Torn in Two: The 150th Anniversary of the Civil War at the Grolier Club

The Grolier Club (47 East 60th Street) is currently hosting Torn in Two: The 150th Anniversary of the Civil War, an exhibition of contemporary maps, broadsides, photographs, and documents organized by the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center of the Boston Public Library. The exhibit is small--it takes up just one room on the club's ground floor--but provides a fascinating glimpse into the attitudes and reportage of the time.

The exhibition pulls the viewer in immediately: the first case shows the first American demographic map (based on the 1860 census), which records the percentage of slaves relative to the population in each slave-holding county. In some counties near the Mason-Dixon line, that percentage was close to zero; in other counties in the Deep South and Texas, it reached nearly 90%. Lincoln evidently spent a great deal of time studying the map, and in a later portrait of him signing the Emancipation Proclamation, a copy of the map can be seen in the background.

Other displays include railroad maps, political cartoons, photographs, and commemorative diagrams--produced by the daily newspapers--of famous battle sites.

For anyone interested in the Civil War, which the exhibition notes is still the most important moment in our nation's history, this jewel of an exhibition is a must-see.

* * * 

For more on the Civil War--and New York's role in it--be sure to check out

Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Follow us on Twitter -- Facebook -- or subscribe via email

New York's First Bank Robbery

When workers arrived at the City Bank at 52 Wall Street* on Monday, March 21, 1831, they were in for a rude shock. Sometime over the weekend—probably the evening of March 19 or the early morning hours of March 20—the bank had been robbed of $245,000 in bank notes and Spanish doubloons. This was New York’s first-ever bank heist.

Though suspicion immediately fell on workers at the bank, the police had little time to investigate the employees before they received a tip from Mr. Bangs, the proprietor of a “respectable private boarding house” (according to the New-York Evening Post) who was leery of his newest tenant.

On the Monday following the robbery, a man calling himself Mr. Jones had arrived at Mr. Bangs's boarding house on Elm Street** with three small trunks, asking for a private room in which to write. He paid for the room in advance. After a few days, the landlord became suspicious over Mr. Jones’s apparent anxiety, especially concerning the contents of his trunks. When one of the trunks disappeared, Mr. Bangs contacted the police. The police—seemingly without probable cause or a warrant—picked the locks of the two remaining trunks and found bank notes they could positively identify as being from the City Bank robbery.

When Mr. Jones returned to the boarding house, he was promptly arrested. The robber was soon discovered to be Edward Smith, who lived on Division Street with his wife and two children and ran a shoe store. He was well-known to police, having been arrested for a store robbery in Brooklyn but not convicted due to lack of evidence. Stories soon began to swirl of other robberies Smith was allegedly connected to, including the attempted theft of cash from the steamer Chancellor Livingston and a daring mail coach heist in England.

Of the $245, 000, only about $176,000 was recovered from Smith. The bank soon began advertising for people to keep an eye out for the other bank notes (and the Spanish doubloons). One apparent accomplice was arrested in Philadelphia in April when some of the missing bank notes were identified on his person. But it is unclear if the remainder of the money was ever recovered or if that man was, indeed, part of the robbery.

A jury found Edward Smith guilty in a one-day trial (that one day included jury selection, testimony, and deliberations) and he was sentenced to five years hard labor in Sing-Sing prison.

* City Bank (aka The National City Bank) had been founded on this spot in 1812. At the turn of the 20th-century it would move across the street into the old Merchant's Exchange building at 55 Wall Street, now Cipriani. City Bank is today Citibank.

** Elm Street is now Lafayette Street.

* * * *

Read more about Wall Street banks--including the deadly Morgan Bank bombing--in
Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City
Follow us on Twitter -- Facebook -- or subscribe via email

The Greatest Grid

We were recently sent a copy of The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan 1811-2011, the companion book to the exhibit of the same name at the Museum of the City of New York.

The book is richly illustrated with images from the show, including a fold-out copy of the original Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, which gridded Manhattan into streets and avenues up to 155th Street. Like the exhibition, the book tells the story of New York’s development from the era before the grid, through the city’s explosive growth in the mid-19th century and the development of the Upper East and Upper West Sides, and on to today. The material is at its strongest in the era between 1811 and 1900. The Greatest Grid features many detail maps, including some of the Randel Farm Maps, which remain among the most valuable insights into early 19th-century New York. Created by John Randel, the key surveyor of the Commissioners’ Plan, the farm maps show property lines, topographical features, and other key details at a scale of 100 feet to the inch. Noted Manhattan chronicler I.N. Phelps Stokes called them "the most complete and valuable topographical record of the period that exists."

Also revealing are photographs from later in the century that show just how long it took the city to expand into the grid that Randel had laid out. The photo above is the view looking north from the Dakota apartments, ca. 1890. The only major structure visible is the American Museum of Natural History, which had opened a few years earlier.

