Posted: Mar 6, 2013 | 5:59 PM
by Jared Goldstein
1837: Dr. Henry Draper, the pride of New York University, was an accomplished physician, professor of medicine, astronomer, and astronomy photography pioneer, born.
First picture of the moon.
First picture of a nebula. This one in Orion.
Draper's observatory in Hastings.
We tour NYU's neighborhood on Greenwich Village tours.
1846: Grace Episcopal Church was consecrated at Broadway between 10th and 11th Streets.
This beautiful English Gothic Revival edifice was the first work of young James Renwick, fresh from Columbia College.
More history and tales of the glory of Grace Church towards the end of this posting. *
1926: The first trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversation took place between New York City and London. This occurred fifty years after the phone was invented elsewhere.
1934: Today Show star Willard Scott born.
1942: Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner born. He grew up on Park Avenue.
1946: Peter Wolf, pride of the Bronx, and singer for the J. Geils Band 1976-1983 was born.
1971: Peter Sarsgaard, film and Broadway actor, born. He lives in Brooklyn with wife Maggie Gyllenhaal and their children.
He and his wife have a lot in common. The last syllable of their last names have two "aa"s in a row.
1982: After performing its 10,000 concert, The New York Philharmonic became the longest-running symphony orchestra in the world.
New York City couldn't afford to found the world's oldest symphony orchestra, but we can afford to keep it going the longest.
2003: As Billy Joel sings "the lights (went) down on Broadway." Well, at least the ones in the theaters goes dark due to a four day strike. It is exceedingly rare for Broadway shows to be cancelled.
* GRACE CHURCH's wonderful heritage:
Renwick owed the project to family connections, which was very common for NYC architectural, arts, decoration and monument commissions in the 19th Century. (Maybe still.)
Even so, he was deserving. The building has been acclaimed as one of New York City's most beautiful.
When it was opened, the area, near Washington Square, the Ladies Mile department store district, Astor Row, and Union Square, was very fashionable.
Decades later, P.T. Barnum had his circus stars, the dimunative Tom Thumb marry Lavinia Warren there. Tickets, mainly sold to Vanderbilts and Astors, were sold for $75. This was equal to the annual wages of two millworkers. Matthew Brady, the local fashionable photographer who portrayed Lincoln on his rise, was the wedding photographer, which was promoted nationwide.
The church figured in Edith Wharton's novel, The Age of Innocence.
Navy Commander Henry Honeychurh Gorridge's funeral was here. I wrote about this on the anniversary of this glory on January 22nd.
You might also note that there is a joint along Broadway's trajectory in front of the church, this was due to the influence of local landowners, the Brevoorts, who, besides selecting nephew Renwick as architect, wished to preserve their orchard.
Broadway: still following the diagonal path of deer and their Native hunters, bending to wealth to save an orchard.
Renwick went on to design the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C., and the new St. Patrick's Cathedral, across which Rockefeller Center developed. He also designed St. Nicholas Church on 10th Street and Avenue A, across from Tompkins Square Park. His architectural firm designed the smallpox hospital on Roosevelt Island, which is an evocative ruin.
I refer to Grace Church as a bite sized St. Patrick's Cathedral. This gets my voyagers' attention; sometimes they whip their heads to see it.
During the Depression there was a baker that gave out day old bread to a line of starving people, the birth of the breadline.
It has some beautiful grounds. Despite its beauty, the church's inside suffers from the weather, and they are in continued need of funds for upkeep and improvements. Please step inside and experience it quiet, calm serenity, and gorgeous stained glass, seemingly a world away from the Broadway the Walt Whitman describes:
"What hurrying human tides, or day or night?
What passions, winnings, losses, ardors, swim thy waters!
What whirls of evil, bliss and sorrow, stem thee!
What curious questioning glances--glints of love!
Leer, envy, scorn, contempt, hope, aspiration!
Thou portal--thou arena--thou of the myriad long-drawn lines and groups!"
We can see Grace Church and Union Square on my Santa Claus the NYC Tour, East Village tours, Greenwich Village tours. We can see St. Nicholas Church on East Village tours, and Alphabet City tours.
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Posted: Mar 6, 2013 | 1:57 AM
by Jared Goldstein
1776: Revolutionary Patriots arrested loyalist Tories to keep the British out of Queens. They swept through Newtown, now known as Astoria and Elmhurst.
Revolutions are tough times. 1/3 of NYC was Loyalist, 1/3 was Revolutionaries, and 1/3 would do business with both sides.
1885: Writer Ring Lardner born. He moved to NYC to write for Broadway Theatre.
1912: Oreo cookies introduced by the National Biscuit Company (NaBisCo or Nabisco). Its state of the art factory bakery and transportation hub is where the Chelsea Food Market and the Highline is today.
