Tomorrow is Jackson Pollock's 100th birthday. A trip to MOMA is in order! Also check out this gorgeous collection of 'behind the scenes' photos. (Photo by Loomis Dean, Life )

I'm just getting back from a trip so the blog's been a little thin of articles this week. But we're back to normal here next week,  plus we are putting together a new podcast, discussing a major New York City landmark.  In the meantime....

Far Out, Man : The joy of writing about topics from the 60s and 70s is that people sometimes stumble onto old blog posts and recount their experiences in the comments section. For instance, you should really check out some of the comments on my December 2009 posting on the psychedelic New York nightclub Cerebrum.  Thanks to the former patrons of the strange, strange little club who chimed in with their experiences! [Welcome To Cerebrum: Do You Have A Reservation ?]

Setting Sail : The South Street Seaport Museum is open once again for business, thanks to the Museum of the City of New York. The uptown museum brings with it a few retooled former exhibitions from its galleries, as well as a photographic take on the Occupy Wall Street movement.  [South Street Seaport Museum ]

Backstage Deli : The closing of an East Village deli reveals a startling secret -- a former movie theater from the 1950s. Thanks to Sierra for sending us the link via Facebook [Gothamist ].

How The Other Half Reads : Jacob Riis enters the 21st century! His book 'How The Other Half Lives' comes to Kindle, iPad and other reading devices courtesy a new edition featuring extensive commentary and notes by author Lorenzo Dominguez.  [Download it here ]

Illuminating : Today in 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent for the incandescent lamp. Fans of our Electric New York podcast will want to commemorate by turning on all their lights today. [via Twitter, Milstein Room @ NYPL}

And finally....

The King : Today marks a big day in Bowery Boys land. Our podcast on Robert Moses (Episode #100) officially becomes our most downloaded show of all time, supplanting our Halloween show Haunted Tales of New York (Episode #91 ).

Here's a little Moses for your wet Friday: The parks commissioner appeared as a guest on the February 1953 episode of the panel program Longines Chronoscope :

At the New York World's Fair 1939-40 : Australia makes a stylish, woolen debut, thanks to renown designer Douglas Annand . (Photo by Robert Coates, courtesy the Powerhouse Museum. You can check out other images of this curious pavilion here .)

 After many years as a mere podcast, The Bowery Boys: New York City History will be making making its debut on the national airwaves. The catch is -- those national airwaves are in Australia!

We're grateful to have listeners all around the world, and now those New York junkies listening in Australia will now be able to hear our show on a new program on Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National , Australia's pubic radio.

Top of the Pods spotlights a selection of programs from around the world, and we'll be joining the show monthly via some of the greatest-hits of our back catalog of podcasts.

We debut in Australia this Tuesday, Jan. 31, at 2 pm (or, if you're listening in from New York: Jan. 30, Monday 10pm EST), when host Robbie Buck will present our show on Tin Pan Alley . We'll be paired up with a program from London, The Hackney Podcast , exploring the historic neighborhood through its transition as a 'host borough' of the 2012 Olympic Games.

If you're in Australia, you can listen in this Tuesday via one of these major frequencies , including 576AM in Sydney and 621AM in Melbourne.

You can listen online via one of these streams . The show will also be re-broadcast in Australia on Sunday, Feb 5 at 3 a.m. (Saturday, Feb. 4, at 11 a.m. in New York)

We're currently scheduled to appear once a month. Thanks to ABC for helping us make our international debut. I will clearly need to make vacation plans to hear the show live from the beaches of Sydney sometime very soon!

And a little bit on the picture above : You can look here to read an article from the Sydney Morning Tribute about the debut of the Australian Pavilion at the 1939-40 World's Fair , "not only the most interesting and informative exhibition that Australia has presented in any country, but one of the most attractive at the Fair." In fact, according to Architecture Australia , "the pavilion was consigned to an interior within a building, which was shared with New Zealand.....From outside it appeared as if Britain occupied the entire complex, with Australia and New Zealand literally subjects beneath and to either side."

A band of junior ruffians, gathered around the detritus of a sugar plant in Yonkers, on the Hudson River, c. 1906. I can't quite make out what they're doing, and I possibly don't wanna know. This is very possibly an old plant located in same area as the present corporate headquarters of American Sugar Refining , just a couple miles north of the Bronx border.

American Sugar owns the Domino Sugar brand name today. Domino, of course, grew to sweet prominence in the late 19th century along the Williamsburg waterfront .

Photo by Lewis Wicks Hine

Drama for dinner: 'Mad Men' meals go down best with fifteen cocktails

AMC's 'Mad Men' returns for its fifth season this March. Until somebody goes ahead and develops a TV show about Peter Stuyvesant and New Amsterdam , the award-winning Madison Avenue drama is the closest we'll get to straight-up New York City history TV. The writers cleverly embed the action within very specific 60s locations throughout the city. During the season I try and delve into those locations in our regular 'Mad Men' feature . 

So what, then, to make of 'The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook: Inside The Kitchens, Bars and Restaurants of Mad Men' , by Judy Gelman and Peter Zheutlin ? My first thought, naturally, was, "They eat on 'Mad Men'?" They certainly flirt over dinners at times. Carla, the Draper's housekeeper, tortures over hot meals that often get uneaten as Betty sulks and Don swallows down bourbon.

But 'Mad Men' is a show of lounges and restaurants, of decorum and indulgence, adrift in a rising stream of booze. It's also a show of dizzying, if cynical, nostalgia. And that's the secret of this fun little volume. The particular dishes featured in the book may have been seen or mentioned on the show. But the recipes themselves are straight from the kitchens of New York's most famous eateries and from original 1960s magazines and cookbooks.

The authors frame each dish within the context of a certain episode. For instance, a recipe on gazpacho and rumaki is prefaced with the description of Season 2, Episode 8, the episode where Betty presents dishes from around the world to her guests (including, you may remember, the at-the-time somewhat exotic Heineken beer.)

The recipes aren't from Betty's kitchen, but from actual 1960s magazine articles. Sources include 'The Kennedy Style', a 1962 Ebony Magazine cookbook, the 1960's 'How America Eats', among a great many others. Original dishes from New York's great restaurants make an appearance here too -- steak tartar and hearts of palm salad from Sardi's , fettuccine alfredo from Angelo's , chicken Kiev from the Russian Tea Room , Caesar salad from Keens Steakhouse , and of course, the original Waldorf salad and sold Amandine from the Waldorf=Astoria .

Betty Crocker, Julia Child, Amy Vanderbilt -- all the icons of 60s cuisine and ettiquete are represented. Naturally, this means that few dishes are heart healthy. Butter and red meat are a defining theme.

A more classic selection of original New York recipes has perhaps never been assembled. One might squabble over the fact that most of this has nothing much to do with 'Mad Men' itself. But let that slide, relax and have a drink from the guide's cocktail menu, featuring the how-tos on such classic sips as the Stork Club Cocktail , the 21 Club Bloody Mary and the Classic Algonquin Cocktail (whiskey, vermouth and pineapple juice), all sourced from the original establishments.

I was a sucker for this kind of retro mixology back in the days of the '90s retro 'bachelor pad' craze, and 'The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook' could fit right in with your old Esquivel CDs . But this is an entertaining collection of New York recipes, well-researched, and ready for your weekend soirees and viewing parties..

The Woolworth Building, as it appeared on January 20, 1912 (Courtesy LOC )

The Woolworth Building was the biggest story in real estate one hundred years ago, long before it was even completed.

By the waning moments of 1911, something finally began to rise out of the belching smoke and clutter collecting at the northwest corner of Broadway and Barclay Street . The building's architect Cass Gilbert was busy at work drafting the details of the interior, and as the tower rose, so too did the cost. Luckily, retail king Frank W. Woolworth would eventually pay the entire bill ($13.5 million, from an original project cost of $5 million) in cash.

