"Inside the Apple" Contest ends at Midnight

Happy Cyber Monday!

Today is your last chance to enter our contest to win a free, autographed copy of Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City (and to let your friends know how they can enter). Just read our blog entry at http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2010/11/win-signed-copy-of-inside-apple.html for all the details and then tweet to win.

Good luck!

Enrico Caruso and the Monkey House Incident

Enrico Caruso made his operatic debut in New York on November 23, 1903, to great acclaim; exactly three years later, he was back in the news for a more infamous reason--on November 23, 1906, he was convicted of inappropriately touching a young woman named Hannah Graham in the monkey house at the Central Park Zoo.

Caruso had been arrested a week earlier after being watched for three-quarters of an hour by police officer James J. Cain. As Cain later testified at the trial, he allegedly observed Caruso going up to a number of women in the monkey house; sometimes he stood close behind them so that his legs touched theirs; sometimes he touched women by reaching his hands out through slits cut in his coat's pockets. However, for reasons unknown, Cain did nothing to intervene until Caruso harassed Mrs. Graham. The singer was arrested and quickly brought to trial.

Other than Cain's testimony, the prosecution had very little to go on. They were unable to produce Mrs. Graham and a quick search of her address in the Bronx revealed no Hannah Graham in residence. Cain's excuses for not arresting Caruso sooner seemed flimsy and some observers wrote off the trial as yet another attempt to harass the Italian population. (When Italian New Yorkers flocked to the courthouse to support Caruso, the prosecution argued that their very presence is what had deterred Mrs. Graham from appearing in court.)

In the end, however, the judge sided with the prosecution and fined Caruso ten dollars--the maximum fine for disorderly conduct. Though Caruso vowed to appeal, he eventually let the matter drop, perhaps fearing that any additional publicity would not work in his favor. Five days after the verdict, he appeared on stage at the Metropolitan Opera to a chorus of cheers; he may have lost at trial, but he had surely won in the court of public opinion.

--> DON'T FORGET TO ENTER OUR CONTEST <--

Win an autographed copy of Inside the Apple:

http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2010/11/win-signed-copy-of-inside-apple.html

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Read more about Italians in New York in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Win a Signed Copy of "Inside the Apple"

'Tis the season of gift giving and we thought we'd get things started by giving away an autographed copy of Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

The contest is very simple and involves following us on Twitter. Between November 18 and November 29, all you need to do is the following:

1) Become a follower of Inside the Apple on Twitter (if you aren't one already) at http://www.twitter.com/insidetheapple.

2) Tweet something along the lines of: "I just entered to win a free copy of Inside the Apple by following @insidetheapple. Rules at: http://bit.ly/aRNS41." The exact wording of your tweet doesn't matter but it MUST include our handle (@insidetheapple) and the link to the official rules (http://bit.ly/aRNS41).

The contest will end at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, November 29. We'll announce the winner on our blog and on Twitter on Tuesday, November 30. For more details, read the official rules at http://bit.ly/aRNS41.

Good luck!

A Literal Crash on Wall Street: November 12, 1929

Everyone knows about the Wall Street crash of October 1929 that triggered the Great Depression. But there was another, much more literal crash a couple of weeks later. Eighty-one years ago today, one of the great skyscrapers races of all time was coming to a close: The Bank of the Manhattan Company at 40 Wall Street was topping out and thus becoming the tallest building in the world. But an hour before the ceremonies, Wall Street was a scene of chaos.

As The New York Times reported, crowds were gathering around noon for the ceremonies to mark the completion of the world's tallest structure when "a half-ton block of limestone fell from the thirty-fifth floor of the new seventy-story building of the Bank of the Manhattan Company, crashed through the roof of the eighth-story setback down to the fifth floor and scattered debris over the street below."

Luckily, only three people were mildly injured in the accident. A woman in a parked car was cut when a piece of debris shattered the car's window; a steamfitter was struck by a piece of scaffolding in the shoulder; and a young office clerk crossing Wall Street had his leg cut by a shard of granite. As one police officer noted at the scene, "it was miraculous that no others were injured."

