Posted: Jan 4, 2013 | 3:53 PM
by Jared Goldstein
From a former tour-going guest (SLQ from Texas) who referred me her cousins:
Dec 25th 2012
"Thank you Jared for taking care of my family while they were visiting NY from Louisiana. They enjoyed their time in the city They are Julie M______ and Carly Tammy Murphy and Justin! They had a wonderful Christmas Vacation. Hope you are having a wonderful Christmas. Thanks again!"
Full Story
Posted: Jan 4, 2013 | 3:15 PM
by Jared Goldstein
“private tour in Harlem”Reviewed December 26, 2012
it happened that I was the only one on the tour to Harlem and Jared was my guide on that walking tour that sunny day!
He was very informative and fun about so many things which are hidden from a regular tourist! We visited a baptist church on Sunday and I enjoyed the mess and gospel singing. Then we had a walk around the district and I've got many curious explanation from Jared.
It seems Harlem became closer now that it used to be before.
Visited December 2012Thank you, Poleff from Moscow!I did
this tour through my beloved client NYC Urban Adventures. Booking me through them provides a more affordable alternative if you want a standardized tour offered at certain times.
Full Story
Posted: Jan 4, 2013 | 2:39 AM
by Jared Goldstein
1821: Elizabeth Ann Seton goes to heaven. Born in 1774, Sainted in 1975, the First American-born Saint. On Downtown Tours we see the Shrine of Elizabeth Ann Seton, as well as St Peter's Church where she had her miraculous vision.
1877: Railroad and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt died, leaving an estate of more than $100 million. Vanderbilt had built the New York Central Railroad and Grand Central Terminal. I like to share stories of 'the Commodore' on my tours of Grand Central Terminal, which he built, and tours of Staten Island Ferry, which he founded.
1936: Billboard Magazine (founded 1894 in NYC), published the first pop music chart based on record sales. This signaled the transformation of popular music from sheet music performed on pianos.
1944: Ralph Bunche becemees the first African-American in the U.S. State Department, when he joins the staff as a territorial studies expert.
Posted: Jan 3, 2013 | 12:19 AM
by Jared Goldstein
1841: Herman Melville set sail for the South Seas.
1870: Ground breaks for the Brooklyn Bridge, which will open in 1883.
1887: Rabbi Dr. Sabato Morais opened the Jewish Theological Seminary on 19th Street. In 1902 it moved to its present location above Columbia University on 123rd St.
1899: The New York Times adopts the French mot 'automobile' in America.
1920: The Yankees purchased Babe Ruth from Boston for $125,000, the largest cash sum for a player.
Boston felt that they were becoming a one-man team. Ruth had belted 29 home runs in 1919 with Boston, a league record.
In 1920 with the Yankees, Ruth broke that record with 54, then 59 in 1921. Ruth's performance helped baseball recover from the 1919 Black Sox gambling scandal.
1970: "Mame," the Broadway musical, closed after 1508 performances.
1973: George Steinbrenner and several 'prominent business executives and sportsmen' buy the NY Yankees from CBS for $10 million, $3.2 million less than CBS paid in 1964, the last pennant year for the Yankees. CBS doesn't seem to have been successful with the Yankees. Steinbrenner, a Cleveland ship-building magnate, pledged "absentee ownership as far as running the Yankees is concerned." He turned out to be wrong about that, but the Yankees were much more successful in his era.
1981: New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning born.
Posted: Jan 2, 2013 | 4:38 PM
by Jared Goldstein
1871: George Lewis (Tex) Rickard, the president of Madison Square Garden, born. He was the one who demolished the Stanford White designed MSG2 in 1925, after around 20 years, moved MSG3 to 49th St and 8th Ave, where it remained until around 1963. As far as I can tell, the place had terrible sight lines and acoustics.
1900: Automobile bus service begins in NYC. The route goes from Washington Square Park to the uptown barn where the horses from the era ending the day before lived. 12 passengers ride for a nickel each.
