What is Thanksgiving without the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade ? The annual march through Manhattan -- terminating at Macy's Department Store -- has delighted New Yorkers for a century and been a part of the American tradition of Thanksgiving since it was first broadcast nationally on television in the 1950s. Macy's began the parade in 1924 as a way to promote the new Seventh Avenue extension of their Herald Square location -- and to overshadow its department store rival Gimbel's . That first p...
Nov 22, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Transcript available on Metacast The energy and personality of New York City runs through its local businesses -- mom-and-pop shops, independently run stores and restaurants, often family run operations. We live in a world of chain stores, franchises, corporate run operations and online retailers that have run many of these kinds of stores out of business. But what is New York without its diners, its small book shops, its curious antique stores and its historic delis? These kinds of shops contribute to the health of a neighborh...
Nov 08, 2024•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast The young socialite Dorothy Arnold seemingly led a charmed and privileged life. The niece of a Supreme Court justice, Dorothy was the belle of 1900s New York, an attractive and vibrant young woman living on the Upper East Side with her family. She hoped to become a published magazine writer and perhaps someday live by herself in Greenwich Village. But on December 12, 1910, while running errands in the neighborhood of Madison Square Park, Dorothy Arnold — simply vanished . In this investigative n...
Oct 25, 2024•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast On January 1, 1898, Greater New York was formed from the union of two cities – New York and Brooklyn, along with other towns and villages of the region, creating the five boroughs we know and love today. But each of those five boroughs brings their own unique histories and personalities. And so for this year’s annual Bowery Boys Halloween Special, we thought we’d give each borough the spotlight – or rather the spooklight – to highlight the city’s haunted landscape, from rural escapes to densely ...
Oct 11, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast New York City has its fair share of famous 'urban legends' -- persistent rumors, too good to be true, often macabre and dark. No, we're not talking about just about ghost stories. (Those arrive next episode.) We mean far fetched, reality defying fantasies sometimes rooted in science fiction and horror – with just enough bearing to the real world that many people believe them to be true. Tom and Greg go deep into their favorite New York urban legends. breaking down their origins and revealing the...
Sep 27, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ida Wood had a secret. Born Ida Mayfield in New Orleans, Ida moved to New York in the 1850s and through her marriage to Benjamin Wood, publisher of the New York Daily News , she entered society. By the 1870s, Ida’s name was regularly found in the social columns of the city’s newspapers. So why, in 1907, did Ida Wood cash in – withdrawing her fortune from the bank and then, along with her sister and daughter, retreat into a suite at the Herald Square Hotel… for decades? This is the story of a Gil...
Sep 13, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2022, Greg received a large box in the mail, containing hundreds of news clippings and documents related to the Collyer Brothers. This expanded, newly edited version of his 2019 show on the Collyer Brothers includes some of this research. New York City, with over 8 million people, is filled with stories of people who just want to be left alone – recluses, hermits, cloistering themselves from the public eye, closing themselves off from scrutiny. However, none attempted to seal themselves off s...
Sep 06, 2024•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast What was Times Square before the electric billboards, before the Broadway theaters and theme restaurants, before the thousands and thousands of tourists? What was Times Square before it was Times Square? Today it’s virtually impossible to find traces of the area’s 18th and 19th century past. But in this episode, Tom and Greg will peel away the glamour and chaos — evict the Elmos and the pedicabs — to explore a far different world — of colonial estates, rolling farms, horse stables, and beer-them...
Aug 30, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1886, during a miles-long parade celebrating the dedication of the Statue of Liberty , office workers in lower Manhattan began heaving ticker tape out the windows, creating a magical, blizzard-like landscape. That tradition stuck. Today that particular corridor of Broadway -- connecting Battery Park to City Hall -- is known as the " Canyon of Heroes " thanks to the popularity of the ticker-tape parade. While many cities with skyscrapers host ticker-tape parades today, New York was the place t...
Aug 16, 2024•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast One-two-three-four! The Ramones , a four-man rock band from Forest Hills, Queens, played the Bowery music club CBGB for the very first time on August 16, 1974. Not only would Joey, Johnny, Tommy and Dee Dee reinvigorate downtown New York nightlife here -- creating a unique and energetic form of punk -- but they would join with a small group of musicians at CBGB to revolutionize American music in the 1970s. In this episode we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Ramones' first performances ...