One the dust had settled and the injured persons treated at the scene or sent to the hospital, the work of topping out the building commenced. About an hour later the highest piece of structural steel was put atop 40 Wall Street--and, as the papers duly noted the next, it had become the world's tallest building.

Just four days later, the truth would be revealed: the Chrysler Building on 42nd Street had already surpassed 40 Wall Street's height. (You can read our more detailed entry about the skyscraper race from last year for further details.)

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Read more about the race between the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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November 4, 1825: "The Wedding of the Waters"

On this day in 1825, New York's governor, DeWitt Clinton, stood on the deck of a packet boat anchored off Sandy Hook and poured a barrel of water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean. This "wedding of the waters," as it came to be known, was the symbolic completion of the Erie Canal, the most important waterway of its day and the engineering project that once and for all sealed New York's fate as the most important commercial city in America.


We devote many chapters in Inside the Apple to DeWitt Clinton--perhaps the greatest unsung hero of 19th-century New York City--and we won't recap it all here. But it is worth remembering how central the Erie Canal was to New York's consolidation of economic power. Prior to the canal's opening, it was cheaper to bring goods from Liverpool to New York than to haul them overland from Illinois. Once the canal was finished, not only did New York have access to plentiful raw materials from the Midwest, finished products could now also speed to the heartland, opening up new markets for the city's burgeoning manufacturing base.


The canal opened on October 26, 1825, and a cannon was fired in Buffalo to mark the moment. A series of cannons along the canal and the Hudson River had been set up for the occasion and as each gunner heard the shot, he fired his own; in 90 minutes the news passed, cannon to cannon, along the waterway to New York City. Ten days later, the first boat arrived in New York and Governor Clinton poured the water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic. Over the next century, New York's port would expand exponentially, quickly becoming the busiest in America. By the time of the Civil War, New York's control over shipping was so complete that nearly all the cotton being shipped from the south to Europe was being sent out of New York harbor rather than directly from southern ports.

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Read more about DeWitt Clinton and the Erie Canal in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Happy Birthday, Teddy Roosevelt

Today marks the 152nd birthday of our twenty-sixth president, Theodore Roosevelt, the only U.S. president to be born and raised in New York City.

Roosevelt was born in a brownstone at 28 East 20th Street and today if you go to that address, you will find a double brownstone run by the National Parks Service as the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace. However, despite the plaque out front that claims that the house was "restored" in 1923, it is, in fact, not the house that Teddy grew up in.

Roosevelt lived in a home at this address from 1858 to 1872, when the family moved uptown. The original home was demolished in 1916. Teddy died just three years later and, as we note in Inside the Apple:

"The New York State legislature chartered the Woman’s Roosevelt Memorial Association a mere 23 days after Roosevelt’s death. By mid March, the organization had purchased the building that had gone up in place of T.R.’s boyhood home as well as the property next door, which had been owned by Roosevelt’s uncle, Robert. Their plan was to “restore” the houses as they would have looked in 1865, based on the “description written by Colonel Roosevelt in his autobiography.” What this meant, in practice, was tearing the buildings down and starting from scratch. In 1923, the newly built home was opened to the public and was praised as a “shrine to American patriotism.” But nice as the reconstructed home may have been, it was no match for Gutzon Borglum’s ultimate tribute to T.R., which would commence construction by the end of the decade: Mount Rushmore."

If you are down in the Gramercy Park/Flatiron area today, swing by the house--admission is free.  And if you in that neighborhood on Saturday, there’s a free concert at 2:00 p.m. celebrating Roosevelt’s accomplishments as a naturalist.

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Read more about Theodore Roosevelt in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Remembering Opening Day at the Guggenheim

In all the brouhaha surrounding the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum's plan to place a food kiosk outside the museum (a request unanimously denied by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, despite Frank Lloyd Wright's love of hot dogs), there's been little or no mention of the fact that today is the Guggenheim's 51st birthday. The museum opened on October 21, 1959, to mixed reviews. From the conception to completion the project took 16 years, but alas, Wright--who died six months before its completion--never got to enjoy the finished space.