In a Jan 7, 1912 article , the New York Times assessed the state of real estate in the city, observing that the greatest developments for the year were in 'apartment houses and lofts', particularly on the Upper West Side and the neighborhoods west of Broadway between 14th Street and 42nd Street. While residential property was the hot commodity, they made note of seven 'purely office structures' that were also debuting. Of those listed, the clear standout was the new office building being designed for Woolworth.

The New York Sun was also dazzled by the Woolworth's construction that month , announcing its construction as the crown of the 'world's greatest building construction era' . Any firm hired for the project promptly touted its involvement in full-page advertisements . Otis Elevators boasted of its 'Marvelous Vertical Railways ... That Are to "Whiz" the Army of Workers Up With Lightning Speed.'

It would take over fifteen months from that moment for the Woolworth Building to be completed, and what a game-changer it was when it officially opened on April 24, 1913 . The tallest building in the world until 1930, the Woolworth is also distinctive to this day for its monolithic surface of terra cotta, built before the requirements of setbacks turned future skyscrapers into virtual 'wedding cakes'.

But back in January 1912, as you can see, it rose on a few floors from street-level, not even as high as the City Hall Post Office which sat across the street. The picture below (from NYPL ), taken over a month later, indicates its proximity to the post office:

(As for the picture at top, the Library of Congress dates it as January 20, 1912, while the New York Public Library has it as December 28, 1911. You get the idea. Regardless, it's a photo by favorite photographer Irving Underhill .)

A haunting snapshot of the Atlantic Docks, circa 1870-80s (possibly as early as 1872) photo by George Bradford Brainerd (courtesy the Brooklyn Museum ) 

Quite a few notes on the podcast this week! There were a lot of little details I found interesting that didn't make the cut:

Before the Water Taxi : One of the more enlightening tales left on the cutting-room floor was that of the Hamilton Avenue Ferry , the 1846 Atlantic Docks ferry line that linked Red Hook with downtown Manhattan in much the same way the IKEA Water Taxi does today. As the ferry made "the shortest and most direct route from New York " to the newly constructed Green-Wood Cemetery , it also became the method by which many bodies were transported there.

Fiery renovation : A stalwart of the old community is Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Roman Catholic Church (built in 1896) right off of Coffey Park, the third incarnation after the congregation grew out of the first building (originally built in 1855) and fire destroyed the second. That fire, incidentally, was allegedly caused by combustible materials workers were using to renovate the structure.

Goodbye Vienna :  A vestige of World War I hysteria exists within the name of Red Hook's Lorraine Street . According to Brooklyn By Name , the street was once named Vienna Street but was deemed 'offensive' during the war and was changed to reflect the area of Alsace-Lorraine, which entered French possession after the war.

What's My Name? : I mentioned a couple facts about the neighborhood of Carroll Gardens (once considered a part of Red Hook), although we hope to elaborate further one day on a show on South Brooklyn. The name Carroll Gardens, like that of its neighbors Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill, was a real-estate invention which the community quickly embraced. (Contrast this with modern failures of real-estate re-branding, like Chumbo , BelDel and LoDel .) You might be interested in reading Carroll Garden's original 1973 historic designation .

Below: I'm not quite sure of the story behind this sunken squatters home, taken on Van Brunt Street from the year 1900 (courtesy the Brooklyn Museum ) 

Further reading : For more information on the corruption of the  New York and Brooklyn waterfronts , I highly endorse Nathan Ward 's 'Dark Harbor'. It's brilliantly lucid and immediate. In particular, he focuses some attention on the disappearance of Columbia Street longshoreman Pietro Panto and vividly describes a mob hit that took place in a building in Manhattan's West Village, in a building next door to the treasured piano bar Marie's Crisis. There are several books that feature chapters on Red Hook history, but a dedicated book on the subject is sorely needed. In the meantime, I recommend the short essay by Jerry Nachman that appears in "Brooklyn: A State of Mind ," about, of all things, an air conditioning crisis!

Maggie Blanck has an extraordinary web resource that begins as a genealogy of her family and elaborates into a history of Red Hook's industrial giants. And for those of you who are fascinated by late-century street-gang history, the website Stone Greasers has an exhaustive list of gang names, many more unusual than anything you'd find in the movie The Warriors .

Red Hook as inspiration : Several sources, both on Brooklyn history and film history , discuss Red Hook's impact on the work of both Arthur Miller and Budd Schulberg , the screenwriter of 'On The Waterfront'.

 In 2009, a unique restaging of 'On The Waterfront' took place aboard the Waterfront Barge Museum in Red Hook, a production that then floated to Manhattan and Hoboken waterfronts for further performances, "all places whose dock wars echoed in Terry [Malloy's] story," according to Ward.

Elia Kazan's Oscar-winning film is embedded with influences from the entire New York waterfront struggle. For instance, Karl Malden 's Father Barry is transparently inspired by Father Corridan , an activist waterfront priest from Manhattan's west side. (Author J.T. Fisher focuses on Corridan's contribution in his new book 'On The Irish Waterfront'. ) Of course no inspiration was greater than Malcolm Johnson 's now classic series of articles for the New York Sun in the late 1940s, a series which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949 -- coincidentally the same year that Miller won for 'Death of A Salesman'!

I suppose there is some controversy in some circles regarding whether Schulberg and Kazan 'stole' the idea of 'Waterfront' from Miller's 'The Hook', but I'm not touching that. However you can read about it yourself in Stephen Schwartz's argumentative 2005 article .

Thanks to commenter Rob Hill who calls to attention another fascinating literary Red Hook reference. In 1957, Harlon Ellison , one of America's great science fiction and crime novelists, literally went undercover with a Red Hook street gang called The Barons to find inspiration for his book 'Web of the City'  and, later, in the non-fictional account Memos From Purgatory . Ellison's entire life would probably make a good subject for a podcast one day. Thanks Rob!

Further listening : This show shares many similar themes with our past shows on Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Corlears Hook and the Pirates of the East River . Hmm, and let's just say, we're probably coming back to the waterfront sooner than later this year....

Community vs Neighborhood : One listener Carolina from PortSide NY  had some strong objections to my characterization of Red Hook, particularly my focus on the neighborhood's crime and gang activity. I'm excerpting part of her letter, as it highlights a challenge that Tom and I often tackle with our podcast:

"Red Hook housed great poverty, but for decades was more mixed economically than your focus on gangland stories describes. Personally, I find what is most distinctive about Red Hook over the years is the capacity of this small place to hold AT THE SAME TIME a striking economic range in its residents and a striking range of land use from major industry to residences. "

That is an undoubtedly true statement, especially when you compare it to the fate of other dockside neighborhoods, like Corlears Hook and Water Street in Manhattan. I find there are two ways to accurately tell a story of a place like Red Hook -- from an organic, street-level or 'ground up' perspective (what I call 'a community history') and from a macro-view, as a component of the larger forces of the city which contain it (or 'a neighborhood history').

As the creators of a New York City history podcast, we opt to recount neighborhood histories, as New Yorkers and those who love this city are familiar with the mechanisms of change that have influenced it. In this decision, we understand that the normalcy of a place can get sometimes overlooked. (After all, not every person in Five Points was a gang member or a prostitute either.)

However, the sad truth is, Red Hook was for many years nationally known as a blighted neighborhood, and it was important to inspect both how it got that way and how that condition demanded some very unique revitalization plans.  I hope I have shown how essential Red Hook was to New York, and continues to be.  We encourage you to wander around the waterfront on a sunny afternoon sometime and, in particular, check out places like the Waterfront Barge Museum .

