Postcard Thursday: Melville's Whale

site for processing whale oil, Antarctica

On October 18, 1851, a novel called The Whale by Herman Melville was published in England. It would come out in America about a month later under the title Moby Dick and would become a landmark of 19th-century American literature. (Though not immediately -- the first edition was a failure.)

Melville was born in Lower Manhattan and -- when he wasn't working on square-rigged sailing ships -- spent most of his life in the city.

"There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward…. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries."

-- Herman Melville, Moby Dick

For years, there was a bust of Melville inset into the wall behind 17 State Street, a 1988 office tower built by Emory Roth & Sons in the Financial District. The bust marked the spot (sort of) where Melville was born at 6 Pearl Street.

However, a recent renovation of the plaza has erased the Melville memorial. Do any readers know what happened to the bust? We've reached out to the leasing agent for the building, but so far have not heard back.

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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

Footprints in New York: Tracing the Lives of Four Centuries of New Yorkers Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Hidden History: Lower Manhattan Walking Tour

Hidden History: Lower Manhattan Walking Tour Saturday, April 21, from Noon-2pm Join James Nevius, author of Inside the Apple and Footprints in New York, 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. EARLY BIRD SPECIAL: Reserve on or before Friday, April 13, you can reserve spots for just $20 per person, after which time the price will jump to $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.

Postcard Thursday: Apollo XI

On July 20, 1969, the Apollo XI capsule landed on the moon and humans walked on a celestial body for the first time.

A few days later, the Apollo astronauts--back on terra firma--were feted in New York with a major ticker tape parade.  At the time, many claimed it was the largest ticker tape parade New York had ever seen, but as we were researching Inside the Apple, we found that same claim was made for many parades and it’s almost impossible to verify. (Four million people were said to have attended the Apollo parade—an impressive number, even if it’s not the largest.)

Certainly, it was the longest parade. The city’s traditional parade route runs from Bowling Green Park at the foot of Broadway to City Hall. The Apollo astronauts, however, after receiving the key to the city, continued up Broadway to Herald Square and then on to Times Square. As the New York Times noted, the confetti in Midtown was “made up more of paper towels and pages from telephone directories than tickertape” and that it grew “so dense that the astronauts could hardly see.”

As we write in Inside the Apple:

It was also one of the fastest ticker tape parades. The astronauts started at Bowling Green at 10:17 a.m. (about half an hour ahead of schedule) and arrived on the steps of City Hall just fourteen minutes later! Many people who showed up for the parade were disappointed to discover that the astronauts had already passed them by…. By 1:15 p.m. the astronauts were back at Kennedy airport to go to Chicago. They ended the day with festivities in Los Angeles. Having just been to the moon and back, a quick one-day jaunt across North America must not have seemed like such a big deal.

 

The astronauts had to go through customs upon their return--follow this link to see the astronauts declaration form ("Departure from: MOON. Arrival at: Honolulu, Hawaii, USA").

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: The Ratzer Map

250 years ago, Lieutenant Bernard Ratzer set off across Manhattan and Brooklyn to make the first -- and still, in many ways, best -- comprehensive map of New York City.

A few months ago, James walked in Ratzer's footsteps, looking for traces of the city as it would have been two and half centuries ago. You can read the results in this piece he wrote for Curbed this week, "A Walking Tour of 1767 New York" (https://ny.curbed.com/2017/5/24/15681406/bernard-ratzer-map-new-york).

Speaking of walking tours, we'll be hosting a public tour on Sunday, June 25, so save the date. Details coming soon!

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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: New York Skyline, ca. 1900

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

(To see a larger view of this entire postcard, CLICK HERE.)

Today's postcard comes from the vast trove of images at the Library of Congress. Published ca. 1900, the fold-out card shows the downtown skyline. The view, looking at the west side of Lower Manhattan from the Hudson River, shows just how much has changed in the past 116 years.

The tallest building in the postcard (toward the right of this close-up) was also the tallest in the world: The Park Row building, Completed in 1899 by R.H. Robertson, the building's twin cupolas hosted the city's first paid observation deck, a feature that would become a hallmark of every future building to hold the record. The Park Row tower still stands (until recently its ground floor housed J+R Music World), but many others in that part of town are now gone, including another tallest building in the world, the headquarters of the New York World, Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper. Capped by a large dome (at the left of the above close-up), Pulitzer's skyscraper was the first building ever to boast about its height, though it was -- paradoxically -- also designed to appear short and stocky to passersby. Like much of Newspaper Row, the skyscraper was demolished to make way for the widened approach ramps to the Brooklyn Bridge.