Planning czar Robert Moses--Wright's second cousin by marriage--did not always see eye-to-eye with the famed architect. (In his opening remarks he said, "We need not debate how much of cousin Frank was genius and how much was, let us say, showmanship." In another context, he referred to his cousin as the man "regarded in Russia as our greatest builder.") But Moses made sure the Guggenheim got built. When the Department of Buildings was dragging its feet on giving the museum the proper approvals, Moses called the commissioner and told him: "I will have a building permit on my desk at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow or there will be a new building commissioner."
Many of Wright's colleagues praised the new museum. Philip Johnson called it "Mr. Wright's greatest building. New York's greatest building." Edward Durell Stone, who had worked on the Museum of Modern Art and would go on to build Huntington Hartford's Gallery of Modern Art on Columbus Circle, noted "I personally think it's a wonderful museum.... Why can't people relax and enjoy a fantastic structure instead of continually carping and criticizing."

And carp and criticize they did. The New York Mirror compared it to a "ball of mud" and an "imitation beehive that does not fit in any New York environment." Others drew comparisons to a Jello mold or a washing machine. The biggest complaint was that it would be a terrible space to show art (a critique that still plagues certain shows at the museum.)
If you are on the Upper East Side today, swing by and admire Wright's greatest New York creation and wish it a happy birthday.

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Read more about Frank Lloyd Wright and the Guggenheim Museum in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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FREE Walking Tour of the Columbus Circle/Carnegie Hall Neighborhood

Greetings friends, fans, and faithful blog readers:

On Sunday, October 17, at 3:00PM, we will be leading a free walking tour of the Carnegie Hall area in conjunction with the Borders store at Columbus Circle. We’ll look at some of the most interesting architecture of the neighborhood, including the Hearst Tower, the Museum of Arts and Design, Carnegie Hall, and some beautiful pre-war apartment buildings.

We’ll meet in the Special Events area of the Borders store, which is located on the second floor of the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle. In order to start on time, please plan to be at the store by 2:50PM.

We hope to see you there!

The Drunkard at Metropolitan Playhouse

Now through October 17, you have the opportunity to see one of the most famous plays of the 19th century, The Drunkard, which is being performed at the Metropolitan Playhouse. Nimbly directed by Frank Kuhn, the play tells the story of Edward Middleton, a well-off country squire who falls prey to the evils of drink, moves to New York City, and nearly loses everything. It is a fascinating glimpse into the mid-19th-century temperance movement, and also a chance for modern audiences to experience a real antebellum melodrama, complete with a villain who comes as close to mustache-twirling as you'll see on the stage today.

Written in 1844, the play was a vehicle for its author, W.H. Smith, who played the lead. It premiered in Boston and ran for 144 performances--then the longest running play in American history. P.T. Barnum, himself a strong believer in temperance, saw the show and imported it to New York (changing the setting of play in the process) and it ran for 100 performances at his American Museum, which stood near today's City Hall Park.


The energetic cast imbues this production with humor and real feeling--you never feel like you are sitting in a history lesson. It's well worth the journey to the East Village to see this fascinating slice of New York from 150 years ago.


More about the play, including ticket information, can be found at http://www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/

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Read more about P.T. Barnum's New York in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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Join us for "Now Circa Then" at Ars Nova

You're invited to join us at Ars Nova Theater (511 West 54th Street) on Tuesday, October 5, for a performance of the new play Now Circa Then by Carly Mensch. Inspired by a trip to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, Mensch has written a play about a pair of costumed historical reenactors and their relationship with the 19th-century characters they play.

Following the show, the playwright will join us on stage for a talk back where we will be answering questions about the history of the Lower East Side and the play.

Tickets normally cost $25, but if you use promotion code NEVIUS20 when you purchase tickets (which you can do here), you'll save $5 per ticket.

We hope to see you there!

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Read more about the Lower East Side in

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

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