1920: Prolific writer, most known for his science fiction, Isaac Asimov born in Russia. As a New Yorker, he will write nearly 500 books!
1944: Boston trounces the NY Rangers 13-3, their worst home ice loss.
1960: Bobby Fischer wins the US Chess Championship at 16.
1962: The Weavers, a folk rock bastion, were banned from Jack Parr's NBC show after they refused to sign a loyalty oath.
1965: Joe Namath joins the Jets for a record $427,000. He was drafted from the University of Alabama. He was the Quarterback to lead the Jets to its only Superbowl glory.
1968: Cuba Gooding Jr born in the Bronx.
Posted: Jan 2, 2013 | 12:40 AM
1637: North American postal service begins between Nieuw Amsterdam (now New York City) and Boston, using horses.
1819: The first official American heavyweight champion, 1841-52, Tom Hyer, born.
1864: Alfred Stieglitz born.
1879: William Fox of Fox Pictures born.
1892: Ellis Island opens as an Immigration Station opened.
Annie Moore from Ireland is the first of 12 million to come. There is a statue of her at Ellis Island.
That day, three large ships discharged 700 immigrants, and nearly 450,000 immigrants passed through the Island the rest of the year.
1898: The City of Greater New York is born. With great fanfare – and controversy – the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten
Island merge with Manhattan to form what the Herald Tribune calls "the greatest experiment in municipal government – the enlarged city."
1901: Rocky Graziano born.
1919: J.D. Salinger born. On my Central Park tours we discover what the ducks do in winter.
1934: Columbia wins the Rose Bowl 7-0 over Stanford in Pasadena. This signals the end of Ivy League football dominance, as this is the last Bowl game won by an Ivy.
1938: Frank Langella born.
1942: Fordham wins the Sugar Bowl, beating Missouri in front of 73,000 in the New Orleans rain.
1958: Grandmaster Flash born. He grew up in the Bronx.
1966: John Lindsay faces a 13-day transit strike on his first day as mayor. Public Schools closed and half the workforce stayed home. Approximately 5 million rides per day didn't happen.
1978: Ed Koch begins the first of his three terms as mayor, helping to turn the city around. Despite his protests, he did preside over local-grassroots solutions to the city's thousands of abandoned lots and buildings, as well as partnering with businesses to start the turn-around of Times Square, among many other things.
1985: VH-1, an MTV spinoff, begins broadcasting.
1990...David Dinkins is sworn in as the city's first African-American mayor.
Posted: Dec 31, 2012 | 3:02 PM
by Jared Goldstein
1878: Elizabeth Arden born. Her red door is on 5th Ave.
1879: Edison introduces his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park, N.J., now Edison, NJ.
1904: The New York Times moves the New Years's Eve Celebration to the newly renamed Times Square with fireworks and a band. For decades the celebration was Downtown with fireworks at Trinity Church.
1907: The New York Times drops a ball from its headquarters at #1 Times Square, hearkening back to the British harbour tradition, synchronizing schedules. I conject that in 1907 cellphones didn't have the time on them.
1909: On his last day in office, Mayor McClellan, who led the construction of the Manhattan Bridge, led his motorcade across it just before completion, so he could open the bridge two years before it was ready for the public.
1910...The Manhattan Bridge opens...sort of. Mayor
George McClellan, hoping to leave a positive impression as he leaves office, leads a procession across the span – which still lacks a paved roadway and railway. Construction on the bridge is finally completed in 1912.
During his term, McClellan also initiated the subway, taking the
controls from the chief engineer and gunning the train as fast as it could go, with dignitaries on board. He held on much longer than the ceremony called for!
A lot happened during McClellan, and his life demands a
biography. New York's great age of public works were stalled
by the 1916 income tax act, which drained New York City's money to the rest of the nation.
[Insert pics of McClellan on Manhattan Bridge and on the subway.]
1946: Diane Von Furstenberg born. Birthday, Diane Von Furstenberg, fashion
designer, and benefactor of the High Line Park. I think the High
Line is the next great park innovation since Central Park. I call the
style: post-post-industrial-neo-modernism.
