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Thursday, December 29, 2016

Postcard Thursday: Ode to Greater New York


One of the many gems in the digital collections of the New York Public Library is this piece of sheet music for an ode to be "sung by a chorus of 2,000 voices in the City Hall Plaza, New Year's Eve" in 1897.

That night was the last that New York City's territory consisted of Manhattan and a slim portion of the Bronx. The next morning, January 1, 1898, the city would officially consolidate into the five boroughs, with Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens, and the rest of the Bronx coming into the fold.

The song begins, "Hail thee city, born to-day! / Commercial monarch by the sea," which underlines immediately the reason why the city was expanding. As New York was beginning to see its commercial status erode to cities like Chicago (then second most populous in the country), the unification of Brooklyn and Manhattan was seen as a good way to ensure the city's enduring mercantile prowess. The song's final line -- "When sister cities wed with thee / Joined in power and history" -- is a nod to Brooklyn, which Manhattan saw as having a parallel history and a natural extension of New York's territory.

Brooklynites didn't see it that way. As we write in Footprints in New York:
On December 31, 1897, an electric trolley car wended its way across the span of the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time. Employees of the trolley company made last-minute adjustments to the electric cabling and then, a few minutes before midnight, the Columbia and the Amphion—two “sumptuous” trolley cars (in the words of the New York Times)—ferried a delegation of Brooklyn dignitaries to Manhattan to celebrate New Year’s Eve. When the trolleys took them home again at the end of the party, their city was gone. At the stroke of midnight, Brooklyn had ceased to exist as an independent entity. It was now just one of five boroughs. 
On the Manhattan side, a celebration thrown by William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal was hampered by rain that turned to snow by midnight; still, an estimated 100,000 people came out to cheer the beginning of the new city. 
In Brooklyn, things were much more somber. Mayor Frederick Wurster welcomed Seth Low and other former mayors for an “observance” at Brooklyn City Hall. Though the reception was held for pro-consolidation advocates, it can’t have been a cheery occasion. The official poem written for the festivities ends its first stanza with “You, with me, must die.”
Just a few years after five-borough consolidation, New Year's Eve celebrations moved from City Hall Plaza up to the newly minted Times Square. You can read all about the Times Tower and the annual ball drop in one of our most popular blog posts here.

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Thursday, December 22, 2016

Postcard Thursday: Happy Birthday to the Lincoln Tunnel


This postcard view of the New Jersey approach to the Lincoln Tunnel isn't, perhaps, the most scenic view in the world, but serves as a good reminder how exciting the opening of the tunnel was back on December 22, 1937 -- seventy-nine years ago today.

The first person to drive through was Omero Catan. Known as "Mister First," Catan's lifelong obsession was to be the first person to experience new modes of transit, whether that was being the first person to buy a token for the IND subway expansion, the first to drive on the New Jersey turnpike, or the first to travel under the Hudson in the Lincoln Tunnel. In all, Catan was first at over 520 opening-day events.

(Note that while the famed Lincoln Highway begins in Times Square, the Lincoln Tunnel -- also named for president Abraham Lincoln -- isn't part of the route. Originally, travelers had to take a ferry to Weehawken from Manhattan to use the highway; later, the Holland Tunnel became part of the route.)

Originally consisting of just two lanes -- one in each direction -- the tunnel was gradually expanded to its present width of six lanes by the late 1950s. Approximately 109,000 vehicles pass through each day.

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!


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Thursday, December 15, 2016

Postcard Thursday: Happy 225th Birthday to the Bill of Rights


New York was only the capital of the United States for a brief time, but many important things happened during the city's tenure as the seat of government. Perhaps none is more central to our daily lives than the passage of the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights [warning: PDF], primarily written by future president James Madison, was designed to address what were seen as deficiencies in the Constitution, especially among anti-Federalists, who thought the original document ceded too much power to the federal government and didn't do enough to protect individual rights.

The House of Representatives, meeting in Federal Hall on Wall Street (pictured above), actually voted in favor of 17 amendments. Once the laws reached the Senate, they were combined and rewritten into 12 amendments, which then passed to the states for ratification. On December 15, 1791 -- 225 years ago today -- Virginia became the final state to agree to ten of those twelve amendments, putting the Bill of Rights into effect.

What became of the other two amendments passed along to the states?

