NYC History
Manhattan: Don’t Light Up on Gay Street
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008(photo from the realestsblogspot.com)
Gay Street in Greenwich Village is the city’s shortest street — it’s one block long and kind of private, snug between Christopher St and Waverly Place. Little did I know until I read the July 1, 2008 New York Times that Gay Street is the place to go to build up an […]
Jersey City: Mark’s Love Affair With Movie Palaces
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008Mark, whose last name is now MCW@RDNYLD (My Co-Worker at RDNY.com’s Listings Dept), sent me more info about old movie theaters. He lives in Jersey City and he loves movie theaters the way I love diners.
Some more info on your post… I love the old movie palaces. The Loew’s you wrote about is around […]
Manhattan: An Old Building on the East Side
Sunday, June 8th, 2008Mark, my co-worker in the Listings Dept of RDNY.com, likes NYC history as much as I do. I guess he got tired of my fascination with The Grange and he sent me an email with a link to another old house in Manhattan to remind me that Alexander Hamilton’s house is not all that. This […]
Update: Grange on the Move
Sunday, June 8th, 2008I don’t know why this story interests me so much. Here are 2 more photos from the NY Times of Sunday, June 8, 2008 showing Alexander Hamilton’s country house on the move. My thanks to photographer Andrew Henderson.
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Oldest Houses in NYC
Saturday, June 7th, 2008Seeing photos of Alexander Hamilton’s Grange today got me interested in the finding the oldest houses in each borough. I’ll try to be brief and give you links to official websites.
In Manhattan, the oldest house is the Morris-Jumel House which was briefly the home of Aaron Burr, the man who killed Hamilton. It was built […]
Manhattan: Home on the Grange
Saturday, June 7th, 2008Alexander Hamilton’s country house, called The Grange, is moving again. It was built in 1802 on what became West 143 St, moved in 1889 to West 141 St, and is currently (Saturday, June 7) rolling down Convent Avenue to its new site at the northwest corner of St. Nicholas Park. I wanted to see this […]
The People Behind the Traffic Report
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008When I listen to the traffic reports, I always hear the same names: Major Deegan, Van Wike, the Kozkewsko, etc. I’ve always wondered who those people were and how people get big things named after them. I found out that knowing someone helps (no surprise there), and sometimes it helps to be a hero.
Major […]
The Upside of a Down Economy: Less Condos, More Rentals
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008I don’t want to be depressing, but there’s some bad news about the U.S. economy: The U.S. economy clearly is in a recession. The stock market is down, 63,000 jobs were lost in Feb 2008, there’s a mortgage crisis that’s being felt all around the world, dollar is weak against the Euro and the yen, […]
Manhattan and the Bronx: Where the Irish met Africans and Tap Dancing was Born
Monday, February 25th, 2008Five Points, the area near Columbus Park in downtown Manhattan so lovingly portrayed in The Gangs of New York, is nowadays part of Chinatown. The movie faithfully shows you the violence, squalor, filth, and poverty of The Points, but it missed the vibrancy of NYC’s melting pot. In the movie, Leonardo DiCaprio and […]
NYC is Really a Dutch Town
Tuesday, February 12th, 2008This town we love was first settled by the Iroquis and Alaconquin tribes, and later (1625) was invaded by Dutch members of the West India Trading Company — businessmen! Isn’t that soooo New York?
Our town was called New Amsterdam until the English took over and re-named it New York. Here is a list of words […]