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Thursday, July 31, 2014

Postcard Thursday: Henry Clay Frick


If you haven't already seen it, James had a piece earlier this week on Curbed about the building of Henry Clay Frick's mansion, which today houses the Frick Collection. (The article is here: http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2014/07/29/the_controversial_origins_of_new_york_citys_frick_collection.php)

Due to space considerations, some illustrations did not make the final article, including this great postcard (above) which shows the ongoing rivalry between Frick and his sometime partner, Andrew Carnegie. Around the time Frick was moving to New York, he had his company's headquarters built in downtown Pittsburgh next to--and taller than--Carnegie's, so that Frick's building would also bathe Carnegie's in shadow.

There are a few other illustrations that didn't make the cut--including an 1884 Life magazine cartoon about the Lenox Library--that can be found on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.296697000509609.1073741833.209874915858485&type=1. If you haven't had a chance, why not follow us on Facebook? Not only do we post these blog entries there, but also links to all sorts of other New York City history.

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Explore more NYC history in

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,
you can order it from your favorite online retailers (AmazonBarnes and Nobleetc.) or
from independent bookstores across the country.

And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.




Thursday, July 24, 2014

Postcard Thursday: Grant's Tomb (again)


Fans of the Postcard Thursday feature will realize that this is the second time we've featured Grant's Tomb. But as pointed out in our first article, Grant's Tomb was one of the most popular tourist attractions in late 19th-century New York, so it's not surprising that it featured in a number of different postcard views.

We're highlighting the memorial again because yesterday was the 129th anniversary of President Grant's death on July 23, 1885. The tomb you see in this postcard is not, actually, the original. After some wrangling about whether New York was going to be the the general's final resting place, he was buried in a small, temporary enclosure, which was constructed ten days after his death.

The temporary tomb; courtesy of the General Grant National Memorial
After a design contest was held, John Duncan's grand edifice (modeled on the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus) was selected as the permanent tomb and the temporary one demolished.

The other building you see in this postcard atop the bluff is the Claremont Inn, a country home that dated back to 1788. It had been acquired by the city after the Civil War and was run as a restaurant until its demolition in 1950.

Also, notice the ferry landings on the Hudson River below the tomb; in its earliest years, reaching the memorial via the river from downtown was the easiest way to go.

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Explore more NYC history in

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,
you can order it from your favorite online retailers (AmazonBarnes and Nobleetc.) or
from independent bookstores across the country.

And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.


Thursday, July 17, 2014

Postcard Thursday: "Wrong Way" Corrigan

On July 17, 1938, Douglas Corrigan took off from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. He'd filed a flight plan intending to fly west to Long Beach, California (from which he'd arrived a week earlier). Instead, Corrigan flew east and, supposedly due to a faulty compass and thick fog, found himself 26 hours into the flight approaching Ireland instead of Long Beach. The stunt earned him the nickname "Wrong Way" Corrigan and a place in history.

To this day, it is unknown if Corrigan made the transatlantic flight by mistake or if he had been planning to pull the stunt for some time. In 1935, he'd been denied an application to fly to Ireland because his Curtiss Robin OX-5 plane was deemed unsound. A skilled mechanic, he had made numerous modifications to the aircraft (the $900 he spent in upgrades is what is referenced in today's postcard), but still his application to file a transatlantic flight plan was turned down. Eventually, Corrigan made so many custom changes to the Robin that it was deemed unsafe for flight.

Finally, on July 9, 1938, Corrigan flew from Long Beach to Brooklyn, his flight hampered only by a small fuel leak. Upon arriving at Floyd Bennett Field, Corrigan decided against repairing the leak, but instead filed a flight plan to return to California. He took off the morning of July 17 and flew 28 hours, 13 minutes, to the Baldonnel Aerodrome in Ireland, becoming an instant celebrity. Upon his return to New York (via steamship) he was feted with a ticker-tape parade. His autobiography was an instant best-seller and he was soon shilling for all sorts of "Wrong Way" products. His story became the film The Flying Irishman in 1939.

Despite mounting evidence that Corrigan had purposefully flown to Ireland, he maintained until the end of his life that it was a simple navigational error.

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Explore more NYC history in

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,
you can order it from your favorite online retailers (AmazonBarnes and Nobleetc.) or
from independent bookstores across the country.

And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.

Friday, July 11, 2014

Footprints in New York on WFUV Cityscape

Tomorrow, Saturday, July 12, we’ll be on WFUV radio’s Cityscape with George Bodarky talking about Footprints in New York. We are the guests for the full half-hour program, and our topics range from the Dutch colonial era to Alexander Hamilton (who died 210 years ago tomorrow) to the films of Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen. You can hear a preview of the show at https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUlkaUu3xZhS-1nGEPxGCk3Q&v=H13_DVi-1dk.