One, which proposed a system for ensuring that the House of Representatives was never too small -- and that bolstered the power of less populous states -- couldn't garner the votes for passage.

The other amendment, regarding congressional pay raises -- first ratified by Maryland in 1789 -- was finally approved in 1992 and became the 27th Amendment, 201 years after the rest of the Bill of Rights became the law of the land.


Meanwhile, by the time the Bill of Rights had been ratified, Federal Hall was no long the seat of government. A deal between Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton at Jefferson's home on Maiden Lane moved the capital to Philadelphia in 1790 and, ultimately, to Washington DC. The Federal Hall pictured at the top was torn down in 1812 and today's Federal Hall National Memorial (originally the US Custom House, shown here under a blanket of snow during the blizzard of 1888) went up in 1842.





Thursday, December 8, 2016

Postcard Thursday: USS Arizona


Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the USS Arizona, which now forms the centerpiece of the memorial on Oahu.

Like many naval vessels of that era, the Arizona was manufactured right here in New York City. Here's a photo of its maiden voyage from the Brooklyn Navy Yard on June 19, 1915. She was named for what was then the newest state in the union and was officially commissioned the following year.

The shot below shows her heading up the East River and was taken sometime in 1916. Note the recently completed Municipal Building (far right), the Woolworth Building, and just to the right of the Brooklyn Bridge, the spire of the Singer Building.


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AND DON'T FORGET THIS SUNDAY:

A GUIDED WALK THROUGH
400 YEARS OF NYC HISTORY DOWNTOWN

Sunday, December 11, 2016 | 11am-1pm | $20 per person

Join us in early December for a walk through the heart of the Financial District. Instead of focusing on a narrow period, as we've done on some of our previous walks, this will be an architecture-heavy look at the city's history from its Dutch beginnings through to the new residential skyscrapers that are rising today. (And, yes, Alexander Hamilton will make a cameo appearance.)

From the few remaining examples of the English-colonial period to Beaux-Arts extravagance, this tour has something for everything, and the rich architectural details will be great for photographers, so bring a camera!

Only $20 per person
Please RSVP by emailing WALKNYC@GMAIL.COM with
your name
the number in your party, and
a cell number where you can be reached that day if there's a problem.

We'll send out details of where to meet to everyone who reserves.



Friday, December 2, 2016

Postcard Thursday: Happy Birthday, LGA


Sometimes, there's a method to postponing Postcard Thursday by a day. (At least that's the story to which we are sticking.) For example, today -- December 2 -- is the birthday of New York City's oldest commercial airport, LaGuardia, which opened on this date in 1939.

The famous story is that in 1934, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia was flying back from Pittsburgh but refused to disembark from his plane in New Jersey since his ticket read "New York." The airline, TWA, agreed to fly him to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn instead. The whole thing was a publicity stunt, as reporters were waiting in Brooklyn to hear the mayor complain that New York City was losing out by not having a major commercial airport.

Five years later, La Guardia got his wish when the New York Municipal Airport, opened in Flushing, Queens. Almost immediately, the term "La Guardia Field," was attached to the airport, and by 1947 the name was officially attached. Somewhere along the line the space between "La" and "Guardia" was dropped.

The oldest building at the airport is the Marine Air Terminal, a wonderful piece of a WPA-era architecture and well worth a look if you have time to kill when you are next leaving the city.

LGA is currently undergoing a massive renovation, scheduled to be finished by 2021.





Friday, November 25, 2016

Postcard Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving


Happy (belated) Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving postcards aren't much of a thing anymore, but in the early decades of the 20th century, there were a ton of slightly bizarre holiday cards to choose from, such as the Pilgrim child above (evidently that shadow behind him is Plymouth Rock), the characters from Longfellow's "Courtship of Miles Standish" (below) depicted as toddlers, or the very patriotic young man at the bottom of this post presumably carting his dinner off to slaughter.


But the Pilgrims are actually a rather late addition to our Thanksgiving holiday. James published a piece yesterday in the Guardian about Sarah Josepha Hale, the woman who spearheaded the modern holiday. You can read it at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/24/thanksgiving-origin-liberal-values-sarah-josepha-hale.

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On a completely different note: If you are planning to sign up for our December 11 walking tour of Lower Manhattan, you should do so ASAP. The tour is very close to selling out and reservations will be taken on a first-come, first-served basis.



