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New York Harbor under a magical full moon 26 Aug 2013 | 08:08 am
“New York Harbor by Moonlight” states the caption of this postcard, which probably dates to about 1900, when the harbor was all about industry and commerce. The boats working the harbor are reminders...
Scenes of a young Manhattan, at work and play 26 Aug 2013 | 07:53 am
There’s not very much information out there on an artist named Louis Augier. I’m not even sure he was actually in New York in the first half of the 19th century, the time period these depictions were...
The influx of bachelors in Gilded Age New York 26 Aug 2013 | 07:27 am
Today’s New York is a city of singles. But until about 150 years ago, it was impractical and expensive for unmarried adults to live alone (as well as morally suspect when it came to unhitched women)....
Lower Manhattan’s homes and windmill in 1637 22 Aug 2013 | 05:48 am
Windmills? Hills? Red-roofed houses? If you sailed into the Battery and happened upon Manhattan island about 400 years ago, this is the modest fort and settlement that would have greeted you. That’s...
Old Fifth Avenue’s rich, most reclusive siblings 22 Aug 2013 | 05:23 am
New York has had lots of crazy-rich families. But few were as mysterious as the Wendels, siblings born in the 19th century who never married, rarely socialized, and grew old together behind brick wal...
A cool old laundromat sign on Ninth Avenue 22 Aug 2013 | 05:18 am
Walking around Chelsea is a little like stepping into a way-back machine these days. Recently, some vintage signs near Eighth Avenue have returned into view, serving as unexpected glimpses of this on...
“Unconscious grace” on a rooftop in Chelsea 19 Aug 2013 | 09:08 am
Lines of laundry, a pigeon coop, a sunbather? It’s a very different neighborhood today than the one depicted in John Sloan’s A Roof in Chelsea, New York, painted in the 1940s. “This is one of Sloan’s...
An Allen Street tenement fire rages in 1903 19 Aug 2013 | 08:19 am
The fire started on the windy morning of March 14 in a basement restaurant. Isidore Davis, a tenement resident who ran a wine-making business also in the basement, was returning home at about 3:45 a....
A dazzling relic of an old city school building 19 Aug 2013 | 06:36 am
Not only did the city used to construct light, airy, inspiring school houses a century ago, but they installed pretty sweet brass doorknobs, like this one. I imagine having these in every hallway gav...
An old-school faded ad on Delancey Street 12 Aug 2013 | 10:58 am
You can’t miss this slice of the old-school city at Delancey and Allen Streets: a colorful ad for a fabric emporium launched in 1910 by a Polish immigrant pushcart peddler selling rags. Beckenstein’s...