We see where this happened on Highline Park tours and Meatpacking District tours.
1926: Economist, and former longtime and influential Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan born.
1947: Actor and director, and pride of the Bronx, Rob Reiner born.
1970: Three members of the radical anti Vietnam War organization, the Weathermen, died in a Greenwich Village Townhouse that they blew up in a bomb-making accident.
That is why one building is not like the others on this lovely, yet posh, yet understated, tree-lined landmarked Washington Square street.
These two photos by Kevin Walsh.
Washington Square?! Why am I calling part of Greenwich Village Washington Square and why would Henry James care?
What were the Weathermen were doing there, their motivations, and where they are today?
Dustin Hoffman and his family lived next door then.
Charles Merrill, a founder of Merrill-Lynch lived there, and his son, the poet and philanthropist James Merrill (who I profiled on March 3rd), grew up in the to-be-exploded-townhouse.
After the destruction of his childhood home, he wrote about the
''dear premises vainly exploded.'' ... "Shards of a blackened witness still in place. The charred ice-sculpture garden Beams fell upon. The cold blue searching beams."
This is just a tiny part of my Greenwich Village tours.
1981: "The CBS Evening News" anchorman Walter Cronkite retired after nearly twenty years as "the most trusted man in America."
Truly, the end of an era.
Cronkite was the news authority in an era when most people watched television network evening news when there were, if you were lucky to be in a market like New York, seven TV channels. Some markets possibly had four channels.
His breaking news, such as the Kennedy assassination, is how people connected, in a mass way with millions, to the news of the moment. He presented the facts and showed emotion. He was also the conscience of the news, proclaiming the Vietnam War unwinnable in 1968 even as the federal government proclaimed victories each day toward some purpose related to saving the world from Communism. He also denounced the police brutality against the Chicago Democratic Convention protestors.
Cronkite managed to unite a diverse nation splintered along generational faults.
By the time he retired, CNN and cable television were burgeoning towards one hundred channels and twenty-four hour broadcasting and news updates.
By the time Walter Cronkite died in 2009, with the Internet, the Web, and social media, we have billions of tiny echo chambers in intellectual, or mindless, balkanized bantustans.
There will never be another most trusted man in America.
"That's the way it is."
Posted: Mar 4, 2013 | 1:16 AM
1658: The village of Nieuw Haarlem (New Harlem) was incorporated. Nieuw Amsterdam Governor/Mayor/CEO Peter Stuyvesant created the village as a northern outpost to protect the larger colony of New Amsterdam.
Like original Haarlem which is about eight miles from Amsterdam, Nieuw Haarlem was about eight miles from Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam).
1789: Happy Birthday U.S. Constitution!
Congress convened in its National Capitol in NYC as the Constitution enacted.
We celebrate the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Presidency on my Colonial NYC tours, my Downtown tour, my Financial District tour, and my George Washington's NYC tour.
1933: Frances Perkins joined the F.D. Roosevelt administration cabinet as Secretary of Labor, the first woman in a Presidential Cabinet.
Perkins' rise to prominence began as she became an occupational safety activist and commissioner in the wake of the Triangle manufacturer fire disaster that she witnessed in 1911. Her reforms as a result of that tragedy played out over twenty years. These reforms continue to better millions of lives and have saved countless lives over the past century.
We visit the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Manufacturing Company on Greenwich Village tours as well as the extended version of my WTC Deep History tour.
1943: Jimmy (James) Cagney, of Avenue D and 8th Street, down my block, won the Best Actor Oscar for "Yankee Doodle Dandy."
1989: Time Inc. and Warner Communications announced a merger.
At the time it was a funny combination: a stodgy WASPy print empire with a Jewish mobby (parking lots) and entertainment empire.
1993: The first arrests happened for the Feb. 26th 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
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Posted: Mar 3, 2013 | 2:00 AM
1793: British actor William Macready born. His version of Macbeth performed at Astor Place, combined with English and Irish American and class hostilities helped spark a deadly riot in NYC. He died in 1873.
We see where the riots were flamed and fought on my East Village tours.
1923: Time magazine debuted.
We see Time Magazine's current and previous headquarters on Rockefeller Center tours.
1926: Poet and philanthropist James Merrill born in NYC, in and around he would live most of his life. He died in 1995.
1953: Robyn Hitchcock, Rock musician, born.
Posted: Mar 2, 2013 | 12:18 AM
1769: DeWitt Clinton, Mayor of New York City, NYS Governor and Senator, founder of the New York Historical Society, and leader of the Erie Canal development, born.
DeWitt Clinton mingles the waters of the Atlantic and the Great Lakes. His vision and leadership cemented NYC as the number one shipping city in the USA for nearly 150 years.
