Some Spring Updates from Michelle and James

Spring Updates from Michelle and James Nevius Two new articles by James Nevius: Recently, James had two interesting stories published on the architectural history of the New York. In Curbed New York, he authored a history of the Grand Hyatt Hotel (formerly the Commodore) next to Grand Central Terminal. The hotel opened a century ago and is now slated for demolition. James chronicles the various twists and turns in the story, including Donald Trump's mid-1970s "rescue" of the hotel. The winding history of Donald Trump’s first major Manhattan real estate project Then, in The New York Post, James took a look at the history of tin ceilings, which were once common not just in the New York but around the country. Why so many NYC buildings boast tin ceilings ITALIANS IN GREENWICH VILLAGE sponsored by the Merchant's House Museum and Village Preservation TUESDAY, JUNE 18, at 6:00PM After the Civil War, hundreds of thousands of Italian immigrants came to America, most of them making New York City their first stop. While the Lower East Side and Little Italy are well-known for their immigrant history, many may not remember that the area south of Washington Square was one of the most densely populated Italian precincts in the country. This illustrated presentation will look at how the Village came to be separated into a wealthier area north and west of Washington Square and a more working-class neighborhood to the south and east. We’ll look at who paved the way for Italians in the district and talk about the importance of holding on to the Italian places that still exist in the area -- RIP Trattoria Spaghetto -- so as to preserve this heritage. TICKETS ARE FREE BUT ARE CURRENTLY SOLD OUT Please join the waitlist at https://gvshp.wufoo.com/forms/the-new-new-york-italians-in-the-village-waitlist/

Postcard Thursday: Rear Views

James has a story in today's New York Post that examines many of the hidden homes in New York City that were once carriage houses, rear tenements, or -- as is the case in the photo above -- an artist's studio and theater.

"Washington Square, New York" (1910) courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The artist was Everett Shinn, a member of the Ashcan School, who lived and painted in New York starting in the late 1890s. Like many Greenwich Village bohemians of the era, Shinn wasn't content to merely paint and founded a small theatrical company to perform plays he'd written. These melodramas had

titles like “Lucy Moore, the Prune Hater’s Daughter.” Though not home to high art — the New York Times called one participant “the worst actor in the New World” — Shinn’s theater is credited with paving the way for the Off-Off-Broadway theaters of today.

You can read the entire story at https://nypost.com/2019/01/09/back-houses-are-nycs-best-kept-secrets/

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Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Gilded Age Walking Tour -- Oct 7 at 11:00am

NEW YORK IN THE GILDED AGE WALKING TOUR   Sunday, October 7, at 11:00 a.m. Come Explore Beaux-Arts Grandeur   Authors James and Michelle Nevius have been exploring New York and writing about the city for many years. This week, James had a story in The New York Post about the rivalry between Chicago and New York brought about by the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the "White City" World's Fair. This Columbus Day weekend, celebrate the 125th anniversary of the fair and the architectural movement it helped create, by joining James and Michelle for a guided walk in Midtown Manhattan of some of the iconic landmarks from this Beaux-Arts boom. New York between 1893 and 1913 remade itself as the "Paris of America" and the true world city. From the Broadway theaters that moved to Times Square at the turn of the 20th century to giant public spaces like Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library, this tour will feature some of the best Gilded-Age architecture in the city. $15 per person for blog readers. Please register ASAP as space is limited.

REGISTER NOW Your name The number in your party A cell phone in case we need to reach you the day of the tour MEETING PLACE WILL BE SENT WITHIN 24 HOUR OF RECEIVING YOUR RESERVATION (use the button below or email walknyc@gmail.com) SIGN UP NOW STAY INFORMED F O L L O W on F A C E B O O K F O L L O W on T W I T T E R F O L L O W on I N S T A G R A M

Times Square at the turn of the 20th Century

Postcard Thursday: 1868

In 1868 -- one hundred and fifty years ago -- the department store James McCreery and Co. opened at the corner of Broadway and 11th Street. While the city had been expanding northward since the layout of the famous grid in 1811, that growth had always been slow, and for many people, Greenwich Village remained the hub of the city. The stretch of Broadway that James McCreery picked for his new store, across the street from Grace Church, had tremendous curb appeal.

James wrote a piece for The New York Post about 1868 real estate that appeared in today's paper. Since the early 1970s, McCreery's has been an apartment building, and James looks at it and other homes in the Village -- and around the city -- that are currently on the market.

You can read the story at https://nypost.com/2018/02/21/the-year-that-changed-new-york-city-real-estate/.

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Read more about New York City history in our two books:

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers
and

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Martin Luther

In the midst of Halloween and the terrorist attack in Lower Manhattan, it may have slipped by that October 31 was also the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, perhaps the most important moment in western culture in the last millennium.

James wrote a travel story for The New York Post about visiting sites in Germany associated with Luther and his circle. You can read it at: http://nypost.com/2017/10/30/tour-the-germany-of-luthers-reformation-500-years-later/

(James was also interviewed for this story about haunted New York, also in the Post: http://nypost.com/2017/10/28/nycs-most-haunted-spots-will-terrify-you/)

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Seward's Folly

This past Wednesday was Alaska Day, the holiday when the denizens of our 49th state commemorate the finalization of the purchase of Alaska from the Russians. This took place on October 18, 1867 -- 150 years ago -- in Sitka, Alaska, then known as New Archangel, which was the capital city of Russian America.

We visited Sitka in March for the kickoff of the town's 150th events and James wrote a piece for The New York Post which was published this week. Read all about it here:
http://nypost.com/2017/10/16/the-fascinating-place-where-the-us-bought-alaska-from-russia/

William Seward, the Secretary of State who oversaw the transfer (dubbed by some "Seward's Folly"), was governor of New York and very nearly the 1860 Republican candidate for president. As Lincoln's Secretary of State,Seward was attacked on the same night that the president was killed as part of John Wilkes Booth's attempt to throw the Union into chaos. Today, a handsome statue of Seward sits in Madison Square Park.