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ALSO: Happy Evacuation Day!



Thursday, November 17, 2016

December 11 Walking Tour: 400 Years of NYC Downtown

A GUIDED WALK THROUGH
400 YEARS OF NYC HISTORY DOWNTOWN

Sunday, December 11, 2016 | 11am-1pm
$20 per person

Join us in early December for a walk through the heart of the Financial District. Instead of focusing on a narrow period, as we've done on some of our previous walks, this will be an architecture-heavy look at the city's history from its Dutch beginnings through to the new residential skyscrapers that are rising today. (And, yes, Alexander Hamilton will make a cameo appearance.)

From the few remaining examples of the English-colonial period to Beaux-Arts extravagance, this tour has something for everything, and the rich architectural details will be great for photographers, so bring a camera!

Only $20 per person

Please RSVP by emailing WALKNYC@GMAIL.COM with
  • your name
  • the number in your party, and
  • a cell number where you can be reached that day if there's a problem.
We'll send out details of where to meet to everyone who reserves.

Looking forward to seeing you on December 11!

Best wishes,
Michelle and James Nevius

Friday, November 11, 2016

Postcard Thursday: Happy New Year, Teddy Roosevelt

courtesy of the New York Public Library

Postcard Thursday is a little late again; let's just say it's been a long week -- and certainly a historically unprecedented one.

With Donald Trump's election to the presidency on Tuesday, he becomes only the second person born and bred in New York City to be sent to the Oval Office.

The first was Teddy Roosevelt, born on East 20th Street in a house that no longer stands, but which is commemorated by the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace Historic site.

Roosevelt was a popular figure during much of his public life, as shown in these fascinating New Year's cards. The one at the top, for 1906, says "Friede auf Erden, den Menschen ein Wohlgfallen," which means "Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men."

The three men pictured, Roosevelt, the Russian Czar, and the Japanese Emperor, had recently negotiated the end of the Russo-Japanese War, for which Roosevelt would win the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize.

But why is the message in German? If you have any thoughts, please put them in the comments.


A year later, the same company issued its 1907 card, again featuring Teddy Roosevelt, but this time with John D. Rockefeller and prizefighter James Jeffries. Roosevelt had a reputation for getting out of tight spots--even before the famous 1912 assassination attempt against him.

Today, the tradition of sending New Year's cards has waned (even Christmas cards are slowly becoming a piece of history), but perhaps it's due for a revival. What three faces would you choose for a 2017 postcard?

_________________

Read more about NYC history in


Tuesday, November 8, 2016

New York and the Presidency



While most polls seem to indicate that Donald Trump isn't going to win the election today, if he were to win, he'd be only the second president born and bred in New York City. (The first was Teddy Roosevelt.)

[UPDATE: Well, the polls and pundits were wrong. Mr. Trump did win the election, becoming the second New Yorker to hold the nation's highest office.]

However, many presidents and vice presidents have had connections to the city over the years:

GEORGE WASHINGTON
Though it didn't last very long, New York was the first capital of the United States, and on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street, George Washington was sworn in as America's first president on April 30, 1789. (The building no longer stands, but a statue of Washington by J.Q.A. Ward graces the front of the building now known as Federal Hall National Memorial). After the inauguration, Washington went to St. Paul's Chapel on Broadway at Fulton Street, where his pew is still preserved. During the 15 months that New York remained the capital after the inauguration, Washington lived in a house on Cherry Street (at roughly the spot where the Brooklyn Bridge anchorage now stands) and then in a home on lower Broadway near Bowling Green. His vice president, John Adams, lived in isolated splendor in a mansion in Greenwich Village called Richmond Hill, later home to Vice President Aaron Burr.

AARON BURR
In 1800, the incumbent president, John Adams, was faced by his own vice president, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson's running mate was New Yorker Aaron Burr; however, due to a flaw in the electoral system (which made no adequate provision for distinguishing between votes cast for president versus vice president), both Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr each received 73 electoral votes and the election was thrown to the House of Representatives. The Federalists, who still controlled congress, tried to elect Burr as president, thus denying the seat to Jefferson, who many considered the nation's leading opponent of Federalism. Notably, it was only though the intervention of Burr's nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, that Jefferson was finally elected president on the 36th ballot. Burr's home in Greenwich Village, Richmond Hill, is no longer standing, but one of the property's stables is now the restaurant One if By Land, Two if By Sea.

