cider. ... Among the most popular drinks in a tavern such as this would have been punch, made from rum, water, sugar, citrus fruit and spices, (usually nutmeg.)

December 3, 2004 09:09 PM Comments (1)

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No 'National Treasure' at Trinity Church

Trinity Church, featured in the new Nicolas Cage flick “National Treasure,” has posted a narrated slideshow on its website offering a tour of its “real treasures.” The church doesn’t contain the goods you see in the movie, but it does have ties to the Masons and some founding fathers, including the burial site of Alexander Hamilton.

November 30, 2004 01:19 PM Comments (0)

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NY Historical Society defends Hamilton

The New-York Historical Society is none too happy about a NY Times story slogging the poor attendance at its expensively produced Alexander Hamilton exhibit. From the original Times story:

A $5 million "Alexander Hamilton" exhibition that the New-York Historical Society presented as a blockbuster - and that some historians derided as unbalanced history revealing a new, conservative bent at the institution - has drawn much smaller crowds than expected.

November 27, 2004 08:40 AM Comments (0)

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Verrazano Bridge turns 40

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge turned 40 years old this week. Check out Forgotten NY for a look back at the construction of the bridge that connects Staten Island to Brooklyn. (Plus you'll get a little debunking of an urban legend about the bridge perpetuated in Saturday Night Fever.)

November 24, 2004 09:58 AM Comments (1)

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Kicking off Great Fridays: New York history books

I'm kicking off a new feature here at NewYorkology called Great Fridays. Each Friday I'll post a new topic in hopes you clever readers will jump in with your own suggestions. I'm starting with great history books about New York, in part because I've just been sent a good list from my friend Christina Ziegler-McPherson, who is a historian of immigration and social welfare policy in the United States.

Elizabeth Ewen, Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars, Life and Culture on the Lower East Side, 1890-1925

Susan Anita Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl, Jewish Immigrant Women in America's Garment Industry, 1880-1920

George Chauncey, Gay New York, Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940

Patricia Cline Cohen, The Murder of Helen Jewett, the life and death of a prostitute in 19th century New York.

Mark Wyman, Round-Trip to America, The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880-1930 (great book on EMigration)

Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898

November 19, 2004 08:49 AM Comments (1)

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'Georgiana' on my mind

In his monthly e-mail about his New York City lectures and walking tours, Francis Morrone flags the happy coincidence of several like-themed museum exhibits currently on display:

One other thing I'd like to note is the extraordinary circumstance that New York in the fall of 2004 is awash in what I like to call "Georgiana." That is, we have no fewer than four wonderful museum exhibitions pertaining to the U.S. and Great Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The New-York Historical Society has "Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America," through February 28. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has "Gilbert Stuart," the largest-ever retrospective of the most important of early American portrait painters (and not just of George Washington), through January 16. The Metropolitan also has a companion show called "Washington: Man, Myth, Monument," which gathers together everything the Metropolitan could find from its permanent holdings incorporating the image of Washington. Finally, the New York Public Library has a delicious show of James Gillray, the savage and awesomely talented caricaturist who worked in London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Gillray was one of the big three of British caricaturists of the time, with Thomas Rowlandson and James Sayers, and he mentored George Cruikshank. This exhibition of prints, up through January 29, may be the most sheerly enjoyable show I have seen in ages.

November 5, 2004 07:41 PM Comments (0)

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Oh Waldorf, how do I love thee?

Something of a gushy love-letter to the Waldorf-Astoria has been penned at the Hartford Courant.

Little has changed in the essential concept of quality service in elegantly appointed surroundings within an aura of elegance and privacy. From its lobby, in signature art deco expressions of eagles and huntresses, to the top of its towers and turrets 625 feet above the street, there is no corner of the gigantic place that doesn't have a tale to tell or some special fascination to impart.

November 1, 2004 10:56 PM Comments (0)

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Touring Gotham's archaeology with book in hand

Earlier this month I trekked out to Liberty and Ellis islands toting a new book, "Touring Gotham's Archaeological Past: 8 Self-Guided Walking Tours through New York City." It's by Diana diZerega Wall and Ann-Marie Cantwell, the same team who produced "Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City."

The first "walk" in the new book makes an excellent companion to the official offerings of the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island tour, though it may best be read ahead of time as I found it hard keeping my nose in the book while the whole of the Manhattan skyline bobbed off the ferry's deck.