If you are in NYC and environs, you can tune in tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. at 90.7 on your FM radio dial or stream it at http://play.wfuv.org/player/index.php.

However, the show is actually already up as a podcast on the Cityscape website, so you don’t even have to wait -- you can tune in right now at http://www.wfuv.org/news/cityscape/140709/cityscape-footprints-new-york.

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Explore more NYC history in

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,
you can order it from your favorite online retailers (AmazonBarnes & Nobleetc.) or
from independent bookstores across the country.



And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.



Thursday, July 10, 2014

Postcard Thursday: Millard Fillmore

1856 Campaign Poster for Millard Fillmore
Today marks the 164th anniversary of the inauguration of former New York State comptroller and Alec Baldwin lookalike, Millard Fillmore, often considered one of America’s worst presidents.

Fillmore, a Whig congressman, was vice president under war hero Zachary Taylor. Fillmore had been picked to balance not just the north-south axis (Taylor was from Louisiana) but to add someone with political experience to the ticket. Fillmore was a good middle-of-the-road candidate: he was opposed to slavery, but not a firebrand like New York senator William H. Seward.

When Taylor died on July 9, 1850 (after allegedly eating a bad mix of cherries and iced milk), Fillmore took over the presidency. He was only the second vice president to do so -- the first had been John Tyler, just a decade earlier. Despite his opposition to slavery, Fillmore signed the Fugitive Slave Act and supported the Compromise of 1850. In 1852, the Whigs failed to nominate him as president and after that year’s election, the party split up. Instead of becoming a Republican, Fillmore joined the conservative American Party -- better known to history as the “Know Nothings” -- and ran for president on that party line in 1856, losing badly.

There aren’t any memorials to Fillmore in New York City, but if you happen to be in Central Park, stop by the arsenal and look at the names carved over the front door. The arsenal -- one of only two buildings in the park that pre-date the park’s creation -- was built in 1848, while Fillmore was still the state comptroller, and his name is at the top right of the plaque.


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Explore more NYC history in

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,
you can order it from your favorite online retailers (AmazonBarnes & Nobleetc.) or
from independent bookstores across the country.



And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.


Saturday, July 5, 2014

Joe Franklin on "Bloomberg on the Weekend"

Happy day after Independence Day! (Or, as we noted on our blog yesterday, Happy Independence Week!)

A few weeks ago, we taped an interview with TV and radio legend Joe Franklin that is airing today (Saturday, July 5, 2014) on Bloomberg Radio. We'll be talking about some of the people we profile in Footprints in New York.

The segment appears on "Bloomberg on the Weekend," which airs three times today:

  • 1pm EDT (Noon, CDT, 11am MDT, 10am PDT, 7am, HST)
  • 7pm EDT (6pm, CDT, 5pm MDT, 4pm PDT, 1pm HST)
  • 1am Sunday EDT (Midnight CDT, 11pm MDT, 10pm PDT, 7pm HST).
Our segment is very close to the beginning of the show.

If you are in New York, you can tune in to Bloomberg Radio at 1130AM on your dial. In Boston, it is broadcast on 1200AM or 94.5FM. The rest of the country can either tune in on SiriusXM Channel 119 or stream it online from Bloomberg's website. If you use the iHeartRadio or TuneIn apps for your phone, both of those also receive Bloomberg live streams.

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If you don't already follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, what better time than the present? We update each of those feeds with tidbits of NYC history throughout the week, including links to interesting historic photos and articles about the city's past.

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If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,
you can order it from your favorite online retailers (AmazonBarnes & Nobleetc.) or
from independent bookstores across the country.





Friday, July 4, 2014

Happy Independence Week!


Yesterday, we mentioned that we've long advocated an "Independence Week," referencing a couple of older blog posts. Since some readers have expressed more interest in the topic, we've combined some of those older posts into one article.

Though, we have always celebrated July 4th as Independence Day, the actual date of the vote to declare our break from Great Britain was July 2.

As John Adams wrote in a letter the next day to his wife, Abigail:
"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival."
Well, he was only off by two days. In fact, only twelve of the thirteen original colonies had voted to declare independence on July 2 -- the delegates from the thirteenth colony, New York (which included such notable citizens as Lewis Morris and Francis Lewis) did not feel they had been invested with such power and retreated from Philadelphia to discuss their options.