PODCAST Red Hook, Brooklyn , the neighborhood called by the Dutch 'Roode Hoek' for its red soil, became a key port during the 19th century, a stopping point for vessels carry a vast array of raw goods from the interior of the United States along the Erie Canal. In particular, two manmade harbors were among the greatest developments in Brooklyn history, stepping in when Manhattan's own decaying wharves became too overcrowded.

With these basins came a mix of ethnicities to Brooklyn, and along with new styles of row houses came the usual assortment of vices -- saloons and brothels along Hamilton Avenue. This fostered the development of crime along the docks, and Red Hook soon witnessed firsthand the opening salvos of 20th Century organized crime.

How did the history-rich, nautical neighborhood go from a booming center of employment to one of the worst neighborhoods in the United States by the 1990s? And can some surprising twists of fate from the last twenty years help Red Hook return to its glory days?

Featuring : Revolutionary War forts, shantytowns, Vaseline factories, famous gangsters, the gateway to Hell, and cheap Swedish furniture!

You can tune into it below, download it for FREE from iTunes or other podcasting services, or get it straight from our satellite site .

Or listen to it here:
The Bowery Boys: Red Hook: Brooklyn on the Waterfront

Notes, clarifications, sources, and additional information will be posted next week. Photo above: Taken on Van Brunt street, 1/11/2012

 The Atlantic Docks, illustration taken from Booth's History of New York. (care of NYPL)

Modern living, circa 1939 . The Red Hook Houses at their debut. Although the housing development cleared away a great many dilapidated homes -- following a common model of urban redevelopment -- the uninspired uniformity would put a dent in the neighborhood's original character. (Courtesy LOC)

The Red Hook Play Center opened in 1936, the final of 11 swimming pools Robert Moses built during his early years as parks commissioner. Its Art Moderne style made it a beautiful if curious addition to the neighborhood.

The Erie Basin , a clutter of vessels and piers, is strangely beautiful from overhead in relation to the Manhattan skyline. (Pic courtesy Wired NY )

The crisis of organized crime and corruption within the longshoreman's union along the Brooklyn waterfront was an inspiration for many writers, including Arthur Miller (below) in his unproduced screenplay 'The Hook ' -- referring both to the neighborhood and the longshoreman's "ever-present baling hook ". Later, Elia Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg found similar inspiration for the Oscar winning film 'On The Waterfront', loosely basing events on situations that took place along the entire New York and Brooklyn waterfront. (The film was made in Hoboken, but there are of course famous shots of the Manhattan skyline.)

Yes, Hamilton fans , we are a proud people, judging from the many notes and supportive comments yesterday left on the Facebook page on the birthday of Alexander Hamilton, tinged with strong anti-Aaron Burr sentiment. But, from our comfortable vantage of the future, have we been too harsh on the killer Vice President?

Sure, he absolutely got away with murder. But it was, after all, a duel , willingly engaged by both participants, however misguided. Murder charges against Burr were eventually dropped, but he obviously avoided New York for many years.

His later misadventures out West -- his failed, confusing efforts to infiltrate Spanish territory and allegedly form a new government in 1806 -- just slathered on further scorn and distrust for the once respected lawyer. Three years after killing Alexander Hamilton, Burr was brought to federal trial for treason. He was eventually acquitted due to lack of credible evidence, much to Thomas Jefferson 's chagrin.

After traveling through Europe and eventually going broke, Burr returned to New York and married the alleged 'black widow' Eliza Jumel . They divorced just four months later. The Morris-Jumel Mansion , his home during that time, is today less than two miles away from Alexander's prized Hamilton Grange . They are two of the oldest homes still standing in northern Manhattan. (The Dyckman Farmhouse , in Inwood on 204th Street, is older than Hamilton's house.)

Aaron Burr died in 1836 in Staten Island at a boardinghouse in the Port Richmond neighborhood, not far from the Bayonne Bridge.  The boardinghouse later became the St. James Hotel , where guests could specifically ask to stay in Burr's room for an evening. And sleep in the same bed! A sign even hung over the mantel, "Aaron Burr died in this room."

The former Vice President spent his last, lonely days in this particular room, shying away from curious locals and pouring over old love letters from Eliza. According to a 1895 New York Times article on the subject of his 'deathbed', Burr was hounded by pious ministers who wished to save his soul and release him from his crippling depression.

The article also highlights a very bizarre visitor. One guest at the boardinghouse had an unnatural fascination with Burr, but never spoke to him and kept quietly to himself. When the landlady discovered that Burr was died in his room, the stranger suddenly appeared at the door, opened his satchel and removed the materials to make a plaster death mask of the Vice President. I believe this may be the morbid mask in question!

"A garden, you know, is a very usual refuge of a disappointed politician. Accordingly, I have purchased a few acres about nine miles from town, have built a house, and am cultivating a garden." Alexander Hamilton , in a letter to South Carolina statesman Charles Cotesworth Pinckney , regarding Hamilton Grange

Today's the birthday of Alexander Hamilton , New York's greatest Founding Father (sorry, John Jay ) and a man that embodied the best of American potential with the weaknesses of a modern politician. I continue to find him a fascinating, unusual, frustrating and remarkable historical figure.

The National Park Service is throwing a 257th birthday party for Alexander Hamilton this Saturday at the Founding Father's old home Hamilton Grange , newly moved to St. Nicholas Park . There will be a local historian garbed as Alexander Hamilton. I will be there to get his autograph. Let's get this party STARTED. [Read the flyer here .]

Fellow Hamilton-phile and 'In The Heights' creator Lin-Manuel Miranda asks a question I too have pondered: "Why hasn't anybody done a hip-hop version of Alexander Hamilton's life?" [New York Times ]

If you'd like to take a little somber stroll today, it's about a 40 minute walk from the spot near the Meatpacking District where Alexander Hamilton died to his eternal resting place in the Trinity Church Cemetery . Although he was famously shot by Vice President Aaron Burr in Weehawken, his mortally wounded body was taken to the home of William Bayard "just below the present Gansevoort Street. . . close to the present Horatio Street " where he died. There is a house at 82 Jane Street with a plaque that presumes to mark the spot as the place where Hamilton died, but this has largely been debunked . What is it with dead Founding Fathers and inaccurate plaques? (See: Nathan Hale )

In our third podcast -- and the oldest one currently available for download -- we spent some time discussing Mr. Hamilton.  Listen to it at your peril ; we were very green at this podcasting thing back then. Also, my first proper post on this blog (dated July 5, 2007) was about Mr. Hamilton. Frankly, we do a much better job discussing a building that once served as Hamilton's temporary Treasury office, in our podcast on Fraunces Tavern . And after you listen, go for a visit !

And for some American history laced with camp value, here's some juicy scenes from the 1931 melodramatic biography on the life of Alexander Hamilton, starring George Arliss as the title hero. Interestingly, most of the cast is British.

 

At the legendary Polo Grounds 1925, where the Giants football team (after a couple false starts) finally make their mark on the sport.

The New York Giants , currently in the playoffs and on their way to tackle the formidable Green Bay Packers this Sunday, are football's oldest existing NFL team , and among its greatest -- with seven total championship victories since their debut in 1925.  But that original team, dazzling with such stars as Jim Thorpe at their original home at the Polo Grounds , was not New York's first professional football team. It wasn't even New York's first football team called the Giants!

The first try at a New York Giants football club came in 1919. They were a spin-off of the New York Giants baseball team* , a club considered the best of its day, dominating the sport from the late 19th century and into the 1910s.  Like the baseball franchise, the young Giants football team was to have played at the Polo Grounds as well, the location for many college football contests of the day. But those college games were played on Saturday, and on the month of October 1919, all Saturdays were fully booked.

So the Giants were scheduled to debut on a Sunday, against an Ohio team called the Massillon Tigers . This seemed possible, as team organizers understood that New York's blue law, prohibiting Sunday play, had been removed from the books. But the city quickly clarified: the law had made way for Sunday baseball , not Sunday football.