By far the coolest thing the book alerted me to was the remains of the sunken ferry Ellis Island, still stuck in the mud at the old ferry slip near the spot where tourists arrive today via Circle Line's boats. Although a section of the hull is visible, there are absolutely no markers indicating the wreckage. Only because I had my book, I learned that from 1904 to 1954, the boat was the only regular ferry connecting the island to Manhattan. After the immigration center closed, the ferry was left docked in the slip, where it sank in 1968.

The 23-pages in the Harbor Islands walk chronicles the Ice Age, (21,000 years ago, New York was covered by a sheet of ice 9,000 feet thick in some areas,) and the arrival of humans, (11,000 years ago, when the first New Yorkers arrived, Ellis, Liberty and Governor's islands weren't islands, but hillocks, rising above the plains filled with mastodon, caribou, moose, elk and rabbits.)

Other good facts: There is a 1,000-year-old Native American site on the west side of Liberty Island covered by an 18th or 19th Century trash heap; landfill was used to enlarge Ellis Island to nine times its original size; the main building on Ellis Island is probably built on a Native American burial ground; and during World War II, Ellis Island was used as an internment camp for Japanese, Italian and German aliens.

The remainder of the book covers lower Manhattan, Greenwich Village, northern Manhattan, the Bronx shore, farms and towns of Queens, Brooklyn and Southern Brooklyn.

I've only flipped through those sections, but did learn that the site of the building where I first met my husband is notable for explaining the cause of the cholera epidemics that swept the city in the 19th Century. At 199 Water Street, archaeologists found "brick cisterns used for drinking water right next to the stone privy pits from outhouses." Ah, love - in a place of cholera.

October 29, 2004 10:15 AM Comments (0)

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Old City Hall station opened to public on centennial

Thanks to the hot tip posted late in the day at Gothamist, (which was tipped by Mike at Satan's Laundromat,) I got into the original City Hall subway station for about 15 minutes this afternoon. Very exciting as this place has been closed to the public for decades.

Sitting at my desk at 3:15 p.m, I read the station is open to the public until 4 p.m. only. I bolt out the door and arrive at the current City Hall station 30 minutes later. I hoof it upstairs and over to City Hall and sheepishly ask the security guy if he knows where I go to get to the station.

He tells me I can go from there, and he has me send my purse through a screener and I walk through the metal detector. I walk directly in front of City Hall and see a line of about 100 people waiting to get into the station near the security entrance on Broadway. There is a bit of bunting at the entrance and city employees dressed in period costumes. The two skylights are getting help from some high-powered lights strategically placed at ground level to help illuminate the abandoned station. The line snakes past a marker indicating the spot where, "in the presence of George Washington, the Declaration of Independence was read and published to the American Army" on July 9, 1776.

I ask the guy in line behind me how he heard the station would be open today. He says he heard through work, but that it was also in the papers. And I say something about I didn't see anything in the papers saying it would be open to the public. And another suited guy in front of me says "It's not open to the public." And I laugh, and make some foolish gesture like, well, what are we doing here then? And the first guy tells him, "Well they're not checking id's so, it's kind of public." The other guy says something like "harrumph" and shows me his back. I'm guessing that maybe for security reasons, the MTA didn't want to publicize that it would be open, so only let the word out to city employees?

Anyhow, I got in and the woman ticking her clicker each time someone passed said I was 1,168. They had let people line up until 4 p.m., so there were only about 75 people in line after me. I could see one couple holding a NYC guidebook, a likely indication that some random tourists stumbled into a one-of-a-kind experience.

From the entrance, you walk down two short flights of stairs and then enter a domed room where there used to be a ticket booth. The domes and arches are the work of Rafael Guastavino, whose work is also found under the Queensboro Bridge (at what's now Guastavino's restaurant) and in the hallway outside the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal (where you can find the whispering arches.) One wall on this level has a door that I think leads to a staircase going up. I only caught a glimpse as transit workers were stashing stuff in there.