Meanwhile, on July 4, the Continental Congress agreed to print the Declaration. Scholars guess that somewhere between 100 and 200 of these Dunlap Broadsides, as they've come to be known, were printed that evening (25 of which exist today), probably under the watchful eye of Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration's lead author. On July 5 and 6, John Hancock had riders dispatch Dunlap broadsides to colonial cities and on July 9 a copy arrived in New York City, where George Washington's troops were stationed.

That same day, New York agreed to be the thirteenth and final colony to declare independence. (Good thing, since the printed Declaration begins, "The unanimous declaration of the thirteen united states of America.") That night, American troops and the Sons of Liberty tore down the gilded statue of George III in Bowling Green Park, signaling New York's new life as an independent American city.

As we write in Inside the Apple:
The fence that surrounds the Bowling Green today is the original one erected ca. 1771. It is a New York City Landmark and one of the city’s most significant pieces of pre-Revolutionary architecture. If you walk around the outside of the park, you can easily see that the larger fence posts are uneven and that each is rough-hewn in a slightly different way. It is clear that there were once decorative objects at the top of the fence posts, but it remains a mystery what these finials actually looked like, or when they were removed. 
Unlike the king’s statue, the fence is not mentioned in any news reports, diaries or letters of the time. Over the years, it has been posited the finials must have been something round (to be used as cannon balls) or something royal and therefore offensive to Americans. According to the New York Times, during the excavations for the foundations of the elevated railroad in 1878, “one of the round knobs struck from the railing” was unearthed. Later that year it was presented to David van Arsdale, the grandson of a Revolutionary soldier who had a direct role in the end of the war in New York. But that is the only time they are mentioned.
Perhaps one will turn up someday and we’ll see exactly what they looked like.

Until then, it’s worth a visit to Bowling Green during this Independence Week to see—and feel—this reminder of the American Revolution. If you're in the neighborhood, signer Francis Lewis is buried at Trinity Church (as is New York's greatest hero of the Revolution, Alexander Hamilton).


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Read more about the American Revolution and Alexander Hamilton in

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,
you can order it from your favorite online retailers (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.) or
from independent bookstores across the country.



And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Postcard Thursday: The Van Cortlandt House



If you are an avid reader of this blog, then you know that yesterday, July 2, holds as much claim -- if not more -- to be America's birthday as tomorrow, July 4. And, in fact, since New York City didn't vote to ratify the Declaration of Independence until July 9, maybe the holiday should actually be a week long.

So, welcome to Independence Week.

Today's postcard is from ca. 1908, and shows a black-and-white view of the parlor in the Van Cortlandt House Museum in the Bronx. As we write in Footprints in New York about our visit to the house:
Considering how easy the house is to reach—it sits less than a ten-minute walk from the northern terminus of the IRT No. 1 train, the city’s oldest subway line—it’s surprisingly empty. In fact, when I visit, the only other person there is a Dutch woman, who is very concerned with carefully examining every souvenir in the tiny gift shop. It is a recurring theme that the city’s more off-the-beaten-path historic sites are either empty or, if they do have visitors, they are schoolchildren or foreigners. Where are the American tourists? Safely ensconced on Manhattan, I presume. 
Soon, I discover that the Dutch woman and I won’t have the place to ourselves. A costumed interpreter—I’ll call his garb late-Colonial/early-Revolution—is leading a group of two-dozen fourth graders down the house’s main staircase. 
“Everybody likes to play!” he admonishes to no one in particular. “There’s a time for play. But there’s a time to be serious!” I will hear this advice reverberate through the house a few more times during my visit, though I will never see him or the children again. 
As the children’s footfalls fade, I am left staring into the house’s formal parlor at a portrait of Frederick’s son Augustus van Cortlandt. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, Augustus—a Patriot—was New York City Clerk; in 1775, he spirited the city’s records out of Lower Manhattan to this farm, hiding them from the British in his father’s burial chamber on nearby Vault Hill. 
Tremendous care has gone into furnishing this home, from the seventeenth-century Dutch room on the second floor to the “best” bed- chamber used by George Washington on his visits to the house. That room features a beautiful mahogany dressing table and an English chest of drawers from 1725, both of which descend from family members. They’ve draped a blue coat and a tri-cornered hat on one chair, as if General Washington has just stepped out for a moment.
The Van Cortlandt house is open for visitors every day but Mondays. More details can be found at http://www.nscdny.org/headquarters-dumbarton/van-cortland/.

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Read more about the Van Cortlandt House and 18th-century New York in

If you haven't had a chance to pick up a copy of Footprints yet,
you can order it from independent bookstores across the country.




And, of course, Inside the Apple is available at fine bookstores everywhere.


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