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Did you know that there once was a Revolutionary War fort located in today’s Red Hook, Brooklyn? Hear about Red Hook’s role in the Battle of Brooklyn, plus other overlooked histories that can still be seen and felt. An outdoor panel at Louis Valentino Jr. Park and Pier in Red Hook, moderated by Greg Young… Read More The post Celebrate Red Hook History: A Special Brooklyn 250 Event at Valentino…
All the dirt that’s (un)fit to print — the tale of the Gilded Age scandal sheet Town Topics and its duplicitous publisher William D’Alton Mann. Before the era of the tabloid, New Yorkers got their gossip fix from a publication known as Town Topics, where the shocking secrets of the Gilded Age were revealed. But its… Read More The post The Gossip Game: The Man Who Blackmailed The Gilded Age…
To get you in the mood for the weekend, every other Friday we’ll be celebrating ‘FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER’, featuring an old New York nightlife haunt, from the dance halls of 19th Century Bowery, to the massive warehouse spaces of the mid-90s. Past entries can be found HERE, including articles on New York’s oldest continuously operating… Read More The post Welcome to the Haymarket, New York’s scandalous…
The double-breasted, cigar-chewing gentlemen who gathered in the sumptuous rooms of the Fifth Avenue Hotel were occasional connoisseurs of New York City history, and in particular, these amateur historians spoke of the very street corner where their hotel stood. Before Madison Square, when the area was a barren parade ground, one Corporal Thompson opened a roadhouse… Read More The post The Fifth…
The summer blockbuster Spider-Man: Homecoming may be the greatest New York City superhero movie ever. It doesn’t treat New York like a series of famous backdrops (although there certainly are a couple); it has a familiar landscape and there’s a particular care given to depicting Queens, the home of Peter Parker. There’s even a couple scenes with… Read More The post A Tour of New York City Through…
Our book, The Bowery Boys Adventures in Old New York, was just re-released as a 10th-anniversary edition with lots of brand-new entries. So to celebrate, we thought we would highlight three of our all-time favorite stories from the book. Featuring: — The Astor House, one of the first luxury hotels in the United States, owned… Read More The post Adventures in Old New York: Astor House, the…
Tickets for this year’s Bowery Boys Ghost Stories of Old New York show at Joe’s Pub are now sale over at the Joe’s Pub website. Tom and Greg return to Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater with their EIGHTH annual Halloween ghost stories live show, conjuring the spooky folklore and mysterious urban legends that have famously… Read More The post The Bowery Boys Live: Ghost Stories of Old New York TICKETS…
The Dirty Ones, a notorious gang from Williamsburg. My new column for A24 Films (a tie-in to the new movie A Most Violent Year) is up on their site devoted to culture and events from 1981. For this article, I look at what some of the dangerous undercurrents to life in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1981. “By… Read More The post Screaming Phantoms, Tomahawks, Phantom Lords, Dirty Ones and other gangs…
Join us for a book event in honor of the 10th anniversary of the Bowery Boys’ Adventures in Old New York — and at the famed Salmagundi Club! Join Greg Young of the Bowery Boys in conversation with Carl Raymond, host of The Gilded Gentleman, at the historic Salmagundi Club to celebrate the publication of the Bowery Boys… Read More The post Live at the Salmagundi Club! It’s the Bowery Boys and the…
One of the few photos ever taken of any New York street gang was this image shot in 1887 by Jacob Riis of the Short Tails  under a pier in Corlears Hook. The Short Tails were a particularly nasty gang of criminals who terrorized the Lower East Side and the docks of Corlears Hook… Read More The post Who were the Short Tails? The crazy, violent habits of the real Lower East Side gang appeared first…