The next staircase takes you down to the platform, which is much shorter than the stations in use now. The 6 train comes through slowly and loudly as it navigates the S-curve leading to the station and along the curved platform. It's a grand place, filled with some of the same type of artifacts I'd seen a month ago on exhibit at the Transit Museum. From one of the exhibits at the museum:

For additional lighting in City Hall station, architects Heins & LaFarge used electric chandeliers ... re-imagining the station as a distant cousin of turn-of-the-century drawing rooms.

For the past half century, only a few transit buffs and history tours have been able to see the station. Walking past City Hall you wouldn’t even know it was there. The Transit Museum lined up funds in the 1990s to turn the station into a satellite museum. A few renovations were made before Mayor Giuliani opposed the plan over security concerns. But with this year’s subway centennial, transit advocates hope the idea will catch on.

There are two tough questions about the museum, the first is money it would cost money – it costs money to rehab and make it so that you could be in there, there are trains going through there are noise and ventilation issues. And then there is the security issue which is really in the hands of the police department and the mayor’s security detail. My hope is they could find some way to open the museum that doesn’t create a security risk for the mayor and brings people and tourists to lower Manhattan and helps in the revival of downtown.

Publicly, the MTA says it’s still studying an assessment by the Police Department. But government sources say opening the station is unlikely in this post 9-11 climate.

October 27, 2004 05:08 PM Comments (0)

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Happy 100th birthday to the NYC subway

Exactly 100 years ago today, New York inaugurated subway service - stretching from City Hall to Harlem. It was the first to use express and local trains and was the fastest in the world when it opened. It now runs 24 hours a day, covering 656 miles, stopping at 468 stations and serves 4.5 million customers daily on its 26 lines.

Dare I let the anniversary go by without sharing one of my favorite New York subway stories? Of course there was my overly documented two hours I spent on the Q train during the blackout, but my favorite incident I think says more about the nature of New York.

A few years ago I boarded a subway with my stepson, who was about 4 years old at the time. We sat down and continued talking. Most of the seats were taken, but there was one guy standing near the doors, about six feet from us. About a minute later, the guy pulls out a syringe, starts talking to himself, and dramatically plunges the needle into his own arm. I'm watching this whole thing out of the corner of my eye, making sure my little lad doesn't notice. If we moved, we'd have to cross directly in front of him, so I don't move. And then I notice the other passengers: They're not watching the crazy guy; they're all looking at me. I realize their only real concern about the crazy guy with the syringe is that the mom knows what's up. I'm absolutely certain that if that guy had moved toward us, two or three passengers would have jumped up and blocked his path. But as it transpired, nothing happened. The guy got off at the next stop and the other passengers stopped watching me and went back to pretending not to notice.

Subway links:
Subway interactive at the New York Times

Loud centennial interactive package at Newsday

"Celebrating 100 Years of Making Tracks" package from the New York Post

"How the Subway Shaped New York" at Gotham Gazette

"New York Subway Turns 100" on NY1

New York Mayor McClellan on piloting the first train in 1904: "Whooowee!" (Daily News) (Link found via Morning News.)

MTA events planned this year and next for the anniversary

MTA history page on the centennial

Gothamist covers the anniversary

"NY Subway turns 100" from the Associated Press

"The Secret Subway" - The 1870 Beach pneumatic subway

Frequent fare hikes coming soon - Daily News

Forgotten NY's subway and trains page

Subtext - NYC subway photoblog

October 27, 2004 10:11 AM Comments (0)

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Historic subway cars ride the rails this week

As part of this week's centennial celebration of the NYC subway system, the transit folks will roll out some of its old stock and mix the antiques in with regular subway service this Thursday and Friday. My husband and I rode some of the old cars a month ago during a special outing with the Transit Museum and were surprised they barreled along as fast as any express train out there. Check Kevin Walsh's Forgotten NY page for his pictures of the old cars for a taste of what you might find later this week.

October 25, 2004 09:25 PM Comments (0)

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Modern New York only as old as the subway

The Los Angeles Times takes a turn at the "New York subway turns 100" story with a roundup of the commemorative events. It also includes a nice observation on how the underground rails shaped the city:

Writer and engineering historian Joe Cunningham, who will lead a tour of the Centre Street Loop, said that even though New York was founded in 1664, the city in our popular consciousness was born in the early 20th century. "The New York you see — in stories, in film and in song — it's the subway that made that happen," Cunningham said.