(Clinton married the daughter of the Quaker man who owned the house that George Washington lived and worked in, the Franklin Osgood House, on Cherry Street. Franklin was a relative of the Bowne family that founded the oldest continuing business in NYC, Bowne & Co. Financial Printers, he was also related to the Bownes of Flushing Queens where they advocated for religious freedom during the Nieuw Amsterdam days.)
I once met DeWitt Cinton IV at a Columbia event. The Clintons helped found Columbia College after it revived the suspended King's College after the Revolution.
We cover the Erie Canal, visit the site of the Franklin Osgood House, and Bowne & Co's antique print shop during my South Street Seaport Tour. My Seaport tour is the official tour of the South Street Seaport Museum and the South Street Seaport Mall.
1862: John Jay Chapman, writer, born in NYC.
1877: Republican Rutherford B. Hayes declared the 1876 presidential winner over over New York Democrat Samuel J. Tilden, even though Tilden had won the popular vote.
1900: Kurt Weill, the composer who adopted Broadway, born in Germany.
1904: Writer, illustrator cartoonist and sometime New Yorker, Dr Seuss born.
1914: Martin Ritt, director, actor, and playwright who worked in film and theater, born in New York City
1917: Puerto Ricans granted U.S. citizenship.
1921: Ernest Haas, photographer and photojournalist, born in Austria. He was a Magnum photographer.
Click on the link for gorgeous pictures.
1931: Tom Wolfe, author, born.
1933:
Big Monkey Saves The Empire State Building!
"King Kong," starring Fay Wray, premiered at Rockefeller Center's Radio City Music Hall and the RKO Roxy.
The Empire State Building, aka 'The Empty State Building,' did not rent up until 20 years after construction in the early 1950s. King Kong goosed interest in the tower with tourists who made the building profitable, flocking to its observation decks where Kong swung.
Rockefeller Center opened around the same time as the ESB, but it rented up by the mid-1930s.
What's the difference/s? Urban Planning and Real Estate Muscle.
Rock Center is a multipurpose city within the city that integrates offices with pedestrian shopping, mass transit, dining, entertainment (Radio City and RKO Roxy (demolished 1954)), luxury shopping, a town square feel, and spectacle, including skaters and the Christmas Tree, and subterranean tunnels to bypass the tourists.
The ESB is an avenue block from the 6th Avenue Subway, which is like three street blocks.
Starbucks' analysis determined that New Yorkers will not walk more than 2.5 blocks for a coffee. One avenue in the snow or heat is a big deal compared with walking through the world's first urban mall at Rock Center.
What about real estate muscle? The Rockefellers pressured their tenants in their older properties to relocate to their new flagship.
We compare and contrast Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building on Midtown tours and Rockefeller Center tours.
1942: Lou Reed, rockstar, singer, lyricist, photographer, and writer born in Brooklyn.
We saw each other early one morning on the Upper West Side. I was doing the 'walk of shame.' He was coming from the gym. I practically gasped in recognition, with my usual poker face. It was a pregnant moment, the connection was telepathic: 'If you talk to me I will shove you hard; If you want to connect with me, I have plenty of albums and books that you can buy elsewhere.' This is what flashed through my mind in less than a second. I observed The New York Code and moved on.
I heard that if you are introduced to him, he is very kind, and that he is loyal to his friends, but "shy" to strangers. I don't blame him. Considering the nuts that famous people attract, and the content of Lou Reed's strung out on-the-fringes of 'the wild side' anthems in the late 1960s and 1970s, he must be The Supreme Nut Magnet. The problem with most nuts is that they don't plant gardens, but do crazy negative things, like say stupid sh!t or stab or shoot you out of adoration. At best it must be tiring to hear so many tirades of teenage angst.
1942: The American Theatre Wing opened the Stage Door Canteen to entertain troops going off to World War II. Bette Davis served desserts. Marlene Dietrich and Lauren Bacall danced. Red Skelton told jokes, and Bing Crosby crooned. No alcohol, but free sandwiches and admission, and many happy customers forgetting about Hitler and Hirohito for a while.
1952: Laraine Newman, original SNL cast member, born.
1959: Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis had his first of two recording sessions for "Kind of Blue," which changed music.
1962: Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors scored 100 points against the New York Knicks, an NBA record that still stands. For some stupid broadcasting restriction reason, the game was not televised, so no video exists.
1965: The film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "The Sound of Music" premiered in New York City.
Posted: Mar 1, 2013 | 12:35 AM
1790: Congress authorized the first United States census.
1848: August St. Gaudens, one of the great sculptors, born.
1880: The Second Avenue El(evated train) opened from South Street to 65th Street, zipping above the horse traffic.
We see a picture of this on my South Street Seaport tour, and we note how that contrasts with the 1950s when the elevated FDR Drive overpassed South Street, leaving it behind in shadows, separating the Fulton Fish Market from the rest of Downtown.
