The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Carl Raymond of The Gilded Gentleman podcast and his guest Keith Taillon invite you into one of the most historically exclusive spaces in New York City -- the romantic and peaceful escape known as Gramercy Park. 

This small two-acre square, constructed in the 1830s, has been called “America’s Bloomsbury”. Taking the reference from London’s famous neighborhood once home to many great writers and artists, New York’s Gramercy Park has similarly included noted cultural icons as architect Stanford White, actor Edwin Booth and the great politician Samuel Tilden. 

Wandering along the park today it’s easy to gain a view back into the past — many of the original Greek Revival brick townhouses and brownstone mansions remain, some still in private hands. The park in the center is one of the most unique places in America — it is a private park, not a city property and its upkeep has been managed since its inception in the early 19th century by the property owners around the park itself. 

Writer and historian Keith Taillon joins Carl for this episode to look back into this hidden pocket of New York City’s past and unlock its history. 

Visit the website for images and other information about Gramercy Park

Follow along with Greg and Tom in this stand-alone travelogue episode as they visit several historic cities and towns in the Netherlands -- Utrecht, De Bilt, Breukelen and Haarlem -- wandering through cafe-filled streets and old cobblestone alleyways, the air ringing with church bells and street music.

But of course, their mission remains the same as the past three episodes. For there are traces of Dutch culture and history all over New York City -- through the names of boroughs, neighborhoods, streets and parks.

From Spuyten Duyvil Creek flowing into the Harlem River along the Bronx shoreline to New Utrecht, Gravesend and Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn. All of those place names can be traced to the Dutch presence of New Amsterdam and New Netherland.

In the final Bowery Boys episode recorded in the Netherlands, Tom and Greg head to several places that have unique links to the New York City area, mostly through Dutch colonial connections made in the 17th century.

Utrecht -- The medieval city with its unique canal wharves and monastery courtyards that may be the bicycle capital of the world. What are its connections to Bensonhurst, Brooklyn?

Breukelen -- How did this charming, quiet old town on the Vecht River become the namesake of the borough of Brooklyn? Both places have "Brooklyn Bridges." But there are a couple of other surprising parallels.

De Bilt -- The ancestral home of the Vanderbilt family, can Tom find one of their 17th-century ancestors among the stones of an old cemetery?

Haarlem -- Manhattan's Harlem remains one of America's cultural centers, and the rustic Dutch city that inspired its name also has cultural riches aplenty -- from its museums to its historic windmill Molen de Adriaan.

WITH -- Mysterious pharmaceuticals, pedal boat misadventures, ghostly apparitions and Aperol Spritzes!

PLUS: The s pecial link between Amsterdam's Jewish Quarter and New York City's Lower East Side -- through pickles

Visit the website for images of their journey

Follow Instagram to see reels from their trip

The name Stuyvesant can be found everywhere in New York City -- in the names of neighborhoods, apartments, parks and high schools. Peter Stuyvesant, the last director-general of New Amsterdam, is a hero to some, a villain to others -- and probably a caricature to all. 

What do we really know about Peter Stuyvesant?

In their last days in Amsterdam (before heading to other parts of the Netherlands), Tom and Greg spend their time getting to know  Stuyvesant, thanks to their special guest Jaap Jacobs, the author of a forthcoming biography on the elusive and controversial figure.

And outside the mayor's residence in Amsterdam's exclusive Gouden Bocht (Golden Bend), they meet up with Jennifer Tosch of Black Heritage Tours (with tours in New York and Amsterdam) to investigate the story of New Amsterdam and the Dutch slave trade.

PLUS They stroll around New Amsterdam on a dark, stormy evening. No really! Well, it's the village of Marken where one can find the closest approximation of what New Amsterdam looked like.

AND A few more myths are dispelled. What actual date should New York City mark as its anniversary -- 1624, 1625, or 1626? Did a letter describing the so-called 'purchase of Manhattan' from the Lenape actually come from New Amsterdam? And was New Amsterdam, in fact, even its real name?

Visit the website for images and other information pertaining to this show

Our adventure in the Netherlands continues with a quest to find the Walloons, the French-speaking religious refugees who became the first settlers of New Netherland in 1624. Their descendants would last well beyond the existence of New Amsterdam and were among the first people to become New Yorkers.

But you can't tell the Walloon story without that other group of American religious settlers -- the Pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts four years earlier.

All roads lead to Leiden, the university city with a history older than Amsterdam. Greg and Tom join last episode's guest Jaap Jacobs, the author of The Colony of New Netherland, to explore the birthplace of Rembrandt, the historic botanical garden and a site associated with Adriaen van der Donck (whose "patroonship," or manor, gives the city of Yonkers, New York, its name).

Then they visit with Koen Kleijn, art historian and editor-in-chief of history magazine Ons Amsterdam, who takes them on a journey through Amsterdam's history -- from the innovative story of its canals to the disaster known as Tulipmania, the 1630 speculative mania that set the stage for generations of stock-market shenanigans.