Another familiar landmark on the skyline is the spire of Trinity Church, which was also once the tallest structure in town. (It is the dark spire, above.) Just north of that you can see the American Surety Building at 100 Broadway, Bruce Price's 1896 skyscraper that still stands opposite Trinity's graveyard, though this and any other extant buildings in Lower Manhattan are impossible to see from the river today.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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JULY 29 at 6:30PM || ALEXANDER HAMILTON'S NEW YORK

We will be speaking at the New-York Historical Society on Friday, July 29, at 6:30pm. The illustrated talk, which takes you through the New York City Alexander Hamilton would have known, is free with museum admission (which is pay-what-you-wish on Friday nights) but the museum would like you to make a reservation. Click this link for all the details: http://www.nyhistory.org/programs/exploring-hamilton%E2%80%99s-new-york

* * * * 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

3rd Annual Alexander Hamilton Memorial Day Weekend Walking Tour

THIRD ANNUAL ALEXANDER HAMILTON MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND WALKING TOUR with JAMES NEVIUS author of "Footprints in New York" and "Inside the Apple" Sunday, May 29, 2016, at 1PM

Before HAMILTON was a Broadway sensation (nominated for a record 16 Tony Awards), there was Alexander Hamilton the statesman, Revolutionary War hero, and lousy duellist. Join author and Hamilton expert James Nevius for a walk back in time as we explore the New York City that Hamilton would have known. We'll look at spots important to his life, to the founding of America, and to his untimely death. The two-hour walk will take place rain or shine on SUNDAY, MAY 29, at 1PM. ***** $20 per person (EARLY BIRD SPECIAL) if you sign up on or before Tuesday, May 18. $25 per person for reservations taken May 19 or later. Need a copy of "Footprints in New York?" Reserve a signed copy of the book when you register for an additional $15 (the book retails for $20), and we'll bring it to the tour. **** Payment by cash or credit card at the time of the tour. Details of where we will meet will be emailed to you when you reserve. CLICK THE "REGISTER NOW" BUTTON ABOVE TO SAVE YOUR SPOT!   MAY 2016 29 REGISTER NOW FOLLOW ON TWITTER FOLLOW ON FACEBOOK FORWARD TO A FRIEND

Copyright © 2016 Michelle Nevius Private Walking Tours All rights reserved.

One World Observatory

The view south toward Battery Park and Governors Island.

Yesterday, we were lucky to be invited to a preview of the new observatory atop One World Trade Center, which opens to the public on Friday.

For a history buff, the best part is the elevator ride to the top (see video, below). In 47 seconds you are whisked from the bedrock level to the 102nd floor and during that time, state-of-the-art LED screens, which line three sides of each elevator, show the evolution of Lower Manhattan from the pre-contact era to the present day. As you’ll see in the video, it all goes by so quickly that you can’t take in a fraction of it in. We knew to look at the screen to the right (south) side of the elevator in order to see the old World Trade Center appear in the late 1960s and fade away in 2001.

The journey begins in the basement of One World Trade, where each person’s ticket is scanned and a light appears on the map to indicate what country (or, in the USA, which state) he or she is from.

A corresponding welcome message is displayed on a monitor nearby in the vistor’s language, showing a scene from New York City. We found it amusing that in addition to the Statue of Liberty representing France, another French scene is Washington Square, presumably since the famous arch there is modeled on the Arc du Triomphe.

Wending your way to the elevators, you pass video installations of construction workers talking about the building of the tower.

Then you pass through a bedrock chamber with facts and figures projected on the rock face. Except it’s not rock face. It’s all fake.

Then, the elevator ride:

Once at the top, you still don’t get to see the view until you watch a two minute video montage in the SEE FOREVER™ theater (ALL CAPS for some reason), which ends with the big reveal: the screen rises to give visitors their first look at the amazing view.

After being guided downstairs past the restaurant / bar / cafe, you reach the main observatory on the 100th floor. (By the way, the bar wasn't open yet, but looks great and might be worth the $32 admission price.)

The scenery is what you are here for, obviously:

The Lower East Side's "Blue" apartment building stands out.

Looking up the West Side Highway and the Hudson River Greenway.

A great view of the Tweed Courthouse.

Santiago Calatrava's new PATH station (under construction) and the World Trade Center museum and memorial pool.

Is this all worth $32 a person? It’s hard to tell. We were up there with two dozen other people and it was glorious to have the place to ourselves. Once operational, the observatory will admit approximately 200 people every 15 minutes with timed tickets. People are, of course, free to stay as long as they want, but David Checketts, the CEO of Legends, which operates the facility, told us that he expects the average visitor to stay between 45-60 minutes. In our best estimation, there will probably be 500-800 people on the 100th floor at any given time, which may feel like a madhouse. If you go, let us know what you think.

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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.