Aug 02, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Carl Raymond of The Gilded Gentleman podcast and his guest Keith Taillon invite you into one of the most historically exclusive spaces in New York City -- the romantic and peaceful escape known as Gramercy Park. This small two-acre square, constructed in the 1830s, has been called “America’s Bloomsbury”. Taking the reference from London’s famous neighborhood once home to many great writers and artists, New York’s Gramercy Park has similarly included noted cultural icons as architect Stanford Whi...
Jul 19, 2024•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Follow along with Greg and Tom in this stand-alone travelogue episode as they visit several historic cities and towns in the Netherlands -- Utrecht, De Bilt, Breukelen and Haarlem -- wandering through cafe-filled streets and old cobblestone alleyways, the air ringing with church bells and street music. But of course, their mission remains the same as the past three episodes. For there are traces of Dutch culture and history all over New York City -- through the names of boroughs, neighborhoods, ...
Jul 05, 2024•1 hr 27 min•Transcript available on Metacast The name Stuyvesant can be found everywhere in New York City -- in the names of neighborhoods, apartments, parks and high schools. Peter Stuyvesant , the last director-general of New Amsterdam, is a hero to some, a villain to others -- and probably a caricature to all. What do we really know about Peter Stuyvesant? In their last days in Amsterdam (before heading to other parts of the Netherlands), Tom and Greg spend their time getting to know Stuyvesant, thanks to their special guest Jaap Jacobs...
Jun 28, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Our adventure in the Netherlands continues with a quest to find the Walloons , the French-speaking religious refugees who became the first settlers of New Netherland in 1624. Their descendants would last well beyond the existence of New Amsterdam and were among the first people to become New Yorkers. But you can't tell the Walloon story without that other group of American religious settlers -- the Pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts four years earlier. All roads lead to Leiden, the university...
Jun 21, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The epic journey begins! The Bowery Boys Podcast heads to old Amsterdam , the capital of the Netherlands, to find traces of New Amsterdam, the Dutch settlement which became New York. We begin our journey at Amsterdam's Centraal Station and spend the day wandering the streets and canals, peeling back the centuries in search of New York's roots. Our tour guide for this adventure is Jaap Jacobs , Honorary Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the author of The Colony of New Neth...
Jun 14, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Bowery Boys Podcast is going to Amsterdam and other parts of the Netherlands for a very special mini-series, marking the 400th anniversary of the Dutch first settling in North America in the region that today we call New York City. But before they go, they're kicking off their international voyage with a special conversation -- with the man who inspired the journey. Chances are good that if your bookshelf contains a respectable number of New York City history books, we imagine that one of th...
Jun 07, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Announcing an epic new Bowery Boys mini series -- The Bowery Boys Adventures in the Netherlands . Exploring the connections between New York City and that fascinating European country. Simply put, you don't get New York City as it is today without the Dutch who first settled here 400 years ago. The names of Staten Island, Broadway , Bushwick, Greenwich Village and the Bronx actually come from the Dutch. And the names of places like Brooklyn and Harlem come from actual Dutch cities and towns. Ove...
May 31, 2024•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Consider the following show an acknowledgment – of people. For the foundations of 400 years of New York City history were built upon the homeland of the Lenni-Lenape, the tribal stewards of a vast natural area stretching from eastern Pennsylvania to western Long Island. The Lenape were among the first in northeast North America to be displaced by white colonists -- the Dutch and the English. By the late 18th century, their way of life had practically vanished upon the island which would be known...
May 24, 2024•1 hr 22 min•Transcript available on Metacast The New York City subway system turns 120 years old later this year so we thought we'd honor the world's longest subway system with a supersized overview history -- from the first renegade ride in 1904 to the belated (but sorely welcomed) opening of one portion of the Second Avenue Subway in 2017. New Yorkers like Alfred Ely Beach had envisioned a subway system for the city as early as the 1870s. Yet years of political delay and a lack of funding ensured that dreams of an underground transit wou...
May 10, 2024•2 hr 33 min•Transcript available on Metacast The story of a filthy and dangerous train ditch that became one of the swankiest addresses in the world -- Park Avenue. For over 100 years, a Park Avenue address meant wealth, glamour and the high life. The Fred Astaire version of the Irving Berlin classic "Puttin' on the Ritz" revised the lyrics to pay tribute to Park Avenue: "High hats and Arrow collars/White spats and lots of dollars/Spending every dime for a wonderful time." By the 1950s, the avenue was considered the backbone of New York Ci...