GEORGE CLINTON
Aaron Burr was left off the Democratic-Republican ticket in 1804 in favor of New York governor George Clinton, who also went on to be James Madison's vice president (thus making him one of only two vice presidents to serve under different presidents; the other was the well-coiffed John C. Calhoun).

DEWITT CLINTON
In 1812, New York City fielded its first candidate for president, Mayor DeWitt Clinton. Despite mounting frustration with incumbent James Madison over the War of 1812, Clinton lost the election (had he won Pennsylvania, he would have reached the White House). Clinton went on to serve as New York's governor and presided over the building of the Erie Canal. (DeWitt Clinton is the person who is honored in the neighborhood Clinton—known to most people as Hell's Kitchen.)

DANIEL TOMPKINS
The man Clinton replaced as governor, Daniel Tompkins, was vice president under James Monroe. Tompkins, who gave the land to the city that became Tompkins Square Park, is buried in the churchyard at St. Marks in the Bowery on 10th Street at Second Avenue.

MARTIN VAN BUREN
In 1836, New York governor Martin Van Buren (who had been Andrew Jackson's secretary of state and vice president) was elected to the presidency. It would be the last time until George H.W. Bush that a sitting vice president would succeed to the presidency without the president dying in office. Another fun fact about Van Buren: not only was he a descendant of one of the early Dutch settlers of New York, he grew up speaking Dutch.

MILLARD FILLMORE
Generally forgotten in the lists of American presidents is Millard Fillmore, who hailed from the Finger Lakes region upstate. A congressman for over a decade in the 1830s and '40s, Fillmore returned to New York to run an unsuccessful campaign for governor. In 1848, he became the state's comptroller. In that capacity, he oversaw the start of construction on the state militia's arsenal in Central Park. Today, his name is still clearly visible in the plaque over the building's front door. In 1848, Fillmore was also tapped to be General Zachary Taylor's running mate. When Taylor died after only a year in office, Fillmore became president. However, like John Tyler before him (who had succeeded to the presidency upon the death of William Henry Harrison), Fillmore was not picked by his own party to run for a second term.

HORATIO SEYMOUR / HORACE GREELEY
In 1868, Governor Horatio Seymour (left) was tapped by the Democrats to face war hero Ulysses S. Grant. Seymour had long been involved in New York State politics—the factionalism of this period is sometimes hard to fathom. Seymour was a "soft-shell hunker," opposed to those in the party who were "hard-shell hunkers" or "barnburners." The hirsute Seymour sported an impressive neck-beard, which was quite the fashion of the time.

Newspaper editor Horace Greeley faced Grant in the election of 1872. Greeley, a staunch Republican, had become disillusioned by the party and Grant's mediocre first term and decided to face him as a "Liberal Republican." (The Democrats backed Greeley, as well.) Grant handily won a second term and Greeley died before the Electoral College could convene, meaning that his electoral votes were split between four other Democratic candidates.

A handsome statue of Greeley (who, like Seymour, sported a neck-beard—whatever happened to those?) sits in City Hall Park near the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge.

SAMUEL J. TILDEN
Lawyer Samuel J. Tilden rose to prominence as the man who prosecuted William "Boss" Tweed. His success led to him winning the governor's race in 1874 and then being nominated for president by the Democratic Party in 1876 to face Ohio Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. The Tilden/Hayes election continues to be the most disputed in American history. It took four months from Election Day for a special commission to name the winner. Ultimately, they picked Hayes though modern research indicates that Tilden almost certainly would have won the election had there not been electoral shenanigans in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Tilden lived in a wonderful double townhouse on Gramercy Park that is now home to The National Arts Club.

CHESTER A. ARTHUR
Though a native of Vermont (or, as his opponents tried to prove in 1880, of Canada), Chester A. Arthur moved to New York in 1854 to practice law. He was appointed collector of the Port of New York in 1871 and was nominated to run as James A. Garfield's vice president in 1880. Garfield was shot in July 1881, only a few months after taking office. He lingered for eighty days before succumbing to his wounds. At the time of the president's death, Arthur was at his home on Lexington Avenue (which still stands) and was sworn in as president there by a justice of the New York Supreme Court. He ran in 1885 to become president in his own right, but lost to New York Governor Grover Cleveland.

