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Showing posts with label New York Public Library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Public Library. Show all posts
Thursday, October 4, 2018
Postcard Thursday: Reminder -- Sun Oct 7, Gilded Age Walking Tour
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Postcard Thursday: Wall Street
For nearly four centuries, the lower tip of Manhattan has been defined by Wall Street, the path of which was originally marked by a nine-foot-high wooden palisade.
James digs deep into the the street's history for Curbed NY in his most recent feature story, which you can read here: https://ny.curbed.com/2018/9/26/17900962/wall-street-new-york-city-history.
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REMINDER: On Sunday, October 7, at 11:00AM, we will be guiding a tour of Gilded-Age New York. All the details are at http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2018/09/postcard-thursday-gilded-age-walking.html. There are only a few spots left at just $15 a piece -- book now!
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Want to hear more about NYC history?
Inside the Apple has recently been released for the first time as an audio book!
Visit Amazon or Audible to download today
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Postcard Thursday: Gilded Age Walking Tour -- Oct 7 at 11:00am
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Thursday, April 19, 2018
Postcard Thursday: New York City Maps at the NYPL
If you haven't yet had the chance, check out the exhibition at the main branch of the New York Public Library, "Picturing the City: Illustrated Maps of NYC." The small show is being held in the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division on the first floor and draws from the library's impeccable collection of New York maps and illustrations.
Some, such as the famed Castello Plan, will be familiar to lovers of New York City history, but other maps -- including this fun illustration from 1946 -- are less well known.
The exhibition runs through July 16, 2018, and is open during regular library hours.
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LAST CHANCE TO SIGN UP!
Join us for a walk around the Financial District in search of moments from the city's rich history that have faded from view. We'll search out forgotten marble markers, obscure statues of famous people (and famous statues of obscure people), explore the remnants of the Dutch village of New Amsterdam, and discover why New Yorkers a century ago were OBSESSED with the American Revolution. Whether you've traversed this neighborhood your whole life or are new to the area, this tour will likely show you places you've never seen before.$25 per person
TO RESERVE: Send your name, the number of people in your group, and a contact number (in case we have to contact you on the day of the tour) to walknyc@gmail.com. We will send you a confirmation with details of where to meet within 24 hours.
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Thursday, February 9, 2017
Postcard Thursday: Snow Day
In honor of the snowstorm hitting New York City today, here are some photos from the New York Public Library's digital collection of snowstorms past. The photo above shows a stretch of Fifth Avenue ca. 1905 (the year the photo was printed) after a storm; unfortunately, there aren't enough revealing details to determine exactly where on the avenue this is.
This second card, from the same storm, shows Broadway between 29th and 30th Streets. The photographer was clearly drawn to the irony of the "Sarnoff Straw Hats" sign peeking out of a snow drift, but if you look just to the right of that you'll see the sign for Shanley's, which was a popular restaurant in that era. In operation from the 1890s to 1925, Shanley's was known as a "lobster palace," and a quick perusal of the menu makes it easy to see why: lobster appears in just about every possible preparation, along with oysters, other shellfish, and various unidentifiable dishes such as "cold corn starch."
This final photo may be from the same storm, but doesn't have an easily readable date. These children are sledding -- or "coasting" in the language of the day -- on a hill in Central Park.
Enjoy the snow and be careful out there!
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Thursday, April 14, 2016
Postcard Thursday: Fraunces Tavern + Talk at the Mid-Manhattan Branch of the New York Public Library
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| courtesy of the New York Public Library |
Fraunces Tavern was originally built as the home of Stephen DeLancey and his family, who are the subjects of the second chapter of Footprints in New York. As we write:
In 1700, Stephen married Anne van Cortlandt, the daughter of the former mayor and granddaughter of Oloff Stevenson van Cortlandt, whose Stone Street brewery had made him one of the richest early colonists.
As a wedding present, Stephen and Anne received a lot at Broad and Pearl Streets, one of the newest and best pieces of property in the city. Fourteen years earlier...the shoreline on the east side of Pearl Street had been back-filled to create new lots. Anne’s father, Stephanus van Cortlandt, was mayor at the time, and he’d purchased the corner property. Having never developed the land, he now presented it to Stephen and Anne, though they, too, would leave the lot undeveloped for almost two decades.... In 1719, Stephen applied for a strip of land on Pearl Street, three-and-a-half feet wide, to straighten his lot so that he might “build a large brick house, etc.”