October 19, 2004 01:18 PM Comments (0)

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Touring the Pickle District

The Boston Globe hits New York's best pickle stops, including Guss Pickles, The Pickle Guys, the China Food Import Corp., Just Pickles and even M&I International all the way out in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

Seventeenth-century Dutch settlers were the first to bring pickles to Manhattan, but the item became a distinctly New York institution via the pickle pushcart of the Lower East Side. ... Clustered in the ''pickle district" of Essex and Ludlow streets, early 20th-century pickle vendors gave birth to what will forever be thought of as ''New York style" pickles: the explosive full-sour and its more delicate sibling, the half-sour.

October 11, 2004 12:57 PM Comments (0)

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100-year-old subway retains its 'genteel' character

A writer for the British Telegraph tags along for a ride on the original NYC subway route with transit aficionados Jim Greller and Joe Cunningham. Among his observations:

I would describe subway travel as civilised, even genteel, although some of its character has been lost. It's a shame that the tokens were got rid of last year. They looked charming, like farthings with a hole in the middle, and were light enough to be sucked out of the barrier slots by slobbering hobos. They were inscribed "Good for one fare".

October 11, 2004 12:25 PM Comments (0)

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New York Unearthed by appointment only

New York Unearthed, a museum whose hours used to be merely inconvenient, are now nonexistent. The city's tiny archaeology museum is now open by appointment only, though some of its items can be found at the nearby South Street Seaport. NY Unearthed's web site offers a sad reminder of the "little things" lost Sept. 11:

Artifacts from The Five Points, the 19th century neighborhood featured in Gangs of New York. These fascinating and evocative objects were recovered from an archaeological dig that yielded a total of 850,000 artifacts that were taken to an underground laboratory beneath the World Trade Center for further study. The objects now on display at 12 Fulton Street are the only ones from the dig to survive the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

October 5, 2004 08:20 AM Comments (0)

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Statue of Liberty sculptor honored

The 100th anniversary of the death of Statue of Liberty sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was honored yesterday on Liberty Island. The Associated Press story quotes the mayor of Princeton, N.J., who pointed out during the ceremony that when the French gave the statue to the United States, Americans had recently outlawed slavery but were enacting Jim Crow laws. "Liberty then was at most a hope, at best a work in progress," Mayor Joseph O'Neill said. "This statue before us became an icon of what we would wish ourselves to be. And it shamed us when our deeds fell so far short of our words."

October 4, 2004 08:34 AM Comments (0)

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World's Fair Rocket Park reopens in Queens

The Rocket Park in Queens had its official reopening this week following a multi-million dollar restoration, NY1 reports. Part of the New York Hall of Science, the Rocket Park was assembled for the 1964 World's Fair and features the Atlas/Mercury and Titan/Gemini rockets.

October 3, 2004 09:57 AM Comments (0)

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Edith Wharton's 'Old New York'

On the eve of the New Yorker Festival and NY is Book Country events, the New York Times takes a look at Edith Wharton's New York. A few nuggets:

In her autobiography, "A Backward Glance," Wharton wrote, "One of the most depressing impressions of my childhood is my recollection of the intolerable ugliness of New York," and her made-up city is correspondingly drab and even a little creepy.

The main cultural attractions are the horse show and the opera — not the Met, which was built by the nouveaus, but the old Academy of Music, at Irving Place and 14th Street, where it is customary to take a box but where it is "not the thing" to arrive early, or even to pay too much attention to what is taking place onstage.

Metropolitan Museum, on the other hand, is a "queer wilderness of cast iron and encaustic tiles," so seldom visited that Newland Archer and Madame Olenska go there when they want to have a secret rendezvous.

The West Side is where the vulgar hotels are; it's also where the poor and the oddballs live, like the inhabitants of the strange little neighborhood on West 23rd where Madame Olenska briefly resides in "The Age of Innocence": "small dressmakers, bird-stuffers and `people who wrote.' " The farther west you go, apparently, the more things run down; Lily Bart's downfall is so complete that she winds up living in a boarding house so many blocks west of Sixth that the railings are no longer painted and garbage is carelessly strewn around.

This process of transfusion and transformation — of turning dollars into both social capital and an aphrodisiac — is part of what makes New York New York, and though she moved away to escape it, Wharton couldn't help being fascinated and a little turned on herself.

