The last post showed the city from 63rd Street to the Battery by putting together two pictures from the 1850s. Here they are again; click here to read the original post. A painted line runs down Fifth Avenue in both pictures, and you can see the dome and flag of the Crystal Palace on 42nd Street in both. The top one is from 1855, the […]
Category Archives: 1800s
19
May
May
Old landscape drawings and panoramas of the city can be mesmerizing, in addition to being information-rich artifacts of the past. In a time when we record more data about the city in an hour than we did for the first 300 years of history, these images only become more important with time. This post takes […]
12
Mar
Mar
This post builds on The Bowery & Chatham Square, heading up a few blocks to where the Manhattan Bridge intersects Canal Street. The Bull’s Head tavern dominated the immediate area as the unofficial headquarters of the cattle market from the Colonial days of the 1750s up until 1825, when society elites set their sights on […]
04
Mar
Mar
While preparing Part II of The Story Behind the Lower East Side, I came across some old photographs of Chatham Square and couldn’t resist checking out their locations. Here’s a photograph from Kenneth Dunshee’s As You Pass By. This is a reported funeral procession heading up the Bowery through Chatham Square in 1869. Doyers Street would be […]
02
Mar
Mar
This look at the Lower East Side will be done over three posts. This first post will use old maps to reconstruct the area from Colonial days, and look at how the Lower East Side developed initially, before the days of New York’s iconic immigration. The next post will go to street level, looking at […]
21
Jan
Jan
There’s a difference between what inspires a statue to come into creation and what a statue represents, and it’s an interesting one when it comes to the Statue of Liberty. The inspiration for the Statue of Liberty is said to have occurred at a specific time and place, and among a particular group of people. But the mainstream meaning of the Statue […]
1700s, 1800s, Morningside Heights, Old Posts, Old Roads, St. John the Divine
Morningside Heights: History is in the Lay of the Land
13
Jan
Jan
And the bend in the road is still visible today! This is 114th Street and Riverside Drive looking north. (R) The topography is intensified in this image. The dog and walker are crossing Broadway at 115th Street toward the Hudson River. Not only can you see the bend in the road, there’s a dip where […]
1600s, 1700s, 1800s, Dutch history, English history, NYC seal, Old Posts
Decoding the Seals of the City of New York
05
Dec
Dec
A study of the current and past seals of New York City is an excellent way to learn the fundamentals of city history–ever wonder about the obscure symbols on the Municipal Building? Or why the seal appears differently from one building to another? The seal has a very rich, complex history, and counting every change, […]
18
Nov
Nov
My first post is a simple interesting one. I had just read Alone Together: A History of New York’s Early Apartments and had the book with me when I skated over to the site of the old Broadway Central Hotel (the west side of Broadway just north of the Bond Street intersection). It was built in 1871 […]