By 1720, the Pearl Street house was likely finished, and would have been the family seat until Stephen built their next home, ca. 1730, on Broadway near Thames Street.... It was a large house—a mansion, really, with fourteen fireplaces and a huge kitchen. I can picture the DeLancey children running around inside the house...so it’s jarring that the first thing I encounter upon entering the Pearl Street building is a sign for whiskey.
But I shouldn’t be surprised—no one comes here anymore because it was Stephen DeLancey’s house; they come because this is Fraunces Tavern, George Washington’s final headquarters during the Revolutionary War. It’s this notoriety that has marked the building’s place in history. In some form or another, it has served as a tavern ever since.Want to know more? Join us next Thursday as we explore all the chapters of Footprints in New York is a fast-paced, image-laden talk at the New York Public Library's Mid-Manhattan Library (40th Street and Fifth Avenue, across from the famous main branch).
We'll highlight some of our favorite stories from the book, including exploring the last days of Alexander Hamilton, the Edgar Allan Poe house in the Bronx, and Jane Jacobs's fight to save Soho.
We look forward to seeing you there! Copies of both Footprints in New York and Inside the Apple will be available for purchase and signing.
Read more about the event on Facebook -- and follow us there if you haven't already: https://www.facebook.com/events/452455121618285/
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Thursday, April 7, 2016
Postcard Thursday: Longacre Square
If you had purchased this postcard exactly 112 years ago today, on April 7, 1904, you might have been doing so to commemorate the end of an era. For on April 8, the official name of the little triangle of land depicted here was changed from Longacre Square to Times Square.
As we write in Inside the Apple, at the time, the IRT was hard at work building the first subway line in the city. At the same time, the subway's main backer--financier August Belmont--was
lobbying his friend Adolph Ochs, the publisher of the New York Times, to relocate his paper’s headquarters to Longacre Square.
In theory, it was enough that the new subway connected the growing residential neighborhoods on the Upper West Side and Harlem to the city’s business district below City Hall. However, Belmont realized that to make the subway indispensable, he needed to develop real estate along the 42nd Street corridor as its own, independent business district. So, he turned to Ochs and encouraged him to consider building the Times a new all-in-one editorial and printing plant along the path of the IRT.
Ochs had purchased a controlling interest in the Times in 1896 and quickly boosted the paper’s circulation (by dropping the price to a penny) while raising the standard of its journalism. Belmont had long held a financial stake in the paper and saw the marriage of the newspaper and his new subway as a mutually beneficial enterprise....
To sweeten the deal, Belmont persuaded Mayor McClellan to rename Longacre Square after its new tenant. One of the Times’ chief rivals, James Gordon Bennett Jr.’s New York Herald, had moved to 34th Street in 1894 and their square soon became Herald Square. Belmont argued that the Times deserved the same courtesy; on April 8, 1904, Mayor McClellan presided over the opening of Times Square.The Times Building was the second-tallest skyscraper in the city in 1904 and the paper boasted that it could be seen from 12 miles away. This, of course, made it an ideal spot to shoot off New Year's Eve fireworks. Three years later, the fireworks were nixed in favor of the famous ball drop.
Of course, today Times Square is known for a lot more than just the newspaper (which is still headquartered in the neighborhood, but no longer on the square). Even when it was still Longacre Square, the area was already becoming the center of the city's theater district.
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| The Olympia Theater (image courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York) |
Again, from Inside the Apple:
In 1895, Oscar Hammerstein opened the Olympia Theater on 45th Street, just around the corner from what was still called Longacre Square.... Though most theaters centered on Union and Madison Squares, the new Metropolitan Opera House had opened in 1883 at Broadway and 39th Street and a cluster of other theaters soon joined it. However, no one before Hammerstein wanted to build farther north. Longacre Square was known for livery stables and—much more important for theater-goers—its lack of electric lights, leading some to call it the “thieves’ lair.” Hammerstein, however, needed lots of space for his next venture, and land north of 42nd Street was cheap. The Olympia promised something for everyone: restaurants, opera, comedies—even a Turkish bath. Most of these features never came to fruition, but the theater itself was a success, proving that audiences would travel to 42nd Street to see a show.
In 1900, Hammerstein opened the Republic on 42nd Street. Three years later, the New Amsterdam had opened across the street, the Lyric a few doors down, and the Lyceum on 45th Street; by the end of the first decade of the 20th century, serious theater goers had abandoned Union Square and were happily coming to the new Broadway theater district. In 1902, the area received a new appellation, “The Great White Way.”(Why is it called "The Great White Way"? You'll have to read the book to find out.....)