1974: The Yankees sign the Oakland A's Free Agent Catfish Hunter for $2.3 million for a five year contract, then the record for a pitcher. The Baseball bidding wars begin.31
Happy New Year!
for pictures:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/jaredthetourguide-goldstein/dec-31st-in-nyc-edison-mcclellan-debuts-manhattan-bridge-times-square-new-years-/10150113594965140
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/on-this-day/december-31/
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/patriots-are-defeated-at-quebec?catId=1
http://www.biography.com/on-this-day/december-31
Posted: Dec 30, 2012 | 10:04 PM
by Jared Goldstein
1873: The Happy Warrior, Al Smith, four-time Governor
of the State of New York, and Democratic candidate for President of the
USA in 1928, born. Smith, son of Irish immigrants, started out
as a laborer, then a self-educated lawyer, became the go-to guy in the
NYS Legislature because he was the only one who read every word of every
bill, affably quietly collecting favors.
When the Triangle
Shirtwaist Fire happened in his district, he moved the powerful Tammany
Hall political machine to finally allow unions and investigate labor
and fire safety conditions in NYS, which have saved countless lives,
since these reforms became a national model.
After losing
to Hoover for President, Smith became the President of the Empire State
Building development corporation, inspiring its workers to complete the
tower ahead of schedule, ahead of cancellation due to the Depression,
like at least two other towers.
Two of Smith's protegees
became very influential in national politics through the Depression:
President Franklin Roosevelt and his (first female) Secretary of Labor,
Frances Perkins, who inspired the New Deal legislation that has saved
and is still saving millions of lives. Perkins said that the New Deal,
which occurred twenty years after the Triangle Fire, was born from the
blood of its 146 killed workers. Al Smith's influence lives on.
1942: Bobbysoxers, manic teens, mobbed the Paramount Theater for 27 years old Frank Sinatra for the next eight weeks.
1979: Composer Richard Rodgers went to Broadway
Musical Heaven at 77. His influential hits include "Oklahoma," "South
Pacific" and "The Sound of Music."
1994: Hap Moran, the NY Giants' halfback from 1928-34 died at 93.
Happy
Birthday, Patti Smith, poet, rocker, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame winner,
National Book Award recipient, composer of 1978's #13 hit for Bruce
Springsteen, "Because the Night." I saw her perform
at the North Cove Marina, behind the World Financial Center, around
2003. She was great. Very vital, edgy, and talented.
Happy Birthday James Burrows, the Director of TV hits and gems, "Taxi," "Cheers," and "Will and Grace." Two out of three took place in NYC.
Happy Birthday, Matt Lauer, host of the "Today" show.
for pictures:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/jaredthetourguide-goldstein/dec-30th-nyc-happy-warrior-sinatra-sells-out-richard-rodgers-patti-smith-hap-mor/10150113165540140
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/on-this-day/december-30/
http://www.biography.com/on-this-day/december-30
Posted: Dec 29, 2012 | 10:37 AM
by Jared Goldstein
https://www.facebook.com/notes/jaredthetourguide-goldstein/dec-29-nyc-montez-art-of-fascination-college-hoops-craze-joe-namath-champ-lga-bo/10150112572165140
Dec 29 NYC - Montez' Art of Fascination! College Hoops Craze! Joe Namath, Champ. LGA bombed. Nasdaq booms. 1812 heroes honored.
·
1812: 400 attend a grand dinner to honor victorious naval commanders from the War of 1812, Stephen Decatur, Isaac Hull, and Jacob Jones. Washington Irving, America's first novelist, in attendance called it "the most splendid entertainment of the kind I ever witnessed."
1851: Lola Montez, the mysterious and fascinating "English and Spanish" beauty, actually Irish born, Brooklyn's Maria Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert, performed her outrageous racy Spider Dance to a fancy NYC audience. The dance's theme was that spiders were on her skin and dress, so she lifted it up to shake them off.