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Frank Lloyd Wright in NYC

In today's New York Post, reporter Lauren Steussy takes a peek inside Crimson Beech, the only home in New York City designed by celebrated architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

To accompany that article, James has written a piece about other ways to explore Wright's legacy in New York. You can read it at http://nypost.com/2017/09/13/experience-frank-lloyd-wrights-work-across-nyc-and-beyond/

And to read more of James's work on Wright check out:

• Roadtripping Frank Lloyd Wright’s greatest archi-hits
• Becoming Frank Lloyd Wright
• Is the world ready for Frank Lloyd Wright’s suburban utopia?

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Read more about NYC history in

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Carriage Houses

Once upon a time, the only wheeled mode of transport around New York City was via horse and carriage. But what happened to all the stables that once housed those four-legged forerunners to the automobile? James looks at that question in the Home section of today's New York Post -- read the whole story at:

http://nypost.com/2017/08/30/the-fascinating-history-behind-nycs-stables-turned-real-estate/

(And get caught up on his travel/real estate pieces at http://nypost.com/author/james-nevius/)

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Have you signed up for our Walking Tour of the northern section of Central Park on September 10th?

Click on last week's blog post (here: http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2017/08/postcard-thursday-walking-tour-in.html) for all the details -- there are a few spots left!

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Read more about NYC history in

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Secret Gardens

The iconic photo above, from Woody Allen's Manhattan, was taken at the edge of East 58th Street, in a tiny park that abuts a private enclave known as Sutton Square.

James explored Sutton Square -- where 5 townhouses happen to be on the market at the moment -- for a story in today's New York Post.

You can read the piece at: http://nypost.com/2017/05/11/what-its-like-to-live-on-one-of-nycs-secret-gardens/

For the next couple of weeks, we are on the road exploring sites associated with pioneer author Laura Ingalls Wilder (of Little House on the Prairie fame) and renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright. If those topics interest you, be sure to follow James on social media to see photos from along our route.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/james_nevius/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JamesNeviusAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JamesNevius

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Read more about NYC history in

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Frank Lloyd Wright

We've had some glitched before with Postcard Thursday. Astute readers know that is sometimes appears as Postcard Friday, and there might have even been a Postcard Saturday once upon a time.

But Postcard Monday?

Mea culpa.

Today brings you a snowy scene of Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece, Fallingwater, which James wrote about this week in The New York Post. Read all about how to construct your own Wright road trip at http://nypost.com/2017/03/13/roadtripping-frank-lloyd-wrights-greatest-archi-hits/

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Read more about NYC history in

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Postcard Thursday: Historic Living in NYC

courtesy of the New York Public Library

Today's image shows the Dakota Apartments, ca. 1890, when the Upper West Side was first becoming a significant residential neighborhood. When the building had opened six years earlier, it stood the notion of apartment-living on its head. Prior to this point, bachelors and immigrants might live in hotels and tenements, but the idea of a luxury apartment building was unheard of.

As James writes in today's issue of the New York Post:

the cornerstone was laid for the Dakota at 1 W. 72nd St. in 1880, spurring a revolution in luxury living. The developer, Edward Clark, had the bad habit of selling apartments before they were finished, which sent architect Henry Hardenbergh scrambling to revise his blueprints during construction. As a result, according to Stephen Birmingham’s book “Life at the Dakota,” spaces ended up as small as four rooms and as large as twenty. Currently, there’s an 11-room apartment — complete with seven working fireplaces — on the market for $15.5 million. That’s for a space without Central Park views.

You can read James's entire article about what it's like to live in a historic New York building on the Post's website at http://nypost.com/2016/02/11/own-a-piece-of-history-with-these-nifty-ny-pads/

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Read more about NYC history in

 

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Slavery in New York

Instead of a postcard today, here's an ad James found when doing research for an article he's writing. Searching through a New-York Evening Post from February 1817, on a page mostly dedicated to selling dry goods and real estate, he stumbled upon this short ad:

FOR SALE, a coloured WOMAN, aged 20 years; sober and honest; a good cook, and capable of all kinds of house-work. Enquire at this office.

It is so easy to think that New York has always been a liberal, educated, progressive place--and then an ad like that pops up to remind us that this woman was being treated the same as a team of horses or a vacant lot on Bleecker Street.

As we write about in both Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York, New York's connection to slavery was deep. The Dutch first began importing enslaved Africans in the middle of the seventeenth century and despite the fact that gradual manumission began in 1799, New York was actually the second-to-last northern state to abolish slavery. (For the record, some enslaved people in New Jersey did not get their full freedom until the Civil War.)

The original Dutch Slave Market

In 1817, the same year this advertisement ran, New York's governor, Daniel Tompkins, finally announced that he'd given the state legislature a ten-year timetable for abolition. The legislature, fearing they'd be voted out of office by slave-holding New Yorkers, took the full decade, declaring July 4, 1827, to be emancipation day in the state of New York.

Yet, New York still thrived on the profits of slavery--so much so that when the Civil War started, Mayor Fernando Wood suggested the city secede from the Union so as to not lose its lucrative shipping contracts with southern planters.

A few years ago, the New-York Historical Society hosted a landmark exhibition on the history of slavery in the city and they've kept their very informative website going a resource for students and anyone interested in this sad chapter in the city's history: http://www.slaveryinnewyork.org.

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Explore more NYC history in

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers

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 and Noble, etc.) or

from independent bookstores across the country.

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