Since football was more popularly considered a college pastime -- many still questioned the validity of so-called 'professional' teams -- nobody budged for the football Giants. And thus, the game was cancelled, and the team disbanded before they even hit the field.

The team's coach, Harvard football star Charles Brickley , tried again two years later, managing to cobble together twenty-four players , a squad that is sometimes referred to as 'Brickley's Giants' to distinguish them from the 1925 team. And people often choose to distinguish them, because Brickley's Giants were a utter disaster. As one of 21 teams with the American Professional Football Association during its second season, Brickley's team lost both its regular-season games. The Buffalo team actually destroyed them, 55-0.

During a bout with Jim Thorpe 's Cleveland team, The New York Times noted , "The game was lopsided and had little to excite even the most rabid of rooters....[L]ittle can be said for the brand of football displayed."

They were more successful at some exhibition games, such as the one advertised below in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brickley's 'Brooklyn Giants' (as they played at Ebbets Field by this time) against the Governors Island 'Army All Stars', whom they defeated. (Thanks to Paul Luchter for this image.) 

The following year, the American Professional Football Association changed its name to the National Football League , but Brickley's team never made it that far, dropping out for good before the new season. They did continue to play exhibition games, but eventually disbanded by 1923. After these two disastrous attempts, nobody would attempt another Giants franchise for another couple years, when former newsie-turned-bookmaker Tim Mara joined the ascendant NFL with a third go at a New York team. And you know what they say about the third time.

By the way, the Maras have kept the Giants in the family since its 1925 debut. Tim's grandson John Mara is an owner along Steve Tisch (whose last name should be familiar to any students at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts).

*The original Giants baseball team now haunts and torments New York sports fans today in the form of the San Francisco Giants. The franchise moved to the West Coast in 1958.

By the date of this photo (1890), the Fifth Avenue Hotel, facing Madison Square Park, had already seen its share of American political drama.

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 and stagecoach station in the area that was to become 23rd Street and and Fifth Avenue. Many spoke fondly of Thompson's establishment, called Madison Cottage , because they remembered the place as young boys. They recalled the area's rural quality, with carved rectangular blocks carved into the land and a dirt-road Broadway meandering north.

But that was the 1840s. Forty years later, Madison Square Park was the center of New York, a focal point of class, business and luxury that stretched south to Union Square , through that attractive collection of fine stores known as Ladies Mile , and up Fifth Avenue into the fabulous mansions of the rich. And dead center of all that activity was the Fifth Avenue Hotel , not only the "finest [hotel] in this metropolis" , the "leading hotel of the world ," but quite simply one of the most surprising stages for American politics of the mid and late 19th century.

Hotels were fast becoming the center of New York life from at least the days of the Astor House , located near City Hall, in the 1830s. Within two decades, trendy new hotels (such as the St. Nicholas and the Metropolitan ) spread up along Broadway and eventually clustered around Union Square. By the Civil War, the thrust of New York society was so defined by them that Confederate conspirators tried setting fire to a several of them .

The Fifth Avenue Hotel opened in 1859, the venture of wealthy merchant Amos Richards Eno , who accurately gambled that the center of city commerce would soon settle at 23rd Street. So confident a speculator was Eno that he moved from his brownstone at 74 Broadway (the first New York  brownstone, he claimed) to a massive home nearby the hotel.

Some thought it unwise to build so far north, and when workers unearthed dozens of skeletons during construction -- the area once being a potter's field -- the corner was even considered cursed. Eno defied the naysayers, pouring his wealth into the hotel to make it the most modern, most luxurious accommodation of the day.

The Italian exterior was awash in five stories of imported marble, while austere, carpeted interiors of French design drew comparisons to European palaces. Guests enjoyed reading rooms, a luxurious bar, a barber shop, a dedicated telegraph office, and a variety of dining and drawing rooms, not to mention the first passenger elevator ever built in the United States, a steam-powered monstrosity whisking passengers to their floor.  The private quarters were soundproofed, fixtured with the modern innovations in plumbing, and lavishly decorated, becoming to many "the safest, the most healthy and most comfortable hotel in the world. "

As the finest hotel in the city in the post Civil War years, it naturally became a magnet for politicians and financiers. Of all the 'backrooms' of American politics, none were as gleaming as the Fifth Avenue. Bankers huddled in the legendary 'parlor D. R .' during the tense days of the financial panic of 1873 . In particular, the hotel became a de facto headquarters for New York Republicans. While often secondary to the city's Democrats -- this being the era of Tammany Hall 's swelling power -- Republicans were frequently in control of state government, and the Fifth Avenue Hotel became a smoky center of political wheeling and dealing.

During the 1870s, New York republicans became national power brokers and frequently hashed out crises here at the Fifth Avenue. In the years before the Waldorf-Astoria, presidents and dignitaries all stayed here during visits. Seamier political maneuvers took place in the chambers of prominent politicians who held court here, including the inimitable Roscoe Conkling (at left ), senator of New York and leader of the Republican faction known as the Stalwarts .

When fractured Republicans at their convention in 1880 nominated non-Stalwart James Garfield for president, the nominee had to basically grovel for their support by symbolically 'kissing the ring' of the Stalwarts during a visit to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, partially agreeing to their system of patronage and taking Conkling ally Levi Morton as a member of his cabinet. (Garfield later backed out on this arrangement.)

Another frequent guest here was Chester A. Arthur , Garfield's eventual vice president. When Arthur became president after Garfield's assassination by Charles Guiteau (who had himself wandered the hotel's hallways in delusion), he would set up his entire administration here during visits to his adopted city.

By the 1890s, a corridor of the hotel known as the 'Amen Corner ' was a famous congregation spot for Republican political bosses and reporters. As they frequently powwowed here on Sundays, gatherers would caustically shout 'Amen!' during heated discussions.

The hotel became a magnet for shenanigans of all varieties. In 1893, a couple hundred proponents of a U.S. monetary silver standard erupted into a riot that included two U.S. senators. The bank robber Robert Montague was arrested here in 1896 thanks to a tip-off from a chambermaid . An early vestige of baseball's National League met here annually, and the national pool competitions were held in the hotel's billiard room.

By the new century, of course, the locus of New York activity was hastily moving uptown, and the Fifth Avenue Hotel was deemed a relic, even as a brand new structure across the street -- the Flatiron Building -- was being proclaimed the finest building in the city. In 1908 the Fifth Avenue Hotel was torn down and replaced by the 16-story Toy Center (called the Fifth Avenue Building back in the day), the epicenter of toy manufacturing for much of the 20th century.

Pictures courtesy New York Public Library (source )

"On New Year's Day they presented any celebration in Chinatown with fireworks. There have been murders sometimes when the whole joyful populace of the crooked streets of Doyers, Mott and Pell have been patriotically celebrating with gunpowder an historic anniversary." -- New York Times, 1/16/1912

The streets of Chinatown were relatively quiet in 1911, a delicate truce drawn between the neighborhood's two rival gangs, the On Leong and the Hip Sing tongs . But few strolled down narrow Pell Street without fear that old rivalries might return. Fierce battles had erupted throughout the past decade, culminating in dozens of bloody altercations throughout 1909 and 1910. (We outlined some of the violence in our podcast last year on Manhattan's Chinatown .)

A committee of Chinese businessmen finally mediated a truce between the two tongs, but few suspected that hostilities would disappear. The control of On Leong Tong, who had once ruled the Chinese underworld for much of the 1890s, had been whittled away by the interloping Hip Sing Tong. Hip Sing's leader, the flamboyant Mock Duck , often meandered down Pell conspicuously garbed in diamonds and a chain mail vest.

Although Hip Sing was subject to the truce, their allies -- and the only other Chinatown tong of significant influence -- the Four Brothers, were not. This imbalance of control, favoring Hip Sing and keeping Mock Duck in power, was bound to erupt.