1904: Swing band leader Glenn Miller born elsewhere.
1917: Robert Lowell, poet, born. He died 1977.
1922: Mad Magazine publisher Bill Gaines born. He died 1992.
1926: NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle born. He died 1996.
1927: Harry Belafonte born in NYC.
1932: The (Charles) Lindbergh Baby was kidnapped in NJ. The situation ended badly for all involved, and captivated the nation.
1940: Richard Wright's "Native Son" was published.
1968: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) was created to control one of the world's largest commuter rail systems. This was an era when train and rail companies were going bankrupt as a result of competition with cars, trucking, and jets, which, ironically, the private train companies subsidized (highway taxes and publicly owned airports).
The use of an "Authority" enabled the MTA to be able to issue publicly backed (by taxes) bonds, while avoiding political accountability. Politicians from the state and city government appointed a staggered board to dilute responsibility for controversial decisions, such as fare increases, and oversight for inefficiency and waste. Mad about a fare increase? It is not the Governor's fault or the Mayor's fault, their appointees made the decision.
We explore the ups and downs and ups of rail travel on my Grand Central tour.
2003: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11/01 attacks was captured in Pakistani.
I cover terrorism in my WTC Deep History Tour, and sometimes in my World Trade Center Tours.
Posted: Feb 27, 2013 | 11:44 PM
1903: Vincente Minnelli, sometime New Yorker, the stage and film director who worked at Radio City and co-designed the Rainbow Room before moving on to Hollywood where he would sire Liza Minelli with the help of Judy Garland, born. His is the only Oscar-winning family of father-mother-daughter.
1906: "Bugsy" Siegel the glamorous, murderous gangster who founded Las Vegas as a gambling oasis, born in Brooklyn. He was born Benjamin Siegelbaum to poor Russian Jewish immigrants. He died at 41.
1907: Milton Caniff, the "Rembrandt of Comic Art," who penned Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon, born in Ohio. He moved to make his career in NYC in 1932.
1915: Zero Mostel, the actor, comedian, and singer who made Tevia famous in Fiddler on the Roof, born.
We go by his high school, Seward Park, on Lower East Side History tours.
1939: Tommy Tune, actor, dancer, singer, theatre director, producer, and choreographer, born. He directed and choreographed eight Broadway shows, and won a Tony Award.
1940: The first televised college basketball games were televised.
W2XBS (the experimental station that was later to be NBC/RCA) broadcasted the Pittsburgh-Fordham and Georgetown-NYU games from Madison Square Garden in New York. NYU won. Fordham lost.
In those days college hoops were bigger than the NBA.
Television was demonstrated for the first time in 1939 at the World's Fair by David Sarnoff (see yesterday's post). Sarnoff's use of basketball was like his pioneering of radio for entertainment by using a Jack Dempsey boxing match in Jersey City to goose adoption.
Let's go on a Madison Square Garden tour of its four sites.
1948: Bernadette Peters, Broadway actress and singer, born.
1948: Mercedes Ruehl, Academy, Tony, and Obie Awards winner, born in Queens.
1957: Actor John Turturro born in Brooklyn.
1958: Gilbert Gottfried, actor, voice-actor, and comedian, born in Brooklyn.
2007: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., the Pulitzer winning Presidential historian and CUNY professor, died at 89.
Posted: Feb 26, 2013 | 8:30 PM
1860: Abraham Lincoln, "the Prairie Orator," addressed Cooper Union's Great Hall, packed, delivering the "Might Makes Right Speech."
It countered slavery and catapulted his stature to Republican candidate for President over local star, Senator and Governor Seward.
When we take my East Village tour we learn why I call Cooper Union the secular Holy of the Holies. Every time I am there I feel honored and awed, not just because of this great speech.
1891: David Sarnoff, CEO of NBC and RCA (now GE), pioneer of broadcasting radio and television, born in terrible poverty in Russia.
1913: Prolific writer, playwright, and screenwriter Irwin Shaw born in the Bronx.
1993: The World Trade Center closed as it assumed investigation for its huge truck bombing and recovery. Businesses scrambled to find alternate space. It will reopen months later after a $500,000,000 renovation.
2002: Alicia Keys won five Grammies for her debut album, "Songs in A Minor."
2008: Conservative avatar, intellectual, publisher, and writer William F. Buckley, Jr. died at 82.
Posted: Feb 26, 2013 | 3:43 PM
by Jared Goldstein
I was touring with British Law Enforcement HS Students, then Curtis Sliwa of the Guardian Angels, in red uniform an beret, strode by. They didn't quite get it.
I likened the vigilante Guardian Angels to Spider-Man's strained relationship with the Police and J. Jonah Jameson in the midst of a dangerous city, and then they got it.
Also saw Don Imus. Sourpuss. Slightly nuts.
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