Apr 26, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Transcript available on Metacast Few areas of the United States have as endured as long as Flushing, Queens , a neighborhood with almost over 375 years of history and an evolving cultural landscape that includes Quakers, trees, Hollywood films, world fairs, and new Asian immigration. In this special on-location episode of the Bowery Boys, Greg and special guest Kieran Gannon explore the epic history of Flushing through five specific locations -- the Bowne House , Kingsland Homestead (home of the Queens Historical Society ), the...
Apr 12, 2024•2 hr 35 min•Transcript available on Metacast In today’s episode, Tom visits the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side to walk through the reconstructed two-room apartment of an African-American couple, Joseph and Rachel Moore, who lived in 1870 on Laurens Street in today’s Soho neighborhood. Both Joseph and Rachel moved to New York when they were about 20 years old, in the late 1840s and 1850s. They married, worked, raised a family – and they shared their small apartment with another family to help cover costs. Their home has been recreat...
Mar 29, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence is a perfect novel to read in the spring — maybe its all the flowers — so I finally picked it up to re-read, in part due to this excellent episode from the Gilded Gentleman which we are presenting to you this week. The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s most famous novel, an enduring classic of Old New York that has been rediscovered by a new generation. What is it about this story of Newland Archer, May Welland and Countess Olenska that readers respond to today...
Mar 22, 2024•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Baseball, as American as apple pie, really is “the New York game.” While its precursors come from many places – from Jamestown to Prague – the rules of American baseball and the modern ways of enjoying it were born from the urban experience and, in particular, the 19th-century New York region. The sport (in the form that we know it today) developed in the early 1800s, played in Manhattan’s many open lots or New Jersey public parklands and soon organized into regular teams and eventually leagues....
Mar 15, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Chrysler Building remains one of America's most beautiful skyscrapers and a grand evocation of Jazz Age New York. But this architectural tribute to the automobile is also the greatest reminder of a furious construction surge that transformed the city in the 1920s. After World War I, New York became newly prosperous, one of the undisputed business capitals of the world. The tallest building was the Woolworth Building, but the city's rise in prominence demanded new, taller towers, taking advan...
Mar 01, 2024•1 hr 25 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Brooklyn waterfront was once decorated with a yellow Domino Sugar sign, affixed to an aging refinery along a row of deteriorating industrial structures facing the East River. The Domino Sugar Refinery , completed in 1883 (replacing an older refinery after a devastating fire), was more than a factory. During the Gilded Age and into the 20th century, this Brooklyn landmark was the center of America's sugar manufacturing, helping to fuel the country's hunger for sweet delights. But the story go...
Feb 16, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast So much has happened in and around Madison Square Park -- the leafy retreat at the intersections of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street -- that telling its entire story requires an extra-sized episode, in honor of our 425th episode. Madison Square Park was the epicenter of New York culture from the years following the Civil War to the early 20th century. The park was really at the heart of Gilded Age New York, whether you were rushing to an upscale restaurant like Delmonico’s or a night at th...
Feb 02, 2024•1 hr 24 min•Transcript available on Metacast FX is debuting a new series created by Ryan Murphy — called Feud: Capote and the Swans -- regarding writer Truman Capote's relationship with several famed New York society women. And it's such a New York story that listeners have asked if we’re going to record a tie-in show to that series. Well, here it is ! Capote -- who was born 100 years ago this year -- and the "swans" are part of the pivotal cast of this podcast, the story of one of the most exclusive parties ever held in New York. Tom and ...
Jan 19, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Kosciuszko Bridge is one of New York City's most essential pieces of infrastructure, the hyphen in the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that connects the two boroughs over Newtown Creek, the 3.5 mile creek which empties into the East River. The bridge is interestingly named for the Polish national hero Tadeusz Kościuszko who fought during the American Revolution, then attempted to bring a similar revolutionary spirit to his home country, leading to the doomed Kościuszko Uprising of 1794. Kościuszk...
Jan 05, 2024•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast On the morning of November 14th, 1943, Leonard Bernstein, the talented 25-year-old assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, got a phone call saying he would at last be leading the respected orchestral group — in six hours, that afternoon, with no time to rehearse. The sudden thrust into the spotlight transformed Bernstein into a national celebrity. For almost five decades, the wunderkind would be at the forefront of American music, as a conductor, composer, virtuoso performer, writer, t...
Dec 21, 2023•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
