34 posts tagged with NYC and history. (View popular tags)
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Hiya Freddie baby, give me a dozen...my life's blood, without bagels what is a day? Yah make it a dozen assorted. Dat's it, give me the garlic, the sesame, the onion, give me them all baby, that's it! They're still handmade eh? Hot Bagels! Wait a second let me PAY yah! Here you are, kid. Thank you. Have a good day.
posted by timshel on Feb 9, 2012 - 71 comments

Best known for the (exaggerated) tales of her miserliness, Hetty Green was arguably the greatest female investor in history. During the 1907 Bankers' Panic, her loan of $1.1 million helped keep New York City solvent. Her estate - greater than that of J.P. Morgan's - was valued at more than $2 billion in today's money. [more inside]
posted by Trurl on Feb 5, 2012 - 18 comments

New York - The Wonder City - 1938 (SLOldTimeyYT)
posted by davidjmcgee on Dec 28, 2011 - 6 comments

June 25th 1906, was the opening night of the musical revue Mamzelle Champagne on the roof of Madison Square Garden. In attendance were Stanford White, renowned architect (Washington Square Arch, Judson Memorial Church, Madison Square Garden itself), and Harry Kendall Thaw, eccentric coal and railroad scion. During the performance of the song I Could Love a Million Girls, Thaw "left his seat near the stage, passed between a number of tables, and, in full view of the players and of scores of persons, shot White through the head." (pdf) Standing over White’s body, Thaw said “You’ll never go out with that woman again.” [more inside]
posted by davidjmcgee on Dec 22, 2011 - 14 comments

In 1783, John Jacob Astor set out for the United States with $25 and five flutes. Upon his death in 1848, he was the wealthiest person in the US, having amassed a fortune of at least $20,000,000, making him the third wealthiest person in American history (measuring wealth as a fraction of GDP). [more inside]
posted by davidjmcgee on Dec 20, 2011 - 27 comments

The Memorial. "People talk a lot about the "healing process." Well, this is New York. In the aftermath of a tragedy of monumental proportions, the healing process has been noisy and rude, with elbows out, redolent of greed, power, and the darker forces that drive human existence. And most of the shouting has been about how to make a fitting monument to what happened here. But in a hundred years, all the shouting and all the politics will be forgotten. What will be remembered is what is built here, now, on these sixteen acres." [more inside]
posted by zarq on Aug 19, 2011 - 37 comments

A fixture in NYC's Tammany Hall for 25 years, Murray Hall kept a secret. Murray Hall was buried in women's clothes (PDF), and the masquerade he carried out led to a proposed rule that politicians wear whiskers so that women (who did not yet have the right to vote) could not surreptitiously cast a ballot.
posted by mudpuppie on Jul 25, 2011 - 21 comments

The Welikia Project goes beyond Mannahatta to encompass the entire city, discover its original ecology and compare it what we have today.
posted by Trurl on Jun 22, 2011 - 6 comments

"For five cents Coney Island will feed you, frighten you, cool you, toast you, flatter you, or destroy your inhibitions. And in this nickel empire boy meets girl." [more inside]
posted by zarq on May 30, 2011 - 15 comments

A German tourist films a trip to New York City in 1983 and 86: Times Square, The Subway
posted by The Whelk on Apr 29, 2011 - 53 comments

For their 43rd anniversary issue, New York Magazine chose "to explore, across time, one of the things that has most defined New York life for centuries and has become a unit of measurement for our successes and failures: The Apartment: A History of Vertical Living" / Sardine Life: What a century and a half of piled-up housing reveals about us. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Apr 17, 2011 - 33 comments

In the 1960's, 70's and 80's, urban decay and high crime rates caused retail chain supermarkets to flee New York City. (google books link) Korean immigrants filled the gap with corner grocery stores. For nearly two decades they were ubiquitous -- symbols of the group's ongoing quest to achieve the American Dream. But 30 years later, Where Did The Korean Greengrocers Go? [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jan 18, 2011 - 19 comments

"The Museum of the City of New York is pleased to announce the soft launch of its online collections portal [where you can] view more than 50,000 newly digitized photographs by Berenice Abbott, Samuel H. Gottscho, Jacob A. Riis, the Byron Company, the Wurts Brothers, and many others."
posted by peacay on Jan 3, 2011 - 5 comments

The wilderness below New York City, where mysterious and wonderfully abandoned structures are explored by urban historians and adventurers.
Into the Tunnels with Steve Duncan.
posted by Taft on Jan 2, 2011 - 22 comments

A great slideshow of the nyc subway system 1910-present. [more inside]
posted by jourman2 on Oct 21, 2010 - 5 comments

11 things you didn't know about pinball. Worth it for the picture on #3 alone.
posted by shakespeherian on Jan 22, 2010 - 83 comments

In 1940s New York, Harry Dubin and his teenage son went out every weekend to take color pictures of people doing different jobs in the city. Well, not people...Harry Dubin, switching places with people and pretending to do their jobs. [more inside]
posted by stupidsexyFlanders on Jan 3, 2010 - 34 comments

History of a New York Block. A nearly complete record of the life cycle of Eldridge St between Stanton/Rivington. Click on the buildings for details. [more inside]
posted by minkll on Nov 15, 2009 - 21 comments

Have you ever wondered what New York was like before it was a city? Find out at The Mannahatta Project, by navigating through the map to discover Manhattan Island and its native wildlife in 1609. [more inside]
posted by netbros on Jun 4, 2009 - 16 comments

