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Jared the NYC Tour Guide Blog

Posted: Feb 19, 2013 | 1:18 PM

Feb 19th in NYC History

1878: Thomas Edison received a patent for his phonograph.

1917: Writer and screenwriter Carson McCullers born in Georgia. She died in 1967 in Nyack, NY. Before that she lived in NYC.

1959: NFL Commission Roger Goodell born.

1974: John Mitchell and Maurice Stans went to trial in New York for Watergate scandal perjury and conspiracy charges when they were Nixon cabinet members.

1992: IRA (Irish Republican Army) fighter Joseph Doherty lost his seven-year long battle for political asylum when he was deported back to Great Britain from a New York City jail.

2010: The FBI closed the 2001 Anthrax Attacks, "Amerithrax," case that killed five people and targeted many New Yorkers in media.

They used the "Lone Nut" chestnut, pinning it on Army scientist Bruce Ivins who they had been harassing for years and who killed himself. The FBI, for while, devoted its largest manhunt in its history to this case, which was used justify the US' Iraq invasion, to seek their bio-weapons facilities, which did not exist.

The Army and its contractors' bio-weapons laboratories' security and morale are still a mess, and the (rest of the?) Anthrax Attackers remain at large after a huge increase in US bio-weapons and bio-defense research, development, and production.

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Posted: Feb 18, 2013 | 12:07 AM

Feb 18th in NYC History

1848: Craftsman and designer Louis Comfort Tiffany, a who made significant advancements in the art of glass-making, born. He died in 1933.

1932: Milos Forman, Director, Village Voice Columnist and Columbia Film Professor, born.

1933: Artist, musician, and John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, born.

1953: The 1950s 3-D fad started in NYC with the premier of "Bwana Devil."

1955: President Eisenhower awarded the Lower East Side's Jewish immigrant songwriter, Irving Berlin, for his contributions to American patriotism.

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Posted: Feb 17, 2013 | 7:41 PM
by Jared Goldstein

February 17th in New York City History

1874: Thomas J. Watson, Sr., who built I.B.M., born. He died in 1956.

1913: The ground-breaking Armory Show, the International Exposition of Modern Art, introduced a whole new way of looking at the world to New York City. New York's genteel Victorian realism was left behind. Works by Cezanne, Duchamp, Picasso Gauguin, and Matisse introduced abstraction and motion and ideas into art. New American artists were featured as well, such as Charles Sheeler, Marsden Hartley and Stuart Davis.

1933: Newsweek magazine hit the newstands. As of January 1st 2013, it is only digital.

1943: Joe Dimaggio left the Yankees to join World War 2. He returned in 1946.

1981: Paris Hilton, Socialite and media darling, born.

1995: Colin Ferguson convicted of murder in the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings.

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Posted: Feb 16, 2013 | 1:37 AM
by Jared Goldstein

Feb 16th in NYC History

1951...The City Council passes a bill barring racial discrimination in housing projects

1956...The film version of the Broadway musical "Carousel" premieres in New York.Today's

New Yorker birthdays include tennis star John McEnroe, born in 1959.

1893, Katharine Cornell, the American stage actress who was called "the first lady of the American theater", was born. Following her death on June 9, 1974, her obituary appeared in The Times.

1868The Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was organized in New York City.

1959John McEnroe, Tennis Hall of Fame

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Posted: Feb 16, 2013 | 1:14 AM

Feb 15th in NYC History

Henry Steinway 2/15/1797 - 2/7/1871
German-bn. American piano builder

John Barrymore 2/15/1882 - 5/29/1942
American actor

1792...A precursor to the New York Stock Exchange take shape when an office for trading opens at 22 Wall Street.1910...A strike by garment workers is settled, but the split between organized labor and management continues to grow.1984...Broadway diva and Astoria, Queens, native Ethel Merman dies at age 76.1995...Baseball's spring training opens without major league players, who had walked off the job at the end of the 1994 season prior to the World Series. Big league wannabees flock to Florida to try out for their moment in the sun, but their fame is short-lived as the strike is called off and the season gets underway as scheduled on April 2.

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Posted: Feb 13, 2013 | 11:29 PM
by Jared Goldstein

Feb. 14th in New York City History

1865: Abraham and Strauss Department Store founded in Brooklyn, proliferating across New York City until the last one in 1995 after a merger with Macy's.

1899: The name "Broadway" is extended past Columbus Circle through the Upper West Side. Formerly that stretch of road was called "Western Boulevard."

Those who go on my tours know that, for much longer, for thousands of years, the road was known as Weekagwezek Hunting Trail, uniting the Iroquois Mohawk nation from here into Quebec, following the high ground favored by deer.

Mayor Van Wyck signed the proclamation extending "Broadway."

