Category Archives: New York

Photos: Best of Old New York

30 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in New York

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If you’re a fan of old photos, you’ll love a recent post at TheAtlantic.com called “Historic Photos From the NYC Municipal Archives“.

Apparently, the Archives — which are part of the city’s Department of Records and Information Services — “just released a database of over 870,000 photos from its collection of more than 2.2 million images of New York throughout the 20th century” and TheAtlantic.com selected 53 of its favorites which you can see here.

Here are two of my favorites from their list of 53.  First, is a view from the Williamsburg Bridge looking west on Delancey Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side — exactly the area that’s being contemplated for the Low Line Park that I mentioned in my last post.  This photo is from January 29, 1923:

Second, is the famed Sheep’s Meadow in Central Park which, based on this photo, was I guess at one time actually a meadow for sheep (circa 1900-1910:

If you’d like to see the entire catalog of the Archive’s photos, you can visit here.  The browsing functionality isn’t that great, but they have added some categories to help which you can visit here.

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A Toast to Muffins

04 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Food, Muffins, New York

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I’ve always been a fan of nooks.  I’ve also always been a fan of crannies.  So imagine my delight when I was just a lad to come across a food so amazing that it had both.  For the uninitiated, feast your eyes on the goodness that be Thomas’ English Muffins (and the nooks and the crannies):

Makes me hungry just looking at ’em

Meandering through the neighborhood of Chelsea a few months ago, I came across a plaque fixed to a townhouse at 337 West 20th Street (between 9th and 10th Aves) that revealed I’d inadvertently stumbled upon morning muffin holy ground.

The plaque commemorates the location of what is now called the”Muffin House” (a duplex unit inside was recently listed for $1.1million…or ~950K muffins at today’s dollar/muffin exchange rate).

His mama would be proud

In the early 1890s, Muffin House served as the second of two bakeries run by Samuel Bath Thomas (his first bakery was around the corner at 163 Ninth Avenue) who, after arriving in 1874 from England with the dream of bringing his secret recipe to the masses, had quickly made that a reality. Yet although these muffins have been baked on domestic soil for well over a century, I’ve found no records that Sam ever considered amending their name.

Next time you’re in the area, whip out a TEM and toast where it all began.

New York’s Grid…Take 2

03 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Museum of the City of New York, New York

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In Historicalness.com’s last post for 2011 (see below), we highlighted the terrific exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York entitled “The Greatest Grid: The Master Plan of Manhattan, 1811-2011”.

Given the massive influence and readership of this blog, we don’t think it’s any surprise to see in today’s New York Times a favorable review of the same exhibit entitled “The Grid at 200: Lines That Shaped Manhattan“.  Sadly, no credit or attribution was assigned to us in the article.

The Times even used a photo that caught Historicalness.com’s eye as we wandered through the gallery.

Looking a bit sparse...view south from Park Ave and 94th (circa 1882). Source: Museum of the City of New York

Coincidence?  We (prefer to) think not.

Madison Square Park Secret

02 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in Madison Square Park, New York, Statue of Liberty

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Happy New Year!  As this is Historicalness.com’s first post for 2012, I thought we’d kick off the year with a little known fact about one of New York’s most important residents.

For those of you who have seen old photos of Madison Square Park, you may know that in the decades around 1900, there were a number of temporary arches erected around 5th Ave and 24th street, to commemorate various events, including one put up in 1889 to celebrate the centennial of Washington’s inauguration and which served as a bookend to its sister arch half a mile south on the north end of Washington Square Park.

What you might not have seen are photos of New York’s most famous lady, the Statue of Liberty — well, at least her hand and torch — which resided on the western edge of the park from 1876 to 1882. At the time, only the statue’s arm and head were completed, and funds were needed to finish the rest of Lady Liberty (France’s financial responsibility), plus the pedestal she was to stand on (America’s financial responsibility).

There's that torch. At Madison Square Park, view looking north up 5th Avenue.

By 1882, enough funds had been raised in France for completion of the remainder of the statue that the hand and torch returned across the Atlantic for a trial construction of the whole shebang (although she would need to disassembled for her final trip back to New York).

But by the same year, America still hadn’t raised the funding for the pedestal.  It was only after Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of New York’s World newspaper, spearheaded a mass public campaign for donations (80% of contributions were less than $1), that funding was secured.  Finally, in October 1886, the statue was dedicated on Liberty Island.

So next time you’re in the Madison Square Park area, take a minute to walk by the Statue of Liberty’s original New York home.

New York City Property

27 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by in New York, Queen Anne, Trinity Church

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There was a recent article in the NY Times which discussed the deteriorating relationship between the Occupy Wall Street movement and Trinity Church, highlighting the demonstrators’ anger at being prevented from camping on Trinity property.

Trinity Church is one of New York’s largest land holders, stemming originally from a substantial farmland grant — some 215 acres — from Queen Anne in 1705. That’s one great gift, made a full lifetime (or back then, a couple of lifetimes) before the Declaration of Independence.*

At the time, much of this farmland was north of the city center (i.e. north of today’s financial district), and included plots such as the area between West Broadway, Murray, Barclay, and Church Streets in lower Manhattan (one block west of today’s City Hall) which Trinity granted to King’s College.  This is the college that Alexander Hamilton attended after Princeton spurned his request for accelerated study in order to graduate as fast as possible, and the same one that became today’s Columbia University (it smartly changed its named in 1784 — post the American Revolution, it wasn’t the best thing to be associated with the crown), and much later relocated uptown.

But back to Trinity Church and its properties.  Over the centuries, it gave away most of its land, but Trinity Real Estate still owns 8 acres with 6 million square feet of office space in the Hudson Square Area, making it one of New York’s largest real estate owners.  Here are its 15 properties (74 Trinity Place is downtown so not shown):

'Tis good to be a NY land holder, no? Source: Trinity Real Estate

If you’re walking through this neighborhood, keep your eyes peeled for plaques near the front entrances of these buildings which highlight that they’re Trinity’s property.

* Interestingly, Trinity Church had received its charter and an initial land grant in 1697 from King William III, Anne’s brother-in-law.  This was William of “William & Mary” fame (Mary being Anne’s sister) who together overthrew King James — Mary’s dad! — to take the throne of England in 1688.  As William and Mary had no kids, Anne succeeded them.