Women didn't even show their ankles in NYC in the early 20th Century. (To see women's shins 100 years ago, you'd need an Edison Kinescope, a hand-cranked viewing machine, sort of like porn movies, VHS tapes, CD-ROMs, and the Internet of its day. I like to show a Kinescope on my Theatre District tour.)
Montes had already publicly promoted her illustrious conquests, bedding and bagging Franz Liszt, the great composer, Alexander Dumas, the author, and Bavaria's ancient King Ludwig, who bestowed the title Baroness upon her after she basically ran the country and introduced liberal reforms.
She was known as 'the Courtesan.'
New York society, which resisted feminism through about 1919, didn't appreciate her performance or persona, so she took her show to the more popular Bowery Theater District, where the dancer and adventuress was greatly appreciated and highly successful.
From 1818-1861 (43 years) Gilbert completely re-made her identity into Montez, promoted it, lived life to the hilt around America and Europe, and capitalized on it. Described as "… a devastating beauty, enslaving the hearts of powerful and famous men as she danced seductively on stages all over the world… Her beauty was reputed to conceal a physical courage as great as any man’s....Renowned for her spirit and defiant will, Montez traveled the world and gained international notoriety."
Lola Montez (1818-1861) dancer and adventuress.
Here's a description from Montez' 500 page Yale University Press published book: "During a short but incredible life, Lola Montez transformed herself from middle-class British daughter to notorious adventurer, attracting admirers and scandal wherever she went....[O]ne of the best-known women of the Victorian era-a dancer and actress, a power behind thrones, and a mistress across four continents."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Photography Department had an exhibit on Montez' pioneering use of photographic portraiture and publishing to create celebrity. After 145 years, Montez was finally accepted by New York society (or at least its museum's art history academic curators, raised on Andy Warhol).
http://www.yalebooks.co.uk/yale/display.asp?K=9780300074390&bic=CV&sort=SORT_DATE/d&ds=Biography+autobiography&m=82&dc=128
1934: Ned Irish presents college hoops double headers for over 16,000 at MSG, making college hoops a national obsession, leading to the NIT in 1938 and the NCAA in 1939. The pro-ball Knicks wouldn't debut until the next decade.
1967: Basketball great, Harry Fisher, dies. He wrote the "Official Basketball Guide," coached Army, Fordham, St John's and Columbia for ten years, which won 101/140 matches, as well as a 1910 championship, after he was an All-American forward for Columbia College.
He looks like Jesus Namath on his way to the Super Bowl in Jerusalem.
1968: Joe Namath leads the Jets to the AFC championship, beating Oakland 27-23 in front of 64,000 at Yankee Stadium. Next would be the 1969 Super Bowl. 1969 will be, perhaps, the greatest year in New York City sports.
1975: Mysterious terrorists bomb a baggage claim area of LaGuardia Airport, killing 11, and injuring over 75.
As I recall, the bombs were in lockers, prompting the removal of all public lockers in NYC, inconveniencing millions until there is no more terrorism ever, which will probably be never. I liked public lockers. I dislike schlepping stuff around for the rest of my life everytime I'm visiting somewhere. As you might imagine, or know, I don't pack light.
The top guess is that the bombing was due to Croatian separatists, since they were involved with recent TWA bombings around then and at Grand Central. I don't see how Croatia got its independence a second faster as a result of the equivalent of 24 sticks of dynamite hurling glass and metal at travelers, employees, and limo drivers looking forward to some togetherness. I guess LGA was easier to hit than bombing Tito of Yugoslavia, even so, Tito seemed unmoved.
Other suspects include Puerto Rican separatists (who bombed Fraunces Tavern earlier that year), the JDL, and the PLO. Again, I don't see the benefit to Puerto Ricans, Jews or Palestinians.