Our Private Walking Tours of New York City: Lower Manhattan

Recently, a reader and fan of Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City, was surprised to discover that we are available to personally lead the guided walks from the book. Not only are we available, we love conducting tours for people who've read the book and want the opportunity to explore a part of the city in greater depth.

Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to blog about some of our favorite walks around the city that we lead for clients. If you are interested to booking any of these tours for yourself, either visit www.walknyc.com for more details or email us at walknyc@gmail.com or info@insidetheapple.net.

WALKING TOUR OF LOWER MANHATTAN

We love walking in Lower Manhattan because it is the section of the city where the largest amount of history is contained in the smallest amount of space. From the first Dutch settlers to the capital of American finance, there are hundreds of tales to tell in Lower Manhattan. Did you know the Statue of Liberty was originally supposed to stand in Egypt? Or that eight million immigrants were processed through a War of 1812 fort in Battery Park before Ellis Island had been created? Our walk through this area weaves together architectural, historical, cultural (and pop-cultural: after all we are passing Men in Black HQ) sites to create a portrait of how New York City has emerged as America's premiere city over the last 400 years.

One of the best things about a guided walk of the Financial District is how many different tangents we can follow. Some groups opt for an entirely a colonial-era tour, focusing on the era from Henry Hudson's arrival in 1609 to the first rumblings of the Revolutionary War. Walking what is basically the entire outline of the old city, we see everything from the site of the famous wall that gave its name to Wall Street to the archaeological excavations that unearthed the oldest foundations in Manhattan, those of the 1670 Lovelace Tavern (which are still on view).

For those who'd rather focus on the Revolution and the Federal period, we traverse the same ground seeing the spot where George Washington was sworn in as America's first president; Alexander Hamilton's grave in Trinity Church; the fence at Bowling Green Park which still shows the marks of revolutionary fervor, and much more.

Interested in Financial History? We can walk four centuries of New York finance, from the place where Peter Minuit may have struck the so-called $24 deal to buy the island of Manhattan to the threshold of World Trade Center, poised to become the tallest building in the country and the cornerstone of a revitalized business district.

Or, of course, you can opt for the walk that combines all of these elements into a two-hour journey into the past.

To book, email us at walknyc@gmail.com or info@insidetheapple.net and we'll set it up. Tours are a flat fee of $80 for 1-4 people or $20 per person for parties larger than four. Discounts for larger parties and student groups.

Hope to see you on a walk soon!

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For a self-guided walk of the Financial District, see

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

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Or, to subscribe via email, follow this link.

Also, you can now follow us on Twitter.

REMINDER: Walking Tour of Gilded Age Lower Manhattan on Sunday, April 22

REMINDER: Today's the last day to reserve at the $10 discount for our 4/22 tour of Gilded Age Lower Manhattan.

All the details can be found on our previous blog post at

http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2012/04/walking-tour-of-gilded-age-lower.html

Hope to see you there!

Michelle & James
www.insidetheapple.net

Walking tour of Gilded Age Lower Manhattan -- Sunday, April 22, at 10:00AM

On Sunday, April 22, 2012, at 10:00AM, we will be offering our next public walking tour:

Exploring the Gilded Age in Lower Manhattan

Reservations taken 4/15 or earlier: $10 per person
Reservations taken 4/16 or later: $15 per person
RESERVATIONS TAKEN ON A FIRST-COME, FIRST-SERVED BASIS
events@insidetheapple.net

Join James Nevius, co-author of Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City, on Sunday, April 22, to explore Beaux Arts architecture in Lower Manhattan. This is the era of JP Morgan, and we’ll see a number of sites associated with him, including the House of Morgan and International Mercantile Marine (IMM) ticket office. IMM owned, among other ships, White Star’s Titanic; since the centennial of that boat’s sinking is just one week earlier, we’ll also talk about the golden age of New York as a port for both goods (as evidenced in Cass Gilbert’s triumphant US Custom House) and people. The tour will last between 1.5 and 2 hours.

Copies of Inside the Apple will be available for purchase at the tour.

To reserve, send an email to events@insidetheapple.net with

·         Your name

·         The number in your party

·         A contact cell phone number

·         A good email address where we can send you information about where the tour will start.

PLEASE NOTE that if you reserve no later than Sunday, April 15, the cost is just $10 per person. All reservations received starting Monday, April 16, will be $15 per person.

This tour will have only a limited number of spaces, so please reserve early to avoid disappointment.

Payment will be taken at the start of the tour by cash only. Directions to the tour’s starting point will be sent out after your reservation is confirmed. 

Hope to see you there! 

Happy Birthday to Moby Dick

photo by wallyg on flickr

"There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward…. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries."