1943: New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg born.

1944: Investigative journalist, author, and now a New Yorker, Carl Bernstein, born in D.C.

1965: Malcom Shabbazz/.Malcolm X's home in Elmhurst, Queens, was firebombed. He would be assassinated the following week.

We recount some of his remarkable life, more like lives, on Harlem tours.

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Posted: Feb 12, 2013 | 11:43 PM
by Jared Goldstein

Feb. 13th in NYC History

1914: ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers was founded in New York City.

1934: Actor, and Columbia's pride, George Segal, born in Great Neck, Long Island.

1935: A New Jersey jury found Brooklyn carpenter Bruno Richard Hauptmann guilty of first-degree murder of the "Lindbergh Baby," the son of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. This led to Hauptmann's execution in 1936.

1944: Actress Stockard Channing born in NYC.

1946: The ten-day tugboat strike was settled. Shipping in New York Harbor had been shut down, paralyzing the city. Previously Mayor O'Dwyer had ordered much of the city shut down to conserve food, for example.

1997: The Dow Jones industrial average broke the 7,000 barrier. "Irrational exuberance?"*

2008: After pitching his sixth year for the Yankees, award-winning Roger Clemens denied taking performance enhancing drugs to Congress.

*2013: The Dow Jones Industrial average begins trading at a record high above 14,000.

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Posted: Feb 12, 2013 | 12:19 AM

February 12th in New York City History

Today in 1791: Peter Cooper, industrialist, inventor, builder of the country's first functional steam engine, and philanthropist behind Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, is born in New York City.

1884: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Teddy Roosevelt's witty irreverent daughter, born. She died in 1980.

Spend a moment reading the link to a book review of her remarkable biography.

1884: Artist Max Beckmann born in Germany. He died in NYC 1950.

1897: Murder, Inc. mobster Louis "Lepke" Buchalter born in the Lower East Side.

I did a Jewish Mobsters tour. I do many Lower East Side tours and Jewish Lower East Side Tours.

1909: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded in New York.

1924: George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" premiered in New York City.

1964 The Beatles perform two concertsThe Beatles perform two concerts on February 12.While in New York for the first time, The Beatles appeared three times on the Ed Sullivan Show—and played Carnegie Hall twice in one day. Their appearances, which caused a sensation among the teenage set, paved the way for other rock artists at Carnegie Hall, including The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, and Billy Joel.Apocryphal rumors have persisted for years that the two 35-minute concerts were recorded. Although permission was pursued, negotiations with the American Federation of Musicians were unsuccessful, and the concert lives on only in the memories of those who attended.

1983: Jazz and ragtime great Eubie Blake died in his Brooklyn home five days after his 100th Birthday. (see Feb. 7th)

2013: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 14,000. In 1997 it exceeded 7000.

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Posted: Feb 11, 2013 | 1:09 PM
by Jared Goldstein

Feb 11th in NYC History

1847: Thomas Edison born in Ohio. He had more than 1,000 patents including the light bulb and the gramophone. He had some of his businesses based in NYC, backed by NYC finance, and he premiered several of his inventions here including outdoor and indoor electric lighting.

We see some of these sites on the Seaport tour, SoHo tour, and Broadway tour.

1934: Actress Tina Louise, famous for Gilligan's Island, born in NYC.

My mother went to college with her and they were friendly. When the three of us encountered each other in the 1990s Tina denied knowing my mother. Their ages match up, but maybe Louise had more work done and didn't want to be paired with her; maybe she didn't remember, since famous people meet many people in many places; maybe she didn't like my mother; maybe she thought my mother might have been able to share something embarrassing about her. Obscure people have vivid memories of celebrities they once knew, many of which are inconsequential.

1963: Author and poet Sylvia Plath killed herself in London. The Bell Jar chronicles the start of her career in New York City's magazine world.

1993: A hijacked Luftansa jet landed at Kennedy Airport, where the gunman surrendered without harming anyone.

2008: The US Defense Department charged the September 11th Attacks' mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed with murder and war crimes.

We explore the history of 9/11 and Ground Zero on my World Trade Center tour, also known as 9/11 tour and Ground Zero tour.

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Posted: Feb 10, 2013 | 12:09 AM

February 10th in NYC History

Happy New Year of the ~~~~~~~~sNaKe--<

1939: Singer Roberta Flack "Killing Me Softly" born.

We see where she sang, the baths of the Ansonia, and where she lives, The Dakota, on Upper West Side tours.

1951: Disney CEO and Chairman Robert Iger born in NYC.

1961: George Stephanopoulos, pride of Columbia College, Clinton administration official and broadcast journalist, ABC's "The Week," born.

1964: Bob Dylan released The Times They Are A-Changin'.

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