If you are for Croatian, Puerto Rican, Jewish, and/or Palestinian Independence, which I am, too, but somehow I've offended you, and you are considering being a terrorist, please communicate with words, instead. I'm not that powerful, and if you use reason (and passion) to change minds, one at a time, then that is how revolutions happen -- within the few square centimetres inside our craniums, as George Orwell described. If you blow up my cranium, then you've changed my head, but not my mind. And all my friends and relatives will become aware of your cause as a bad thing to be opposed.
I don't get terrorism. It is defined as the use of violence against civilians to achieve a political goal.
If the attackers and their motive is a mystery, then what's the point besides mass murder and mayhem? 'Don't fly, especially around New Years?' What kind of message is that? Nothing political in that, somewhat economic, so asymmetric warfare.
Is it like the pilfering Ruth Gordon in "Harold and Maude," teaching us about the evanescence of life? Not really political, and a really negative way to express this. This sort of appreciation for life undermines the nihilism of terrorism.
Is it pure evil? Is it misguided fervor? Is it revenge? None of that is political. These are just stupid.
Did the terrorists mean to claim responsibility, but then realized that if they did, then they'd get caught? Well, that's cowardly and pointless. I think that the reason that Times Square 2010's Faisal Shazad (Fizzle Shizzle) and the 1993 WTC bombers got caught was that they were supposed to be suicide bombers who chickened out.
Terrorism is a very blunt instrument. I'm beyond sick and tired of it. End of that rant. Five more to go.
1999: Nasdaq closed above 4,000 for the first time, ending the day at 4,041.
I helped make other people millions of dollars in 1999. How? By pushing Earthweb repeatedly to do a deal with Dice.com, which finally they liked so much, they bought it. Dice became Earthweb's main asset. It was one of the first profitable Web sites, being a tech talent market.
Earthweb's IPO in the summer of 1999 brought back the dot com boom, followed the next day or so by theglobe, which surpassed us, and then the market was booming again after the Asian Financial Crisis dip, driving the Nasdaq stratospherically.
By December 1999 I left Earthweb, because the Executive Vice President's son was promoted to be my boss. His resume's previous job: ice cream sales clerk in college. Earthweb's brokerage didn't sell my stock, much of which I bought with my salary through an employee salary withholding. I worked very hard for that money.
Remember those t-shirts? "My grandparents went to Florida, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." Here's mine: 'I helped other people make millions of dollars in
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/on-this-day/december-29/
http://www.biography.com/on-this-day/december-29
Full Story
Posted: Dec 27, 2012 | 11:00 PM
1905: The NCAA's forerunner, the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States, founded in New York City.
1922: Bill Gallo, the Daily News' great sports cartoonist since 1960, born.
1954: Fordham's Denzel Washington, actor, born.
1958: "The Greatest American Football Game Ever Played."
For the title, the Giants were down 14-3 at halftime versus Baltimore.
Then the Giants scored 14 points, so it was 17-14.
With seven seconds left, Baltimore's Steve Myhra scores a 20 yard field goal, tying the game.
8.25 minutes into overtime, Baltimore's Alan Ameche scores a 1
yard touchdown, prevailing Baltimore 23-17 over the Giants in front of over 64,000 at Yankee Stadium. An estimated 45 million watched it on television, (and it would have been higher were the game not blacked out in NYC and its suburbs, due to contract restrictions).
It was the only NFL championship game decided in overtime. Its popularity led to the formation of the American Football League, AFL, which expanded football, and strengthened the NFL when they merged.
1971: Republican Mayor John Lindsey runs for President of the U.S. as a Democrat. His opponent, war hero and Senator George McGovern, will outrun him as the losing candidate to Nixon's overwhelming CREEP onslaught. CREEP
was the Committee to RE-Elect the President.
1975: The "Super Series" begins. The Soviet Union's hockey team beat the New York Rangers 7-3 at the Garden. They will defeat nearly all the other American hockey teams 5-2-1 in the midst of the Cold War.
1991: Nine killed in stampede outside a hip-hop celebrity basketball game and concert.
2004: Susan Sontag, Intellectual, died; so did Actor Jerry Ohrbach.
Happy Birthdays: Stan Lee (1922) & Seth Meyers (1973).