GROVER CLEVELAND
New York Governor Grover Cleveland was elected president in 1888 and again in 1892, the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms. (And the first Democrat to be nominated for president three consecutive times.) Cleveland's vice president during his second term was Adlai Stevenson, grandfather of the 20th-century presidential candidate who ran twice against Dwight D. Eisenhower.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT
New York City has only produced one born-and-raised president, Teddy Roosevelt, who grew up in a house on East 20th Street near Gramercy Park. (Today, the National Park Service runs the Theodore Roosevelt birthplace in a replica house on the site.) Teddy became president in 1901 after President William

McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo while attending the Pan-American Exposition. Roosevelt ran for election in his own right in 1904 and won, becoming the first vice president who had been elevated to the presidency who went on to win the office in his own right.

Teddy ran again in 1912 on the Progressive or "Bull Moose" ticket, siphoning enough votes away from incumbent Republican William Howard Taft to give the election to Woodrow Wilson.

AL SMITH
Lower East Sider Al Smith ("the Happy Warrior") rose to prominence in the state legislature in the early years of the 20th century. He was elected governor in 1918; though he lost the 1920 election, he was governor from 1922 to 1928 when he secured the Democratic nomination for president. The plainspoken Smith lost the election that year to Herbert Hoover, done in by a combination of prejudice (no Roman Catholic had ever sought the nation's highest office) and opposition to his "wet" candidacy during the height of Prohibition. Smith went on to be the head of the Empire State Corporation that erected the Empire State Building. His boyhood home, on Oliver Street, still stands and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT
FDR served longer than any other president, from 1937 to his death in 1945, thus ushering in the era of presidential term limits. (He faced New Yorker Wendell Willkie in the 1940 election and New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey in 1944.)

Born in Hyde Park, New York, in 1882, Roosevelt was the descendant of two of the oldest New York families. His Delano ancestor, Philippe de La Noye, arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Fortune, the second ship to bring the Pilgrims to the New World. His Roosevelt ancestors had been in New York since the city had been New Amsterdam. Though he was only a distant cousin of Teddy Roosevelt, his wife, Eleanor, was Teddy's niece.

THOMAS E. DEWEY
Thomas Dewey was known as the "Gangbuster" for his crusades against bootlegging and organized crime as a New York City prosecutor and District Attorney. In 1942, he became governor and was nominated by the Republicans to face FDR in 1944 and then to face Harry Truman in 1948. Almost all pundits and pollsters considered Dewey's election a lock—so much so that the Chicago Daily Tribune went to bed on election night with "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN" running across the page. In the end, though Truman only squeaked out a narrow popular victory, the margin in the Electoral College was overwhelming.

BARACK OBAMA
The current president transferred to Columbia College in 1981 and graduated as a member of the class of 1983. You can read reminiscences of his college roommate at https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/archive/jan_feb09/alumni_corner.

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Postcard Thursday: The Chicago Cubs

Baseball cards from the 1908-09 Chicago Cubs, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 
In honor of the historic win by the Chicago Cubs last night -- breaking a 108-year drought -- here are some baseball cards that date back to the last time the Cubs were national champions.


Mordecai Peter Centennial "Three-Finger" Brown was the Cubs' star pitcher. Born in 1876 (hence his second middle name), he had lost two fingers in a farming accident and as a result, pitched an incredible and rarely hittable curveball.

At the end of the 1908 season, it was Brown on the mound when the Cubs beat the New York Giants to win the pennant and thus advance to the World Series, where they beat the Detroit Tigers in five games. It was their second World Series win in a row, and little did the Cubs or their fans know how long it would take for them to be basking in the limelight again after another championship season.

This cards are part of a huge collection of vintage baseball cards held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There are almost always some of the cards on view in the American wing. You have less than two weeks to enjoy the current exhibition, "The Old Ball Game: New York Baseball 1887-1977."

Congratulations, Cubs!

Friday, October 28, 2016

Postcard Thursday: Androboros


One of the most action-packed but least talked about periods in New York City history is the era immediately following the English takeover of the city in 1664. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, it seems that there was always someone in the city on the verge of revolt, from the enslaved African population to those citizens who chafed under royal rule. (We write about this era through the perspective of the Delancey family in Footprints in New York.)