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JOIN US AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
On Thursday, April 21 at 6:30pm, we'll be at the Mid-Manhattan Library (455 Fifth Avenue, across the street from the main research branch) talking about Footprints in New York.We hope you can join us! Our illustrated lecture will look at some of our favorite stories from the book and highlight some of New York's most interesting characters, from Alexander Hamilton to Jane Jacobs to Edgar Allan Poe.
Copies of both Footprints in New York and Inside the Apple will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
Read more about the event on Facebook -- and follow us there if you haven't already: https://www.facebook.com/events/452455121618285/
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Continue to Celebrate New York’s 400th at the New York Public Library, South Street Seaport, and the Bard Graduate Center
In the last week, we were able to visit three exhibitions currently on view that are tied to the ongoing celebrations of Henry Hudson’s arrival in New York in 1609: New Amsterdam: Island at the Center of the World at the South Street Seaport Museum; Mapping New York’s Shoreline, 1609-1909 at the New York Public Library; and Dutch New York Between East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick at the Bard Graduate Center. Each show has something to recommend it and together they make a great way to explore the importance of Dutch New Amsterdam and the influence of the Dutch on future generations.
Mapping New York’s Shoreline, 1609-1909
This exhibition has the broadest mission of the three. However, it lacks focus, presenting everything from early views of New Amsterdam to aerial maps of Hoboken, New Jersey. And while the exhibit bills itself as four hundred years of maps, the Dutch period is only slightly represented (and in maps and images that are better seen at the South Street Seaport show; see below).
On the other hand, the show’s overly broad scope is also its strong point: the (late) Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal of Jordan Map Division is one America’s finest cartographic collections and with such a rich variety of New York maps to choose from, the curators do a good job of illustrating the growth and change of the island over the last four centuries. Particularly interesting is the section on Henry Rutgers’s farm, which occupied what is now the Lower East Side south of Division Street, and the maps that depict how the area was turned into the wealthy suburban enclave in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. (The Lower East Side was gentrified even then!)
New Amsterdam: The Island at the Center of the WorldThe New Amsterdam exhibition at the South Street Seaport Museum also features a number of maps, many of them borrowed from the Dutch National Archives, and they are stunning. The best piece in the show is the Castello Plan, the 1660 map of New Amsterdam drawn by surveyor Jacques Cortelyou, which was the first accurate depiction of the city. Many of the images in the collection are by cartographer Johannes Vingboons. Though Vingboons never left the Netherlands, he worked from charts, maps, and other sketches to create incredible watercolor views of Dutch territories from New Amsterdam to Indonesia.
What has been touted most about this show is the inclusion of “Manhattan’s birth certificate” – a letter from Pieter Schagen that mentions the 60 guilder deal struck by Peter Minuit in 1626 to purchase the island of the Manhattan. As we mention in Inside the Apple, there was once an actual deed for this transaction, but it was thrown away or auctioned off over 200 years ago. So what we have today isn’t the original birth certificate, but more of a birth announcement. (Alert the birthers!)
The exhibition is well worth savoring, but don’t expect it to be easy to follow. The rooms are poorly arranged the explanatory text panels are sometimes confusing (or just plain wrong). But that shouldn't stop you from visiting this wonderful show.
Dutch New York Between East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick
To round out your exploration of Dutch America, head up to the Bard Graduate Center to get a peek into the sort of life a wealthy New Amsterdammer would have lived.
The show revolves around the inventory of Margrieta van Varick (of the Varick Street van Varicks), which enumerates Margrieta’s extensive holdings when she died in Flatbush in 1695. Having lived in the Netherlands, Dutch-controlled Malaysia, and Brooklyn, Margrieta had acquired a tremendous array of objects. On top of that, she owned a textile shop and would have had goods in the inventory that were her stock in trade. Finding the actual objects listed was impossible; instead, the curators found contemporary examples of the types of things she owned, from a Japanese silk robe to incredible detailed silver children’s toys. If you are interested in New York’s early history or just simply like looking at wonderful decorative art, this show is a must-see.
Mapping New York’s Shoreline, 1609-1909. On view at the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (that’s the main branch) at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Through June 26, 2010. http://www.nypl.org/research/calendar/exhibdesc.cfm?id=508
New Amsterdam: The Island at the Center of the World. On view at the South Street Seaport Museum at 12 Fulton Street. Through January 3, 2010. http://www.southstreetseaportmuseum.org/index1.aspx?BD=9622
Dutch New York Between East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick. On view at the Bard Graduate Center, 18 West 86th Street. Through January 3, 2010. http://www.bgc.bard.edu/gallery/galleries-at-bgc/main-gallery/main-gallery-exhibition.html
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