The Greatest Grid, skillfully edited by NYU Urban Studies professor Hilary Ballon, is packed with nuggets of information—what spurred the development of a grid plan; why Broadway works against the grid; how the area north of 155th Street faced unique topographical information. Some things are given short shrift—we would have liked more information on the Flatiron Building, for instance, or the development of Times Square—but these are minor quibbles. This is a title well worth owning for anyone who appreciates Manhattan’s past and wants to explore it in greater depth.

(And to plug our own book for a minute—it really does make an excellent companion to Inside the Apple, amplifying and illustrating many of the points we make.)

* * * *

Follow us on Twitter -- Facebook -- or subscribe via email 

Curious and Unusual Deaths: "Death in New York"

This past summer, we were invited to Toronto by the Discovery Channel to participate as New York City history experts in the program Curious and Unusual Deaths. Our episode, "Death in New York," will premiere in the United States on Discovery's Fit and Health channel on March 16 at 10:00PM ET/7:00PM PT. (In New York, Discovery Fit and Health is channel 116 if you have Time Warner Cable; otherwise check your local listings)

Each episode of the show explores the circumstances of three people who died in strange ways. The show combines reenactment with interviews with scientists, historians, and engineers who examine these accidents to try to figure out not only how they happened, but how we can learn from these tragedies.

In "Death in New York," the three tales concern a city worker who was sucked into a drainage pipe at the Jerome Park Reservoir in the Bronx, a woman killed by a steam explosion while taking a nap near Gramercy Park, and a sidewalk electrocution in the East Village.

The program has been very well-received; for recent reviews of the show, please see the New York Times and Huffington Post.

In Canada, the show airs on Discovery Canada, and our episode will premiere on Friday, March 23, at 10:30PM ET. The show is also shown in other markets around the world, so do keep an eye out for it.

We haven't actually seen our episode yet, but are eager to find out how we did (and how much was left on the cutting room floor). Hope you have a chance to tune in, too!

* * * *

For more about death in New York (most of it not very curious or unusual),
you can turn to Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Follow us on Twitter -- Facebook -- or subscribe via email

The 100th Birthday of the Oreo

Today marks the centennial of one of the greatest confectionery successes of all time: the Oreo cookie, which was invented in New York City in 1912.

As we write in Inside the Apple:

The year 1898 saw two mergers that shaped the rest of the 20th century: the unification of the five boroughs of New York City, and the merger of the American Biscuit & Manufacturing Company and the New York Biscuit Company into the National Biscuit Company—Nabisco. In 1906, the company moved its national headquarters to the New York Biscuit company’s factory between Ninth and Tenth Avenues in West Chelsea, having recently introduced two bestsellers: the Uneeda Biscuit and Barnum’s Animal Crackers, which were not endorsed or authorized by the circus. In 1912, the factory created its most famous confection, a disc-shaped, cream-filled cookie dubbed the Oreo. No one at Nabisco knows where the name came from, though etymologists have suggested everything from or (French for gold, and perhaps a reference to the fact that the cookie originally also came in a lemon meringue flavor) to the Greek oreos for mountain (because early cookies had a mound of filling). Some have even suggested that the “re” in the middle is the cREam and the “o” on either side is the chOcolate, but that seems like wishful thinking. Perhaps the simplest explanation is correct: Oreo just sounded like a good name for a cookie. To date, close to 500 million Oreos have been sold, making it the most popular cookie in the U.S.

The Nabisco factory where the Oreo was born is now Chelsea Market, which features food stores, boutiques, and our favorite TV station, NY1. Soon after the Oreo's introduction, Nabisco expanded its bakery across Tenth Avenue, using the freight railroad there to ship millions of cookies. That freight line is now the High Line, one of New York's most celebrated outdoor green spaces.

* * * *

Read more about Nabisco, the Oreo,
and Chelsea in Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

Follow us on Twitter or Facebook or have these blog posts emailed to you directly.

Mathew Brady's Lincoln Portrait

On February 27, 1860, Abraham Lincoln gave his famous "Right Makes Might" speech at Cooper Union. That same day, he went over to famed photographer Mathew Brady's studio at Broadway and Bleecker Street where he sat for an official campaign portrait. Lincoln would later credit the speech and the photo with making him president.

One of the skills that made Brady such an acclaimed photographer was his ability to retouch in the darkroom. In this Lincoln portrait, lines are erased from the candidate's face and his wandering left eye is straightened.

While Brady's Tenth Street studio is gone, the building that housed his downtown studio still exists at 359 Broadway, an area that is rich with Civil War-era architecture.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misstated at which of Brady Studios Lincoln sat for his portrait. It could not have been the studio at Broadway and Tenth Street (despite what you may read in various reputable sources), since that studio did not open until later in 1860.

* * * *

Read more on Lincoln and New York in Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City.