-- Herman Melville, Moby Dick 

One hundred and sixty years ago, on November 14, 1851, Harper & Brothers published Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Now considered one of the great pieces of American literature, it was a commercial and critical failure when it came out. (A fire at the warehouse in 1853 destroyed the bulk of Melville's unsold works, making a first edition a real rarity today.)

If you happen to be downtown today, you can celebrate Melville by visiting his birthplace--or, more precisely, by visiting a plaque in the wall. Melville was born on August 1, 1819, in a boarding house at 6 Pearl Street, a building which is now gone. Melville's father, Alan, was climbing the ladder of success, but in 1819 this once-fashionable neighborhood was rapidly declining as piers and warehouses were built to accommodate New York's role as America's biggest port.

Finding the Melville birthplace can by tricky. It is tucked away in the plaza behind 17 State Street. If you are on State Street, cut through between 17 State and the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, and you'll see Melville's bust on the far wall.

(And if you can't down to Pearl Street, you can celebrate Moby Dick in pictures here.)

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Read more about Herman Melville's Manhattan in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York

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Reminder: July 3rd Revolutionary War Walking Tour

There are a handful of spaces left for our walking tour this Sunday, July 3, at 4:00 p.m., which examines the history of the Revolutionary War in New York. And, even though the price to the general public is now $15 per person, readers of this blog can still get the special, $10 discounted price if they reserve and mention the word MONTPELIER somewhere in their email.

To read more about the tour--including what you need to do to reserve a space--see our previous blog entry at: http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2011/06/revolutionary-walking-tour-sunday-july.html

Hope to see you Sunday! But hurry.... once the tour is full, we will have to cut off reservations.

(Bonus points if you know why Montpelier is the secret code word....)

New York Stock Exchange Reaches an All-Time Low

Today, the number of shares traded daily at the New York Stock Exchange numbers in the billions. But 180 years ago today – on March 16, 1830 – only thirty-one shares changed hands in both the morning and afternoon sessions, an all-time low. A typical day in the 1830s saw well over 1,000 shares traded and by 1835 daily volume would reach 8,500 shares.

In 1830, the exchange was located in rented quarters at 40 Wall Street. Five years later that building – along with most of Wall Street – would be engulfed by the Great Fire of 1835, a huge conflagration that destroyed 600  buildings downtown.

After moving a couple of times in the 19th century, the exchange finally settled on Broad Street; its current home, designed by George B. Post, opened in 1903.

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Read more about the New York Stock Exchange
in Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Or, to subscribe via email, follow this link.
Also, you can now follow us on Twitter.

The First World Trade Center Bombing

Today marks the 17th anniversary of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured over 1,000 more.

The plot and bombing were carried out by seven men: Mohammed Salameh, Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Nidal Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin, Ahmad Ajaj, and Eyad Ismoil.

On the morning of February 26, 1993, Ismoil and Yousef drove a rented Ryder van into Manhattan from Jersey City. According to author Simon Reeve in The New Jackals, their intended destination may have been the United Nations, but finding the buildings too well secured, they switched to plan "B" and targeted the Twin Towers instead.

The van exploded at 12:17 p.m., tearing a huge hole in the  concrete foundations of WTC 1 (the north tower) and destroying a portion of the garage. The tower immediately lost power and all workers were evacuated; most of the injuries came during the scramble to get people to safety.

Investigators found the frame of the van and were able to pull its VIN, thus linking it back to Mohammed Salameh, who had rented the van and then reported it stolen. When Salameh returned to the Ryder agency in Jersey City to get back his $400 deposit, the FBI arrested him. The mastermind of the attack, Ramzi Yousef, returned to Jersey City that afternoon and immediately flew out of the country to Pakistan. He was not apprehended until after his involvement in the bombing of Philippine Airlines flight 434 in December 1994, a trial run in the so-called "Bojinka" plot to explode dozens of airlines. Yousef's uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would ultimately be the force behind the second attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Eventually, all the conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing were arrested and incarcerated except for Abdul Rahman Yasin, who was last seen in Iraq in 2003 and has not been seen or heard from since.

The six fatalities at the World Trade Center in 1993 were John DiGiovanni (age 45), Robert Kirkpatrick (61), Stephen Knapp (48), Bill Macko (47), Wilfredo Mercado (37), and Monica Smith (35), who was seven months pregnant at the time of her death. A memorial to them that once stood in the plaza at the World Trade Center was destroyed on 9/11; a new tribute to these victims will be included when the "Reflecting Absence" memorial opens -- supposedly by September 11th next year.

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Read more about the construction of the World Trade Center
in Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

To get RSS feeds from this blog, point your reader to this link.
Or, to subscribe via email, follow this link.Also, you can now follow us on Twitter.