At right: Pell Street in 1899. The address 21 Pell Street is out of frame, just to the right.

And so it did one evening one hundred years ago, on January 5, 1912 , at Mock Duck's fan-tan parlor at 21 Pell Street , today the location of the First Chinese Baptist Church . Members of Hip Sing were gathered there, merrily gambling the night away under the glow of dangling light bulbs when three assassins from the On Leong Tong, armed with their trademark Smith & Wessons, burst in and began shooting.

Mock Duck himself may have been in the room that evening. He was certainly there, calmly sipping tea when police arrived. One of his gang members, Lung You, lay dead on the floor, while another, the 'president' of Hip Sing, Chung Pun Sing, was seriously wounded and fled to his home.

Witnesses led police to On Leong's headquarters at 14 Mott Street . By the end of the day, over two dozen Chinese gangsters and bystanders had been arrested, including Mock Duck himself. He was charged with owning a gambling parlor, a fact that could not have been surprising to anybody at the Elizabeth Street police station. He was quickly released.

Top pic courtesy Library of Congress.

Have you ever walked down a New York sidewalk and thought, "I'm wasting so much energy creating my own forward motion. Why can't the sidewalk do some of the work?"In one vision of the future, city sidewalks operated as a conveyor belt, whisking people to their destination in a steady stream of moving seats.

This wacky and most likely death-defying public transport was seriously considered in 1903 as a way to link the three downtown bridges -- the previously built Brooklyn Bridge , the brand new Williamsburg Bridge and the yet-to-be-completed Manhattan Bridge . This 'system of moving platforms or continuous trains' would flow from the Williamsburg Bridge terminal down to Bowling Green via underground tunnels. In essence, a subway without the subway car.

Proposals called for six miles of platform that connected to both elevated trains stations and, presumably, the actual subway platform under construction at City Hall. Passengers got to their seats by a double layer of 'stepping platforms' which moved at different speeds -- 2 1/2, 5 and 7 miles per hour. In theory, one simply alighted from one conveyor to the next. Imagine how fun this would be with a baby carriage or an armful of packages!

Harper's was confident this mode of transport was on its way, citing the use of 'continuous trains' at the Chicago and Paris Expositions and the fervent support by prominent New York businessmen. No less than New York's bridge commissioner Gustav Lindenthal briefly promoted the plan.

Alas, this dizzying and complicated form of basic transportation was never realized. Interestingly, plans for the Second Avenue Subway   below Delancey Street closely mirror the original route of the moving sidewalk. And there are already serious plans for a subterranean park  on the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg Bridge, where the moving sidewalk was to have terminated. So this horror show may yet see the light of day!

Illustration courtesy New York Public Library digital collection

Here's a listing of all the podcasts we recorded in 2011. This year we followed New York's contribution to electricity and film, bridged the Narrows and took to the sky, revisited the Revolutionary War via the city's most influential tavern, and spent the summer surviving riots and conspiracies cooked up during the Civil War. If you missed any, you can download directly via the links below, or find us on iTunes or other podcast aggregate sites.

Our podcasts #120 NYC and the Birth of the Movies and #127 The Civil War Draft Riots and  were our most popular shows of the year, but our most downloaded show of 2011 was recorded in December 2010 -- #118 Times Square .

We both would like to thank everybody for listening in this past year! And we look forward to bringing you new tales of the city in 2012. Also, if everything falls in place, we'll be doing our first real expansion into different media next year.

This is also my 1,000 post for the Bowery Boys: New York City History blog. Onward to 2,000!

#119 The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge

Click here to download 

Blog page: The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge: Robert Moses, Bay Ridge, and the birth of America's longest suspension bridge

#120 NYC and the Birth of the Movies

Click here to download 

Blog page: New York City and the beginnings of the film industry 1894-1918

#121 Fraunces Tavern
Click here to download 

Blog page: Fraunces Tavern: Raise your glass to the Revolution!

#122 The Grid - The Commissioners Plan of 1811

Click here to download 

Blog page: Building blocks: The Commissioners Plan of 1811, inventing a New York grid of streets and avenues

#123 TRUMP

Click here to download 

Blog page: A short history of Trump: the roots of Donald's wealth, from quiet Queens beginnings to glitzy Midtown excess

#124 Idlewild/JFK Airport

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Blog page: Idlewild Airport/John F Kennedy International Airport: from a golf course to a motley crew of classic architecture

#125 Sardi's Restaurant

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Blog page: Dinner at Sardi's: New York celebrity history, wall to wall

#126 Fernando Wood: The Scoundrel Mayor

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Blog page: Fernando Wood, the scoundrel mayor during the Civil War: Will New York and Brooklyn secede from the Union?

#127 The Civil War Draft Riots
Click here to download 

Blog page: The Civil War Draft Riots: New York's worst week ever

#128 Hoaxes and Conspiracies of 1864
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Blog page: Welcome to 1864! A 24-karat hoax, New York's first theme restaurant, and a Confederate plot to torch the city

#129 Chinatown
Click here to download 
Blog page: Manhattan's Chinatown: A tribute to the old neighborhood, and to the temptations of rich delicacies and basement vices

#130 Haunted Histories of New York
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Blog page: Haunted Histories of New York: What horrors lie beneath the foundations of the city's treasured landmarks?

#131 The First Apartment Building
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Blog page: The Stuyvesant, New York's first apartment building: Imported luxury style for a new middle class

#132 Electric New York: Edison and the City Lights
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Blog page: Electric New York: From gaslight to Edison's Pearl Street Station, illuminating the shadows, re-visualizing the night

Francis Guy hangs in good company at the Crystal Bridges Museum.

Wal-Mart is aggressively  lobbying to bring its chain of big box stores to the New York City region. In the meantime, a member of the Walton family is buying up bits of New York and taking it back to Bentonville, Arkansas, the headquarters of Wal-Mart located in the Ozark Mountains.

I just got back from visiting my parents who live in neighboring Missouri and swung by Bentonville to visit the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art , which recently opened in November, the project of Alice Walton , daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. It lands in the region a bit like an alien spaceship, its arched and twisted architecture (think L.A.'s Getty Center as inspired by dinosaur fossils and river gulches) just one mile away from the quaint storefront-turned-museum that was the very first Wal-Mart store.

Alice Walton did an infamous tear through the art scene in the last two decades, buying up a great many well-loved works in anticipation of this project. Along the way, she also bought up a significant area of Brooklyn.

Or rather, its most famous early depiction.Francis Guy was one of America's earliest landscape masters, making his home in the village of Brooklyn in 1817. From then until his death in 1820, he painted what interested him from his second floor window on 11 Front Street, a series of panoramic, cool-hued works capturing both Brooklyn's bustle and serenity.

The Brooklyn Museum proudly displays one version of Guy's spectacular work, called 'Winter Scene In Brooklyn'. But the other version of this painting now sits in Arkansas, at Crystal Bridges. It sits in a  prominent place indeed, across from a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington and a noble portrait by John Trumbull of the man the Stuart portrait was painted for , Alexander Hamilton . They're all in great company in this warm, expansive new building.

By the way, his version of 'Winter Scene' once sat on loan next to its companion at the Brooklyn Museum in 2006. The Brooklyn Historical Society has Guy's summertime version of this view.

A Bill Murray holiday classic is closely linked to a forgotten 1955 teleplay

Tracing itself back to one of America's first television broadcast station, New York's local WCBS -TV can claim a host of significant achievements, including the first regular broadcasts in color and the first baseball game in color (with the Brooklyn Dodgers , naturally).

Their early news documentary series 'Eye on New York' , hosted and produced by future CBS president Bill Leonard , took a break from serious reporting on the evening of Christmas 1955 to broadcast a live version of Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' .  I don't believe a version of this classic exists to view today, but holiday television lovers benefit from one odd quirk of this fleeting program.