In the midst of all this turmoil, Robert Hunter was appointed the royal governor of the colony in 1710. He arrived with 3000 refugees from Germany who he'd promised to resettle in the Hudson Valley, which immediately made him an unpopular figure. (To put this in perspective, New York City's population at the time was probably about 5000 people.)

Hunter locked horns with many figures in New York, perhaps most prominently the Rev. William Vesey, the rector of Trinity Church. At one point, someone broke into the sacristy of the church and befouled the priest's vestments. Vesey blamed Hunter, though no one was ever caught.

Normally, this might be the sort of story we learn about through diaries, or official letters between the governor and his bosses in London. But Robert Hunter, a friend of Jonathan Swift, was also a playwright, and in 1714 he produced the very first play ever published in the American colonies, Androboros ("man eaters"), a thinly veiled satire of his troubles as governor.

The play has never been produced.... 'til now.

On November 4, 5, and 6 -- just in time for the election -- the Peculiar Works Project is staging Androboros in a boxing ring on Bleecker Street. (And it's free!)

Find out more about this production and the play at http://www.peculiarworks.org/androboros2.html.




Thursday, October 20, 2016

Postcard Thursday: Pocahontas

Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe) in 1616
What does Pocahontas have to do with New York City, you may ask. More than you might think, since the image above -- drawn in 1616 when she was in England -- was widely distributed and altered European views of what North America was like.

But the reason we're highlighting it today is that James had a travel story in the New York Post on Tuesday about visiting Jamestown, Virginia. You can read it at http://nypost.com/2016/10/18/uncover-the-400-year-old-secrets-of-pocahontas/





Thursday, October 13, 2016

Postcard Thursday: (Nobel Laureate) Bob Dylan in New York


As you may have heard, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this morning, which came as a shock to just about everyone. He is the first musician to be awarded the honor, and while he has long been seen as the leading figure in post-war music in America, this catapults his reputation to "a whole 'nother level."

We have a chapter about Dylan's New York in Footprints in New York, which includes a good precis of his time in the city.

As we write in the book, Dylan was
born as Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, on May 24, 1941; he grew up in the tight-knit Jewish community in Hibbing, his mother’s hometown. After graduating high school in 1959, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota but only lasted one year. While he was there, he tapped into the burgeoning folk scene and began consistently using the stage name Bob Dylan. Having been a rock and roller, Dylan’s musical trajectory changed around this time when he was introduced to the music of Woody Guthrie, which, in Dylan’s words, “made my head spin.” 
In January 1961, he arrived in New York City determined to do two things: perform in Greenwich Village, the center of America’s folk music revival, and meet Woody Guthrie. By the end of his first week, he’d done both. Dylan probably got to the city January 23, the day the front page of the New York Times proclaimed it the “coldest winter in seventeen years,” a line Dylan would borrow for one of his earliest compositions, “Talkin’ New York.” In No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese’s documentary on Dylan’s early career, the singer remembers that first day: “I took the subway down to the Village. I went to the Cafe Wha?, I looked out at the crowd, and I most likely asked from the stage ‘Does anybody know where a couple of people could stay tonight?’” 
Singer-songwriter Fred Neil presided over the bar’s eclectic all-day lineup. Dylan showed his chops by backing up Neil and singer Karen Dalton on the harmonica and was hired to “blow my lungs out for a dollar a day.” 
Immersing himself in the music scene, Dylan soaked up everything he heard, from live acts in the bars and coffee houses south of Washington Square to the records he’d spin at Izzy Young’s Folklore Center down the street from Cafe Wha?. In the meantime he continued to embellish his back story. In No Direction Home, Izzy Young recalls Dylan telling him, “I was born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941, moved to Gallup, New Mexico; then until now lived in Iowa, South Dakota, Kansas, North Dakota (for a little bit). Started playing in carnivals when I was fourteen, with guitar and piano. . . .” 
Later, newspapers picked up the fake biography, writing about the cowboy singer from Gallup. Stretching all the way back to the city’s Dutch pioneers, people have come to New York to reinvent themselves, to cast off their old identities and strike out in new directions. Dylan’s fanciful back story may have been an extreme case, but it was effective.
There's much more in the book -- pick up a copy today!






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