October 1, 2004 09:34 AM Comments (0)

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Water Taxi, Parks Service set to offer harbor tour

New York Water Taxi will begin operating a tour Oct. 15 in conjunction with the National Park Service to highlight some of the 22 parks and historic sites operated here by the NPS, the New York Times reports. The $20, 75-minute ride will include individual headsets for each passenger to hear narration read by actress Kathleen Turner, historians Kenneth T. Jackson and David McCullough and "philanthropist" David Rockefeller Jr. The NYT reviewer on the test run said the narration sometimes comes before the sight and the audio isn't always audible. That said, they're competing against Circle Line whose live guide sometimes strains to talk over the wind, but can at least answer questions.

September 28, 2004 12:36 PM Comments (1)

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A history of Chinese food in America, one menu at a time

The tiny Museum of the Chinese in the Americas gets some New York Times coverage of its new restaurant menu exhibit. With menus dating to the 1800s, learn all you ever wanted and more about "Chinese Takee Outee."

September 27, 2004 08:16 AM Comments (0)

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100-year-old subway cars hit the tracks

The husband and I spent Sunday riding some of the city's oldest subway cars out to Rockaway Beach ("It's not hard, not far to reach,") which the Transit Museum kindly rolled out as part of its centennial celebration. It was a day-long event on cars from several eras - though my favorites were the 1907 Brooklyn Union cars that used to run on the elevated tracks. They've all been restored and were running at the same speed as the regular subway cars. We'd speed through stations on the express tracks and it was hilarious to watch people's faces because, thank you, they acted like they didn't care. They've seen it all. A 100-year old subway car? Whatever. Only when we got way out of Manhattan did people start making a big deal about it. Closer to the anniversary, the MTA will mix the old cars into regular subway traffic for two days:

To thank the riding public, on Thursday and Friday, October 28 and 29, between rush hours, we will be running vintage cars throughout the system. Trains will operate in regular passenger service on different lines. With a little bit of luck, and perfect timing, you’ll be able to get to your destination on a vintage subway car for the regular price of a ride!

September 21, 2004 01:28 PM Comments (0)

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Transit Museum opens centennial exhibit

As part of the festivities celebrating the 100th anniversary of the New York City subway system, the Transit Museum this week opened a new exhibit covering the first years of the Interboro Rapid Transit system. During the opening reception Tuesday night I got to see the Tiffany-made silver shovel used to break ground in front of City Hall on March 24, 1900. The wood on the spade was taken from the flagship "Lawrence," which saw battle in the War of 1812. There are also artifacts recently removed from the grand but shuttered City Hall Station, including light fixtures and window glass. The exhibit also notes that the original 133 cast-iron entrance kiosks (two replicas remain at Astor Place and Borough Hall) were modeled on the "kushk" entrances in the Budapest subway system, which opened in 1896. The first day the subway operated in New York was October 27, 1904.

September 16, 2004 11:15 AM Comments (0)

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Unforgetting New York

My friend Kevin Walsh is the subject of today's Gothamist Interview, where he talks at length about the little-observed treasures of the city he documents at his web site, Forgotten New York. They even get some tourist advice out of him:

Q. After the basic battery of NYC sights (Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Times Square, etc.), what other places would you tell visitors to check out?

A. Hit downtown Flushing! Plenty to keep you busy ... the Quaker Meeting House and Bowne House from the 1660s, the Kingsland House from the 1700s, Flushing Town Hall has jazz concerts, there's the Latimer House (the guy who invented the light bulb filament lived there) and then cross the mighty Flushing River and check out the Iron Triangle junkyards and finish your day at Shea watching Cliff Floyd lose another one in the lights, or visit the Corona yards and see the last couple of redbird subway cars from the overhanging walkway. Your best bet is Sunday, when most of these spots are open.

Q. Favorite subway line.

A. If you're looking for original subway architecture, catch the 4 or 5 at Bowling Green, and then the 6 at Brooklyn Bridge and take it to Grand Central. That's the original subway from 1904. If scenery is for you, get the A in midtown and take it out to the Rockaways. And do it quick, before those bastards ban cameras!

September 10, 2004 10:34 AM Comments (0)

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New York subways - wish you were here file

Ahead of the 100th birthday of the New York city subway, Forgotten NY has posted a stunning array of historic postcards from the system's glorious past. The pictures are scanned from the collection of Ed Levine, who I met on the most recent Forgotten NY tour of downtown Manhattan.