At right: Bill Leonard with CBS News correspondent Walter Cronkite.

This version of 'Carol' starred the extraordinary Bronx-born character actor Jonathan Harris (best known as the flamboyant Dr. Smith from 'Lost In Space' ) as Ebenezer Scrooge and Tony Award nominee Biff McGuire as Bob Cratchit.

But far from constructing a dour Victorian London set upon their midtown Manhattan soundstage, Leonard (who wrote the teleplay) decided to change the setting of the story, to modern day New York City. According to author Fred Guida , "this clever conversion preserved the spirit of the original but in the milieu of lower Park Avenue and big industry."

Harris' Scrooge was transformed into the bitter old CEO of Metropolitan Plastics, with Cratchit his elevator man. Scrooge was visited by the various ghosts via "a TV receiver as an up-to-date medium for his unearthly visions," according to Variety .

Leonard's 'Carol' was the very first version of the tale set in New York, and with a modern twist. While this original program has been lost, its cheeky trope has been used in a great many modern shows (especially those of the 1970s and 80s) in 'very special Christmas episodes', to bring holiday realizations to jaded characters from Alex P. Keaton of 'Family Ties' to even the title character of 'Xena: Warrior Princess'.

But the greatest beneficiary of Leonard's holiday twist is the 1988 Bill Murray classic ' Scrooged ' , where a grumpy New York television producer -- filming his own version of 'A Christmas Carol' -- finds epiphany after an evening with three illuminating spirits, including a cab driver played by former New York Dolls singer David Johansen .

And since we're on the subject, here's some more New York holiday themed cheer from Johansen, under the name of his alter ego, Buster Poindexter . Happy holidays from the Bowery Boys!

Early news reporting on the celebration of Hannukah (or Chanukah, as it was popularly referred then) in New York usually took a arms-length approach, as most of their readership knew little about the celebration 100 years ago. More than one old Tribune or World carried a variant of the headline 'Jews Celebrate Chanukah'  , as though there might have been some doubt. A 1905 headline informs : 'Chanukah, Commemorating Syrian Defeat, Lasts Eight Days.'

It wasn't just non-Jews that were misinformed about this seemingly mysterious holiday. A December 1894 edition of the New York Sun asks 'Christmas or Chanukah?' as a prominent rabbi from Temple Emanu-El (pictured at right, in its Fifth Avenue incarnation) "rebukes the tendency of Jews to confuse the festivals." In fact, many Jewish leaders at this time were concerned that many traditions were being abandoned, the better to acclimate in a city that was decidedly more Christian-seeming. 

The wife of American Jewish scholar Richard Gotthell*  worried in 1900 that "this festival occurs so nearly coincident with the Christian festival of Christmas that there is danger that the observance of one may be lost in a gradual assimilation with the other."

But with the mass immigration of Eastern European Jews to New York in the 1900s, soon thousands celebrated the holiday -- and newspapers could hardly be so cavalier.

One event they took particular note of was the Chanukah celebration by the Federation of American Zionists, at the Herald Square Theater on January 1, 1911. One anecdote sprang out at me: "Dr. S. Levin spoke in Hebrew for an hour, on 'Jewish Life and Art.' He took exception to a certain Jewish speaker who recently declared that the Jews had produced nothing in art. Dr. Levin asserted that he was greievously wrong."

Across town at that very moment, a young Russian Jew named Irving Berlin was hammering out tunes in Tin Pan Alley and would debut, just a couple months later, 'Alexander's Ragtime Band', while other songwriters of Jewish heritage, such as Jerome Kern , were right then hard at work reinventing the American songbook. So, yes, Dr. Levin, grievously wrong.

And of course, these Jewish songwriters would go on to even help reinvent Christmas itself via a flurry of popular holiday tunes, like Berlin's own 'White Christmas . '

*Gotthell was also the founder of America's first Jewish fraternity, Zeta Beta Tau, formed in New York in 1898.

I'm not 100% sure on the date of this photo, but I'll place it in the late 1940s, as Life photographer Nina Leen  did a great many photoshoots for the magazine in this period. The statue of Horace Greeley sits astride the big Christmas tree as perfect afternoon light casts shadows upon the corner of 33rd and Broadway. Here's a slightly different angle  of the same scene.

Gimbels , at left, one of America's largest department store chains in the 1940s, was presumably filled with shoppers. The building to its north was is Sak's Herald Square , the ancestor of the far swankier Saks Fifth Avenue.  Out of view at 34th Street is, of course, Macy's.

The Hotel McAlpin , at right, was once the biggest hotel in the world when it was built in 1912. The storefront that sits at the corner of 33rd and Broadway is Crawford's men's clothing store. Today that same corner is occupied by Game Stop .

On the southeast corner of 33rd and Broadway was Whelan's Drugstore , an New York drug store and soda fountain chain in its heyday during the 1940s and 50s. Its business neighbor was Young's hat shop , specializing in Stetsons.

Manhattan grid illuminated, taken from the Metropolitan Life Tower in Madison Square, looking downtown. I'm not sure when this photo was taken, but a reasonable guess might be the late 1910s. The caption says 'New York Edison Company, Photographic Bureau.' (Photo courtesy NYPL )

FOR MORE INFORMATION : We just scratched the surface on the 'war of the currents' and 19th century American achievements in electricity. Luckily there are a great many readable books on the subject. Tom's favorite is 'Empire of Light' by Jill Jonnes which descriptively recounts the battles between Edison and Westinghouse. There's also the breezy 'AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War' by Tom McNichol which is a more sensationalist take on the subject.

 If you want a broader history of electricity and power (one that includes the innovations of steam and gas), nothing is better than Maury Klein 's 'The Power Makers.'

There are dozens of books and films on Thomas Edison himself, but I highly recommend 'The Wizard of Menlo Park' by Randall E. Stross , probably the most engrossing of the books listed.

FURTHER LISTENING: If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like our show on the history of Times Square (Episode #118, find the blog entry here, download the show from here ). And of course, Edison makes a significant appearance in NYC and the Birth of the Movies (Episode #120, blog entry here , download show here ).

Now, if you dare go back to some of our really older shows I also make a mention of electricity's impact on the development of Coney Island. We delve into the Brooklyn amusement neighborhood's early history in Episode #12: Coney Island: the Golden Age (download ). And of course, one of our earliest podcasts ever was on the Blackout of 1977. It's Episode #5, dozens of podcasts ago, so be kind! (here )

The soft luminescence of electric light brings a mysterious glow to City Hall, the New York World Building and the newly opened City Hall subway station in 1904.

PODCAST The streets of New York have been lit in various ways through the decades, from the wisps of whale-oil flame to the modern comfort of gas lighting. With the discovery of electricity, it seemed possible to illuminate the world with a more dependable, potentially inexhaustible energy source.

First came arc light and 'sun towers' with their brilliant beams of white-hot light casting shadows down among the holiday shoppers of Ladies Mile in 1880. But the genius of Menlo Park, Thomas Edison , envisioned an entire city grid wired for electricity. From Edison's Pearl Street station, the inventor turned a handful of blocks north of Wall Street into America's first area entirely lit with the newly invented incandescent bulbs.

ALSO : It's the War of Currents, the enigmatic Nicola Tesla and the world's first electric Christmas lights

You can tune into it below, download it for FREE from iTunes or other podcasting services, or get it straight from our satellite site .

Or listen to it here:
The Bowery Boys: Electric New York

Notes, clarifications, sources, and additional information will be posted next week

The home of Samuel Leggett , the first to be illuminated with gas lighting, at 7 Cherry Street. This home stood  just a few blocks from the location of Edison's Pearl Street Station (255-7 Pearl Street), which would also change the way people consider lighting their city. (NYPL )

Inside the Pearl Street Station: Direct current surged through Edison's generators to the neighboring blocks.