PLUS: A detour to Amsterdam Noord and a look at a miniature model of New Amsterdam, courtesy of the design and production team at Artitec. And while visiting Ian Kenny from the John Adams Institute, Tom and Greg come upon an old friend holding court in a fountain.

PLUS: Tom sustains an injury --- from a bitterballen!

The epic journey begins! The Bowery Boys Podcast heads to old Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, to find traces of New Amsterdam, the Dutch settlement which became New York.

We  begin our journey at Amsterdam's Centraal Station and spend the day wandering the streets and canals, peeling back the centuries in search of New York's roots.

Our tour guide for this adventure is Jaap Jacobs, Honorary Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the author of The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America.

Jaap takes us around to several spots within the old medieval city -- Centrum, including the Red Light District -- weaving through the canals and along the harbor, in search of connections to New York's (and by extension, America's) past.

This year marks the 400th anniversary of Dutch settlement in North America, led by the Dutch West India Company, a trading and exploration arm of the thriving Dutch empire. So our first big questions begin there:

-- What was the Dutch Empire in 1624 when New Netherland was first settled? Was the colony a major part of it? Would Dutch people have even understood where New Amsterdam was?

-- What's the difference between the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company?

-- To what degree was New Amsterdam truly tolerant in terms of religion? Was it purely driving by profits and trading relationships with the area's native people like the Lenape?

-- The prime export was the pelts of beavers and other North American animals. What happened to these thousands of pelts once they arrived in Amsterdam?

-- How central were the Dutch to the emerging Atlantic slave trade? When did the first enslaved men and women arrive in New Amsterdam?

-- And how are the Pilgrims tied in to all of this? Had they always been destined for the area of today's Massachusetts?

Among the places we visit this episode -- the Maritime Museum, the Rijksmuseum, Amersham's oldest building Oude Kirk, the Schreierstoren (the Crying Tower) and many more

PLUS: We get kicked out of a cloister! And we try raw herring sandwiches.

Visit our website for images and more information

The Bowery Boys Podcast is going to Amsterdam and other parts of the Netherlands for a very special mini-series, marking the 400th anniversary of the Dutch first settling in North America in the region that today we call New York City.

But before they go, they're kicking off their international voyage with a special conversation -- with the man who inspired the journey.

Chances are good that if your bookshelf contains a respectable number of New York City history books, we imagine that one of those is The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America written by Russell Shorto.

The best-selling book re-introduced the Dutch presence in America to a new generation of readers and revitalized interest in New York City history when it was published in 2004.

Kevin Baker (a recent guest on our show), penning the original review for the New York Times, proclaimed, "New York history buffs will be captivated by Shorto's descriptions of Manhattan in its primordial state, of bays full of salmon and oysters, and blue plums and fields of wild strawberries in what is now Midtown." 

And so before Greg and Tom begin their mini-series by speaking with Shorto about his classic book, his experiences in Amsterdam and his work with the New-York Historical Society, where he has curated a new exhibition New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam.

Russell also gives Tom and Greg some tips on places to go and advice on how to explore Amsterdam's old canals and corridors. Is it possible to find traces of New York City's past in that city's present?

And then -- immediately after the interview -- they head for the airport!

Visit the website for more information

Announcing an epic new Bowery Boys mini series -- The Bowery Boys Adventures in the Netherlands. Exploring the connections between New York City and that fascinating European country.

Simply put, you don't get New York City as it is today without the Dutch who first settled here 400 years ago. The names of Staten Island, Broadway, Bushwick, Greenwich Village and the Bronx actually come from the Dutch. And the names of places like Brooklyn and Harlem come from actual Dutch cities and towns.

Over the course of several weekly shows, we'll dig deeper into the history of those Dutch settlements in New Amsterdam and New Netherland -- from the first Walloon settlers to the arrival of Peter Stuyvesant.

But we'll be telling that story not from New York, but from the other side of the Atlantic, in the Netherlands.

Walking the streets of Amsterdam and other Dutch cities, searching for clues. Uncovering new revelations and new perspectives on the Dutch Empire, And finding surprising relationships between New York and Amsterdam.

For this series we visited Amsterdam, Leiden, Utrecht, Haarlem and more places with ties to New York.

 We kick off this mini series next week (June 7). talking with the man who literally wrote the book on New Amsterdam -- Russell Shorto (The Island at the Center of the World)

That's the Bowery Boys Adventures in the Netherlands. Coming soon.

June 7 The New Amsterdam Man
June 14 Adventures in the Netherlands Part One
June 21 Adventures in the Netherlands Part Two
June 28 Adventures in the Netherlands Part Three
July 4 Adventures in the Netherlands Part Four

Consider the following show an acknowledgment – of people. For the foundations of 400 years of New York City history were built upon the homeland of the Lenni-Lenape, the tribal stewards of a vast natural area stretching from eastern Pennsylvania to western Long Island. 