Photos of 1940s New York City.
posted by Miko on May 28, 2009 - 28 comments

PDX History is a veritable treasure trove of information about (and pictures and postcards of) the history of Portland (Oregon). Department stores, streetcars, long-dead amusement parks (yes, Jantzen Beach was once much more than a dying mall surrounded by big-box stores) and more. The web design leaves a bit to be desired, but the site is wonderful nonetheless.
posted by dersins on May 15, 2009 - 15 comments

Brooklyn Revealed
posted by Miko on Mar 6, 2009 - 21 comments

Jeffrey Lewis brings you The Complete History of Punk Rock and Its Development on the Lower East Side (1950-1975) in eight and a half minutes. [more inside]
posted by StopMakingSense on Feb 27, 2008 - 24 comments

End of an Empire Sadly (for me, anyway) the Empire Rollerdrome, last roller rink in New York City, closed its doors for good this weekend after nearly 70 years in business. Although it had a checkered history of sex, drugs, and hip hop, the Empire was in recent years a much-loved family and community center in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. DJ Julio (who kept the crowd rolling at the Roxy for decades until they too closed earlier this year) maintains a fabulous archive of material about all of NYC's bygone rinks. If you want to see what you've been missing, check out the Central Park Dance Skaters.
posted by sonofslim on Apr 25, 2007 - 18 comments

Bought from a slave trader and put on display at the Bronx zoo: the strange, sad story of Ota Benga, a Pygmy with filed teeth brought from the Congo to America in 1906. Here are a couple of contemporary news accounts of the controversial exhibit. After the zoo, Benga tried to make a life in America, studying to be a missionary. "But what he really wanted to do was to tell everyone in this country that his people were dying, and why. I think he thought that eventually they'd listen. But they never did. That, to me, is the real tragedy." In 1916, at the age of 32, he built a ceremonial fire, chipped off the caps on his teeth, performed a final tribal dance, and shot himself with a stolen pistol. Creationists say the story illustrates "the racism of evolutionary theory" and "the horrors that evolutionary theory has brought to society."
posted by CunningLinguist on Aug 7, 2006 - 35 comments

Search early 20th Century news photos. Welcome to the Library of Congress' new George Grantham Bain Collection: the extensive files of one of America's earliest news picture agencies. Some favorites after a morning spent perusing just a small number of the 50kish pics: The Whiteman Submarine Band, a fire truck heading to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the flowers at Wilbur Wright's funeral, Ignaz Hildebrandt dead in Union Square, Theatre marquee, a fire in NYC, midday crowd in Union Square, Penn station on a Sunday, suffragettes......and many more.
posted by CunningLinguist on May 2, 2006 - 38 comments

Almost exactly 40 years ago, on New Year's Day 1966, 35,000 transit workers walked off the job in New York City, defying the 1947 Condon-Wadlin Act which forbade strikes by government employees. Mike Quill, the TWU's militant founder and president, 'Called an "irresponsible demagogue" and "lawless hooligan" by the press,' 'would not be daunted by politicians' pronouncements and editorial page attacks.' When served with a court order, "Mike Quill tore up the injunction in front of the television cameras." The strike led to the creation of the Taylor Law, which is now being used in attempt to crush the TWU Local 100 strike of today.
posted by Edible Energy on Dec 20, 2005 - 20 comments

A break in the strange case of Judge Joseph Crater. In 1930, Judge Crater, later dubbed "The Missingest Man In New York", stepped into a cab and was never seen again. He left behind a mourning wife and one of New York's most enduring mysteries. For 75 years, his disappearance has been the butt of many dumb jokes and also has been the subject of the occasional book.
posted by Joey Michaels on Aug 19, 2005 - 5 comments

The Last Days of NYC's Fulton Fish Market. A lovely, Mitchell-like paean to the odiferous old fish market that, like the rest of Manhattan, is being sanitized. Here's another, not quite as well done. Here's a great page of old articles and info. Don't like word pictures? Flikr has some really nice galleries. Forgotten New York has a tour of the area around the market. Or maybe you just want today's prices.
posted by CunningLinguist on Jul 14, 2005 - 24 comments

Undercity reveals Gotham's secrets as uncovered by a guerrilla historian. [via Anil Dash]
posted by riffola on Jun 26, 2004 - 9 comments

NYCRoads.com is an exhaustive history of the expressways, parkways, and river crossings that shaped metro New York over the last century and a half.
posted by PrinceValium on Jun 15, 2003 - 4 comments

One of America's Great Parks is not a natural wonder at all. It was once a swamp dotted with shanty-towns. It cost more to build than the purchase price of Alaska. At times it has not been pretty, but today it is much more than a crime scene. It is Manhattan's Central Park.
posted by ilsa on May 31, 2003 - 17 comments

The New York City I first saw in 1985 has partially disappeared, and vanishes more everyday. The New York of 50 years ago, the veneer of daily life in the city, is but a memory. The city of 100 years ago is a shadow, remembered by no one. But the past remains, if not in direct human memory, in "lampposts, advertisements, bridges, buildings, signs, and things you pass every day in the street that bear silent witness to the NYC that once was." What lies forgotten below the streets? The decaying splendor of an bygone age, as well as the deep roots that have sprouted and nourished the present, living city...
posted by evanizer on Mar 22, 2002 - 37 comments

A thoughtful and fascinating analysis of the historical backdrop to the current situation. Why did this happen, what circumstances got us into a de facto state of undeclared war with the Islamic world, and what can we realistically do to prevent those circumstances from ever recurring? --Charlie Stross
posted by rushmc on Sep 15, 2001 - 15 comments

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