Laying the electrical wires under the streets of the blocks surrounding the Pearl Street station was an arduous, potential dangerous task. It took well over a year to complete the job. (Courtesy NYPL )

'New York The Wonder City ', and indeed it was, thanks to electricity. Whole neighborhoods, like Times Square and Coney Island, were defined by it. Landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge, thoroughfares like the Bronx's Grand Concourse and even Broadway itself were transformed at night by electric power. (NYPL )

Nikola Tesla , the brilliant Serbian inventor who spent his final decades in New York living in hotels and communing with pigeons.

Behold! The first Christmas tree with electrical lighting, courtesy Edison employee Edward Hibberd Johnson. This tree glittered and twirled from Johnson's home in Murray Hill. (Courtesy Jim on Light )

On the fiftieth anniversary of the invention of the lightbulb, an elderly Thomas Edison 'reinvents' it in 1929 at a reconstructed laboratory in Dearborn, Michigan, to the delight of Henry Ford and newly elected President Herbert Hoover.

 And finally, footage of the death of renegade Coney Island elephant Topsy, electrocuted in an Edison experiment of the viability of electric power to kill.

A new podcast will be ready for download later this evening!

The film 'Edison, The Man '  was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, which is appropriate because most of the movie is entirely fictional, including this re-imagining of Edison's Pearl Street Station  and the first blocks cast in the glow of incandescent lights.

In truth, the 'switch' was flipped from the offices of J.P. Morgan at Wall and Broad streets in 1882, and not from the ruddier station on Pearl Street. And, while many were impressed, there was hardly such a hat-tossing ruckus made in the street as depicted here. After all, streets had gaslights already, and some people even criticized the first electrical bulbs with having inferior light.

Williamsburg(h)'s Union Pond, one of the finest destinations for ice skating in the city, 1863. It later became America's first enclosed baseball field.

The nation was at war one hundred and fifty years ago, but that didn't stop the austere celebrations in the 'borough of churches'. But while thousands of Brooklyn residents attended church that morning in 1861, many participated in a more whimsical holiday celebration -- wild and uncontrollable  ice skating .

So famous was the city of Brooklyn's famed ponds -- which reliably froze each winter -- that New Yorkers by the boatloads crammed into ferries across the East River to join in the icy merriment. On really cold days, of course, it was often the East River itself that froze solid. But in 1861, an unseasonable warmth kept the river disappointingly liquid, forcing thousands of skaters upon Brooklyn's small ponds where the ice quickly melted.

For instance, Washington Pond (at right) , at 5th Avenue and 6th Street -- then considered Gowanus, today it's Park Slope -- was normally ideal for skating. Horse-drawn streetcars took crowds right from the Fulton Ferry to the door of the nearby old stone house , built in 1699 and famous for its role in the Revolutionary War. (It's why the pond is named for Washington, after all.) But on Christmas 1861, "the ice was unpleasantly rough" there.

Skaters may have found more success at other Brooklyn skating destinations. The Capitoline Skating Lake , near the train station in the former independent village of Bedford, was known as the "principle pond of the Western District." In Williamsburg, the versatile 'world-renown ' Union Pond  drew thousands during the winter and thousands more in the summer -- as the nation's first enclosed baseball field . On this particular day, the newly opened pond in its 'gay and brilliant appearance' was crammed with skaters laughing and caroling, in various states of sobriety.

By the afternoon of Christmas 1861, most of the closest ponds were mushy and nearly dangerous. At a pond on Third Avenue, "a gentlemen with two ladies fell trough the ice and took their Christmas immersion without any material damage save a very decided shivering," according to the Brooklyn Eagle .

Urban ice enthusiasts were forced to follow the advice of horsecars festooned with the signs 'Good Skating in East Brooklyn'. I'm not sure exactly where crowds went that day, but a New York Times article from a three years later lists several 'free ponds' that might have been available for ice skating that day, including Seller's Pond "in Bedford, near the Jamaica Pond Road", "Dumbleton's Pond on Myrtle Avenue" and the Suydam's Pond , "on Atlantic-avenue near the Hunters-Ferry road.".

All that skating and merriment drove many to more intoxicating holiday spirits, preferring their drinks 'on the rocks', or as the 1861 Eagle reports, "the boys will insist that 'Christmas comes but once a year' and with it comes a large measure of 'good cheer' and so they must get cheerful." The most serious altercation came with one reveler, tiring of throwing rocks at boys, attempted to pistol whip a police officer.

The more respectable Brooklynites traipsed home at dawn, as the gaslights meet the fading light, casting the wet snow in a bright glare. Many reformed again for choirs of caroling, or else to distribute presents at charity 'Christmas tree exercises', where children lined up outside downtown theaters hoping for presents and a gander at the gorgeously trimmed tree, sparkling with candles.

Top pic courtesy NYPL . Second pic courtesy the Old Stone House .

The gritty image of the scrappy 19th century newsboy , the can-do kid slinging newspapers from the street corner, full of vinegar and character, was an encouraging invention of the newspapers themselves. Children were cheap labor, willing to sling stacks of freshly printed papers to corners across the city. Many kids preferred the profession to that of bootblack or messenger boy, and it was certainly more profitable than peddling door to door.

Newsies were frequently mentioned within general-interest stories of homeless, outcast whelps, considered almost blissfully, as though their own news delivery forces weren't themselves part of that pathetic number. The papers stereotyped newsboys (who were occasionally girls, too) as orphans or 'street arabs' with purpose, self-sufficient little adults plucked by their profession from the grasp of destitution.

Many children were homeless; the lucky ones took shelter in 'newsboy lodging homes', but many braved it in doorways and slept over gratings. Some found this life preferable to New York's houses of refuge, dreary orphanages that were often grouped with homeless shelters or other asylums. Those children who did have families took employment out of necessity or as a means of escape. It took organized action (culminating in the Newsboy Strike of 1899 ) and the work of child-labor activists like photographer Lewis Hine to highlight the unsavory conditions and low pay.

Below: A newsboy posing for a Jacob Riis picture at the Duane Street lodging house, 1889

No time was worse for a newsboy than winter. Not only was it physically difficult to sell newspapers in cold and snowy weather -- or worse, the wet, wintry mix that often typifies the New York season -- but children were rarely dressed for comfort. The idea of Christmas was a luxury. As newspapers were sometimes heavier due to increased page count, some children may have even dreaded the holiday.

But the Gilded Age wealthy were charitable around the holiday, and a few lucky 'urchins' got a gracious Christmas handout.

Some groups, like Charles Loring Brace 's Childrens Aid Society , worked year-round to get children off the streets, via 'orphan trains' that sent children to live with families in other places. Those that remained in New York, the ones fortunate enough to find shelter at a newsboys lodging house like the one at 9 Duane Street, celebrated the holidays with an large annual feast hosted by importer William M. Fleiss . The wealthy trader brought annual Christmas meals to the needy children at the lodging house for almost thirty years. "The newsboys were not overlooked by Santa Claus, " said  the New York Times in 1893.

Below: Dinner at a newsboys lodging home, from an earlier period (1867), courtesy NYPL

At the 1897 dinner, the lodging house dining room was festooned with evergreen branches and white linens. Children ate in shifts, enjoying a bountiful feast that included ham, turkey, mashed potatoes and plenty of pie. A familiar face at some of these lodging dinners was a young police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, his father being a co-founder of Brace's aid society.

Reformer Jacob Riis recounts  one such dinner:

"Tramp! tramp! comes the to-morrow upon the stage. Two hundred and fifty pairs of little feet, keeping step, are marching to dinner in the Newsboys' Lodging-House. Five hundred pairs more are restlessly awaiting their turns upstairs....As the file of eagle-eyed youngsters passes down the long tables, there are swift movements of grimy hands, and shirt-waits bulge, ragged coats sag at the pockets. Hardly is the file seated when the pliant rises: 'I ain't got no pie! It got swiped on me.' Seven despoiled ones hold up their hands."