The Lenape were among the first in northeast North America to be displaced by white colonists -- the Dutch and the English. By the late 18th century, their way of life had practically vanished upon the island which would be known by some distorted vestige of a name they themselves may have given it – Manahatta, Manahahtáanung or Manhattan.

But the Lenape did not disappear. Through generations of great hardship, they have persevered.

In today’s show, we’ll be joined by two guests who are working to keep Lenape culture and language alive throughout the United States, including here on the streets of New York

-- Joe Baker, enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians and a co-founder of the Lenape Center, an organization creating and presenting Lenape art, exhibitions and education in New York. 

-- Ross Perlin, linguist and author of Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York

The New York City subway system turns 120 years old later this year so we thought we'd honor the world's longest subway system with a supersized overview history -- from the first renegade ride in 1904 to the belated (but sorely welcomed) opening of one portion of the Second Avenue Subway in 2017.

New Yorkers like Alfred Ely Beach had envisioned a subway system for the city as early as the 1870s. Yet years of political delay and a lack of funding ensured that dreams of an underground transit would languish. It wasn't until the mid-1890s that the city got on track with the help of August Belmont and the newly formed Interborough Rapid Transit.

We’ll tell you about the construction of the first line, traveling miles underground through Manhattan and into the Bronx. How did the city cope with this massive project? And what unfortunate accident nearly ripped apart a city block mere feet from Grand Central?

You'll also find out how something as innocuous sounding as the ‘Dual Contracts’ actually became one of the most important events in the city’s history, creating new underground passages into Brooklyn, the Bronx and (wondrously!) Queens.

Then we’ll talk about the city’s IND line, which completes our modern track lines and gives the subway its modern sheen.

Through it all, the New York City subway system is a masterwork of engineering and construction. In particular, after listening to this show, you won’t look at the Herald Square subway station the same way again.

Today's episode is a remastered and re-edited edition of two 2011 Bowery Boys podcasts, featuring newly recorded material to take the story to the present day.

Visit the website for more information and images

FURTHER LISTENING

Other Bowery Boys podcasts on the subway and mass transit:

Miss Subways: Queens of the New York Commute
Opening Day of the New York City Subway 
The First Subway: Beach's Pneumatic Marvel
Subway Graffiti 1970-1989
Cable Cars, Trolleys and Monorails
New York's Elevated Railroads 
The East Side Elevateds: Life Under the Tracks

The story of a filthy and dangerous train ditch that became one of the swankiest addresses in the world -- Park Avenue. 

For over 100 years, a Park Avenue address meant wealth, glamour and the high life. The Fred Astaire version of the Irving Berlin classic "Puttin' on the Ritz" revised the lyrics to pay tribute to Park Avenue: "High hats and Arrow collars/White spats and lots of dollars/Spending every dime for a wonderful time."

By the 1950s, the avenue was considered the backbone of New York City with corporations setting up glittering new office towers in the International Style -- the Lever House, the Seagram Building, even the Pan Am Building. 

But the foundation for all this wealth and success was, in actually, a train tunnel, originally operated by the New York Central Railroad. This street, formerly known as Fourth Avenue, was (and is) one of New York's primary traffic thoroughfares. For many decades, steam locomotives dominated life along the avenue, heading into and out of Cornelius Vanderbilt's Grand Central (first a depot, then a station, eventually a terminal).

However train tracks running through a quickly growing city are neither safe nor conducive to prosperity. Eventually, the tracks were covered with beautiful flowers and trees, on traffic island malls which have gotten smaller over the years. 

By the 1910s this allowed for glamorous apartment buildings to rise, the homes of a new wealthy elite attracted to apartment living in the post-Gilded Age era. But that lifestyle was not quite made available to everyone. 

In this episode, Greg and Tom take you on a tour of the tunnels and viaducts that helped New York City to grow, creating billions of dollars of real estate in the process. 

FURTHER LISTENING

Listen to these related Bowery Boys episodes after you're done listening to the Park Avenue show:

The Pan Am Building
It Happened In Madison Square Park 
The Chrysler Building and the Great Skyscraper Race
The Rescue of Grand Central Terminal
 

FURTHER READING

This week we're suggesting a few historic designation reports for you history supergeeks looking for a deep dive into Park Avenue history. Dates indicated are when the structure or historic district was designated

St. Bartholomew's Church and Community House (1967)

Seventh Regiment Armory/Park Avenue Armory (1967)

Consulate General of Italy (formerly the Henry P. Davison House) (1970)

New World Foundation Building (1973)

Racquet and Tennis Club Building (1979)

Pershing Square Viaduct/Park Avenue Viaduct (1980)

Upper East Side Historic District Designation Report (1981)

Lever House (1982)

1025 Park Avenue Reginald DeKoven House (1986)

New York Central Building (1987)

Seagram Building (1989)

Mount Morris Bank Building (1991)

Expanded Carnegie Hill Historic District Report (1993)

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (1993)

Pepsi-Cola Building (1995)

Ritz Tower (2002)

2 Park Avenue Building (2006)

Park Avenue Historic District Designation Report (2014)