Follow us on Twitter or Facebook or have these blog posts emailed to you directly.

Happy Presidents' Day

Here's a fun fact: the holiday we are celebrating today is commonly known as Presidents' Day, but according to Uniform Monday Holiday Act, passed in 1968, the name of the federal holiday is still officially Washington's Birthday. (And, many states and employee's unions still celebrate Lincoln's Birthday as a separate holiday.)

Quite a number of U.S. Presidents have had connections to New York City, from George Washington--who was inaugurated on Wall Street--to Barack Obama, who graduated from Columbia and lived in Morningside Heights.

Here are a few past blog posts about the presidency in NYC:

• A run-down of the connections to New York of various presidents:  http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2009/02/happy-presidents-day.html
  
• Chester Arthur was inaugurated in Murray Hill:  http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2009/01/chester-arthur-president-from-murray.html
  
• Teddy Roosevelt was born on Twentieth Street:  http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2010/10/happy-birthday-teddy-roosevelt.html
  
• And... next week marks the anniversary of Lincoln's famous Cooper Union speech:  http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2009/02/february-27-1860-lincoln-at-cooper.html

Have a great holiday!

* * * *

You can read more about New York and the presidency
in Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook here.

Charles Dickens's 200th Birthday

Today marks the two-hundredth birthday of Charles Dickens, the greatest Victorian novelist and one of his era's keenest social observers. While he is best known for his descriptions of 19th-century London, Dickens also wrote a famous travelogue of his 1842 trip to the United States, which included a stop in New York and a visit to the notorious Five Points.

You can read more about Dickens and the Five Points at this earlier blog post (as well as in Inside the Apple).

And if you can't get to Westminster Abbey today to visit the author's grave (where Prince Charles will be laying a wreath), you can visit the Morgan Library, where the "Charles Dickens at 200" exhibit is running for one more week.

Is it too early to talk about a ticker tape parade?

Now that the Giants have edged the Patriots in the Super Bowl 21-17, it's time to start planning the ticker tape parade on lower Broadway (no matter what Chris Christie says).

Some of our previous thoughts about ticker tape parades:

• A history of the ticker tape parade:  http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2008/10/ticker-tape-parade.html
• For the Yankees:  http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2009/11/history-of-yankee-ticker-tape-parades.html
• For the Apollo 11 astronauts:  http://blog.insidetheapple.net/2009/08/apollo-11-ticker-tape-parade.html

More information to follow -- and, you can read about the history of the ticker tape in depth in Inside the Apple.

UPDATE: It's not too early. The parade will be on Tuesday, February 7, at 11:00 a.m. Read the city's official press release at http://on.nyc.gov/w5s6mv.

The USS Monitor

One of the biggest roles New York City has played in the history of American warfare is as home to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It just came across our desk that yesterday marked the 150th anniversary of the launch of the USS Monitor from Brooklyn's famed shipyard. The first iron-clad warship to be built in New York during the Civil War, the Monitor was rushed into production in October 1861 and built in just 118 days.

The Monitor is most famous for the Battle of Hampton Roads, where she met the CSS Virginia (also known by its original name, the Merrimack). When Virginia seceded from the Union, the ships in the navy yard in Norfolk were scuttled to keep them from being seized by the Confederacy. Though the Merrimack was burned to the waterline, it was salvageable and the Confederates converted it into the iron-clad Virginia. When the North caught wind of this, the Monitor was hastily commissioned. Designed by John Ericsson, the bulk of the Monitor sat below the waterline to shield it from enemy fire. One of Ericsson's innovations was to have a fully armored gun turret atop the ship that could fire in every direction.

The Monitor and the Virginia met on March 9, 1862, during the Battle of Hampton Roads. The Confederates were attempting to destroy the Union blockade of Norfolk and Richmond. The previous day, the Virginia had inflicted serious damage on the Union navy, but when the Monitor arrived, she was able to hold the Virginia off and defend the Union ship Minnesota, which had run aground during the previous day's conflict. Though neither the Monitor nor the Virginia suffered serious damage, by the end of the second day's fighting, the Confederates decided to withdraw to Norfolk for repairs. The Virginia was scuttled just two months later when the Confederates abandoned Norfolk.

The Monitor didn't fare much better--on December 31, 1862, she ran into bad weather off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and sank. The wreck was discovered in 1973 and is now the centerpiece of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary.

You can read more about efforts to preserve the decaying ship at http://www.marinersmuseum.org/uss-monitor-center/uss-monitor-center.

Though the Brooklyn Navy Yard is now closed (and its famed Admiral's Row on the verge of destruction), you can go down to Battery Park, where a handsome statue stands to John Ericsson. In his hand, he clutches a model of the Monitor.

* * *

Read more about New York during the Civil War in Inside the Apple

You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and have this blog sent to you via email.