There was plenty of room for shenanigans at this dinner. Another source  confirms that "a few fine, soft pies were deposited down some unfortunate newsboy's back between his shirt and him." By most accounts, however, more food was eaten than thrown.

Fleiss's generosity, while certainly genuine, kept him in good social company. The wife of William Waldorf Astor (not to be confused with her aunt, in social parlance THE Mrs. Astor ) paid for Thanksgiving suppers for the boys. And for Mr Fleiss, charity may have had a more soul-cleansing motive. In 1894, he was accused during the Lexow police corruption investigation of giving a prominent inspector "about $5,000 to $6.000 as a result of speculation in stocks."

Another group of newsboys in 1898 enjoyed a bountiful dinner of "oysters on the half shell, consomme julienne, radishes, celery, salmon, mayonnaise dressing, turkey and cranberry sauce" courtesy of early grocery giant Frank Tilford of Park & Tilfords , the Whole Foods of its day.

Top picture: Photographed by Lewis Hine, caption "Group of newsboys starting out at Brooklyn Bridge early Sunday morning," courtesy NYPL

Charlie Wagner (seen above, in the sombrero) was New York's most skilled and revolutionary tattoo artist of his day, plying his ink trade behind the partition of a "five-chair barber shop" on the Bowery, according to a 1943 New York Times article . His shop was at 11 Chatham Square  (pictured below), unsurprisingly located beneath the elevated train station.

In that article, he heralds the war effort for driving up the demand for tattoos. (The headline of the article is actually 'War Booms The Tattooing Art'.) His most popular piece featured an inked dagger with the phrase "Remember Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941 ."

Wagner is an historic figure of subculture, the "dean of tattoo artists, " designing and administering his work for almost half a decade, from his first apprenticeship in 1908 (in the very shop he was to later own) to his death in 1953. He even held the patent for an "electric tattoo device ", a precursor to the tools used by a modern tattooist.* Wagner decorated many of Coney Island's early sideshow stars and is even credited with being among the first to apply 'permanent lipliner' for women.

But the war also produced unfavorable results for Wagner. He was arrested in 1944 for violating the city's sanitary code due to allegedly unwashed needles.

Sadly, when Wagner died, most of his work was thrown out, so we have little original documentation of his particular artistry. Yet his influence was noted later that decade in an article by young writer Gay Talese . "A tattoo fan can distinguish the precise pecks of Chicago's famous Tatts Thomas from the free strokings of the late Charlie Wagner as easily as an art critic can tell a Modigliani from a Grandma Moses."

*Some also credit the invention of the tattoo machine to Wagner's mentor Samuel O'Reilly , who first owned the Chatham Square tattoo/barber parlor. It seems likely they worked on it together.

Top picture (c 1947) courtesy the blog Inkflesh  who have more information on the history of New York tattoo artists. Secondary picture of Wagner's shop courtesy Monroe Stein/Tumblr

The 24 States: playing field for America's first board game

HOW NEW YORK SAVED CHRISTMAS  My yearly roundup of little events in New York history that actually helped establish the standard Christmas traditions many Americans celebrate today. Not just New York-centric events like the Rockefeller Christmas Tree or the Rockettes, but actual components of the festivities that are practiced in people's homes. You can read past articles in this series here .

Board games are a staple of the holiday gift-giving season and one of the presents most easily guessed correctly by children when sitting wrapped under the tree. My young niece has already texted me strongly implying she would like to see the new UNO ROBOTO  under the tree this year.What if I decided to be the weirdest uncle in the world and give her the first board game ever sold in America -- The Travellers Tour through the United States , first manufactured and sold in New York?

Contests played on wooden boards (like backgammon and chess) have been around for millenia, but they were mostly seen as an adult dalliance, often kingly , sometimes undignified, and almost never for children.

The concept of non-physical boxed games for adolescents developed, not surprisingly, for educational uses. Board games are actually the step-children of maps, with many 18th century European models focusing on geographic instruction. Considering the penchant of European countries to invade each other then, this may have been both useful for teachers and vexing for students.

Historians trace the first real children's board game to that party in a box called The Mansion of Happiness , indoctrinating Puritan values as children maneuvered pieces along a winding, multi-colored path. Although the game was invented in England in 1800, it took several decades to be reproduced in the United States. By this time, New York kids already had their own board game.

It debuted in 1822 , courtesy the brother book publishers Frederick and Roe Lockwood . Their father, the spectacularly named Lambert Lockwood, owned a book store in Bridgeport, Connecticut. According to game historian Joseph Angiolillo , it's believed Lambert also sold 'linen games' which could be unfurled on the floor, folded and put away. (Think of Twister, but less shocking.) The Lockwood's fine home would not be far from that of the downtown Bridgeport residence of P.T. Barnum .

With father's help, the young brothers moved to New York in the late 1810s to start their own publishing business, setting up a small shop at 154 Broadway at Liberty Street  (today, catty-corner Zuccotti Park ). They appear to have specialized in 'foreign works ' -- probably books in other languages -- but had a few startlingly devout titles in their collection, from  "Views on Theology: President Edward's Doctrine of Original Sin, the Doctrine of Physical Depravity" to "The Excellence and Influence of the Female Character." They even dabbled in game instruction with the 1821 guide "Instructive and Amusing Pastimes."

In 1822, they developed an educational tool for the purpose of learning American geography -- a topic not terribly complicated back then -- and called it The Travellers Tour through the United States . Essentially, it was a map of the states and territories, including the freshly unveiled states of Missouri and Maine and the blue lumpen-shaped Arkansas territory. The map was printed on some type of flexible wooden board that could be folded.

The object of Travellers was to give the names of cities and places, with players following a line around the board. Seems easy, right? In a more advanced version of the game, however, one also had to guess the population total. I cannot think of a more apt symbol of the pride for American expansion than this particular feature. The first player to get to New Orleans won.

There were no dice with The Travellers Tour through the United States , being associated with gambling and vice. Instead, players maneuvered around the terrain via a spinner, a far easier method of cross-country travelling than the one chosen by Lewis & Clark several years previous.

The game was clearly successful enough in their store that two expanded versions were created, The Traveller's Tour through Europe and The Traveller's Tour through the World .

The Lockwoods aimed their board games to holiday shoppers. In in the 1820s, however, many New Yorkers didn't celebrate on Christmas; in a Puritan throwback, many believed celebrating on Jesus's birthday itself was too unholy. New Years celebrations, however, were just as relevant, with families visiting the homes of friends and neighbors, often bearing gifts.

The brothers Lockwood were ready: "VALUABLE NEW-YEAR PRESENTS," according to one old newspaper ."The works of Byron, Scott, Cowper, Moore....in elegant bindings." And among the books they sold backgammon and chess boards. With such games for adults, the Travellers series must have seemed a desirable purchase, lest they leave the children jealous.

The Lockwoods continued making books through the 1820s at this location, although it doesn't appear they were in business together after 1830. One source mentions Frederick Lockwood as a watchmaker later in life. His brother Roe, however, stayed in the book business, partnering with his son. It appears he even later published the extraordinary illustrations of John James Audubon .

I'm not sure what happened with the building at 154 Broadway, but if it was still standing in 1845, it was surely destroyed in the Great Explosion of 1845 .

One final note -- in 1822, just as the Lockwoods were debuting their new board game, a wealthy gentleman uptown in his estate (the austere Chelsea manor) became inspired by the holiday season and wrote a festive poem. The following year, that man, Clement Clarke Moore , published it under the title "A Visit From St. Nicholas ," aka 'Twas the Night Before Christmas."

Top pic courtesy NYPL