September 1, 2004 04:03 PM Comments (1)

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A 'big' Zagat 'GOP-guide' for 'famished tourists'

Tim Zagat, publisher of the restaurant guides bearing his name, offers a lengthy dining guide in the New York Times for the Republicans arriving for the convention. He plugs a long list of venues: Fraunces Tavern, Nobu, Bouley, Chanterelle, Montrachet, Sweet-n-Tart, Jin Fong, Oriental Garden, Angelo's, Babbo, Il Mulino, Dos Caminos, Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Oyster Bar, Four Seasons, 21 Club, Sparks, Smith & Wolensky, The Palm, Daniel, Cafe Boulud, Coco Pazzo, Nicola's, Elio's, Neary's, Utopia Diner, Terrace in the Sky, Sylvia's, Carnegie Deli, Katz's Deli and the Second Avenue Deli. Keens Steakhouse, which Zagat says has the "best mutton chop ever," is also "a virtual museum of Republicaniana, with an astonishing collection of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt memorabilia, including the playbill that Lincoln was holding when he was shot."

August 29, 2004 10:38 AM Comments (0)

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Barnum's American Museum online only

You didn't make it to New York in time to see one of the city's grandest sights, The American Museum, but you can check it out online at The Lost Museum. It was operated by P.T. Barnum on Park Row from 1841 until it burned to the ground in 1865. (Link via Manhattan User's Guide.)

August 9, 2004 11:44 AM Comments (0)

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Meeting New York via screen and page

Historian Francis Morrone, whose latest book is "Brooklyn: A Journey Through the City of Dreams," has added to his Web site a list of books and movies "that have helped me, sometimes in surprising ways, to interpret New York." Among his picks are "My Man Godfrey," "Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center," and the "Last Days of Disco." Morrone, who teaches and writes a column for the New York Sun, also leads walking tours all over the city.

August 7, 2004 10:48 AM Comments (0)

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Unauthorized Republican walking tour

With the convention hitting town in two weeks, the good folks at New York magazine have come up with a "Republican Walking Tour" map to help those conventioneers who want a bit more than the GOP-approved Disney fare. Among the highlights: the site of Abraham Lincoln's "Right makes might" speech, the FOX News ticker, the co-op building that rejected President Nixon's application to buy an apartment and Monica Lewinsky's residence.

Elsewhere ... The official 2004 Republican National Convention site offers its own travel guide for delegates. In the interest of fair time, here's a link to the Counter Convention site.

And check out the non-partisan Presidentialpalooza at Manhattan User's Guide.

August 7, 2004 09:36 AM Comments (0)

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A seat at the Round Table

Dorothy Parker's New York, a Web site run by the Dorothy Parker Society of New York, includes a blog of latest Parker news and a photo tour of her hangouts, homes and other places important to the Algonquin Hotel's famous literary Round Table. This year's Parkerfest -- usually held in August -- will run from October 1 through 3. They also hold Sunday walking tours.

August 3, 2004 11:31 AM Comments (0)

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Governor's Island open until September

After two hundred years as a military installation, Governor's Island is finally open for public tours. Used in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War even as the host for a historic 1988 Reagan/Gorbachev summit. (Timeline link.) Located half a mile from the southern tip of Manhattan, the island can be reached via a $5 ferry ride. The tour is free but ferry tickets must be purchased at the South Street Seaport Museum. There are tour options Tuesday through Saturday only. The tours started in June and stop in September. The future use of this current ghost town is still undecided.

July 30, 2004 12:26 PM Comments (0)

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Alexander Hamilton coming to NYC

The New-York Historical Society has just launched a Web site for their big Alexander Hamilton exhibition set to open Sept. 10.

July 29, 2004 01:44 PM Comments (0)

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Statue of Liberty to reopen

Since Sept. 11, all but the grounds of Liberty Island have been closed to tourists. Beginning Aug. 3, 2004 the museum will reopen and tours will resume.

July 20, 2004 07:30 PM Comments (0)

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Martini history

Time Out New York's survey of cocktail culture notes that both the Gibson martini and the Bronx were invented in Manhattan.

July 15, 2004 06:40 PM Comments (3)

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