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Posts in Manhattan
Hugh Ryan's When Brooklyn Was Queer
Hugh Ryan's When Brooklyn Was Queer

Hugh Ryan's When Brooklyn Was Queer

Reviewed by Benjamin Serby

“Pick a random book about ‘New York City’ history, and chances are, it will mention Brooklyn… sporadically if at all. The chance that it talks about the queer history of Brooklyn? Nearly zero.” Thus writes Hugh Ryan, a curator and author whose new book, When Brooklyn Was Queer, marks a first attempt at correcting the ingrained Manhattan-centrism of queer studies and recovering the stories of queer Brooklynites in particular.

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Brooklyn, Reviews, Manhattan, Gender & Sexuality, Waterfront & IslandsGuest UserBenjamin Serby, Hugh Ryan, Queer History, LGBTQ, Chicago, American Cultural Survey, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Walt Whitman, Sands Street Bar, George Chauncey, Coney Island, Brooklyn Heights, Stonewall, Gustave Beekman, Hart Crane, Carson McCullers, Harold Norse, Gypsy Rose Lee, Benjamin Britten, Mabel Hampton, Harlem, Jennie June, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Oliver Smith, East RiverComment
How Do We Mourn Publicly? Memorialization and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
How Do We Mourn Publicly? Memorialization and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

How Do We Mourn Publicly?: Memorialization and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By Kim Dramer

Around the turn of the 20th century, the shirtwaist, a type of blouse, was the choice of fashionable New York women. Stylish women in shirtwaists embellished by intricate tucks and lace inserts cut an elegant figure on the streets of New York. But the ample cut of the shirtwaist also gave the freedom of movement required by women who toiled in the city’s sweatshops where the shirtwaists were cut, sewn and trimmed. Across lower Manhattan, garment factories sprang up in which row after row of young women sat behind sewing machines. In their pursuit of the American dream, they toiled long hours for low wages, enduring dangerous working conditions. At the turn of the 20th century, there were more than 500 blouse factories in New York City, employing upwards of 40,000 workers.[1]

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Arts & Culture, Business & Labor, Contemporary Era, Manhattan, Progressive EraGuest UserKim Dramer, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, Memorialization, Julia Wolfe, Fire in my mouth, Anthracite Fields, Steel Hammer, New York University, Lincoln Center, New York Philharmonic, Young People's Chorus of New York City, Ruth Sergel, David von Drehle, Judson Memorial Church, Suzanne Pred Bass, Katie Wiener, Rosie Weiner, Deborah Berke, Yale School of Architecture, Richard Joon Yoo, Uri Wegman, Fashion Institute of Technology, Marry Anne Trasciatti, Andrew Cuomo, Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, The Brown BuildingComment
Contested City: An Interview with Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani
Contested City: An Interview with Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani

Contested City: An Interview with Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani

Today on Gotham, Prithi Kanakamedala interviews Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani about the process of community-engaged pedagogy, collaborative public history, and advocacy around the Lower East Side's SPURA.

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Built Environment, Urban Planning, Housing & Realty, Manhattan, Interviews, Postwar New York, Urban Decline & Fiscal CrisisGuest UserPrithi Kanakamedala, Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani, Lower East Side, Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA), The New School, Marci Reaven, City Lore, New-York Historical Society, Williamsburg Bridge, St Mary's Church, Sheldon Silver, Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES), Pratt Center, Queens Museum, New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), Civil Rights MovementComment
Dreaming Diaspora in Chinatowns Around the Globe: An Interview with Diane Wong
Dreaming Diaspora in Chinatowns Around the Globe: An Interview with Diane Wong

Dreaming Diaspora in Chinatowns Around the Globe: An Interview with Diane Wong

Today on Gotham, Minju Bae interviews Diane Wong, co-curator of Homeward Bound: Global Intimacies in Converging Chinatowns, a recently-concluded exhibition at Pearl River Mart. Homeward Bound displayed photographs from thirteen Chinatowns around the world. These photographs came from the curators’ personal projects to learn from the people who have built homes, families, and communities in a global diaspora. The exhibit will travel to a number of other locations starting in the spring of next year.

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Contemporary Era, Interviews, Manhattan, Race & EthnicityGuest UserComment
Myth #10: Example of Laissez-Faire Planning
Myth #10: Example of Laissez-Faire Planning

Myth #10: Example of Laissez-Faire Planning

By Gergely Baics & ​Leah Meisterlin

Not until 1916 did New York City acquire its comprehensive zoning resolution, the first in the nation. Through the 19th Century, the city’s land-use restrictions comprised a patchwork of fragmented and locally scaled public and private regulatory interventions, including nuisance laws, fire zones, building codes, and deed restrictions in the form of restrictive covenants. Although with this patchwork of caveats, it is fair to describe this early land-use regime as largely unregulated, at least by our contemporary standards.

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Built Environment, Manhattan, Urban PlanningGuest UserGergely Baics, Leah Meisterlin, Commissioners' Plan, William Perris, The GridComment
Happenings: Art, Play, and Urban Revitalization in 1960s Central Park
Happenings: Art, Play, and Urban Revitalization in 1960s Central Park

Happenings: Art, Play, and Urban Revitalization in 1960s Central Park

By Marie Warsh

On November 16, 1966, an unprecedented event took place on the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. Beginning at midnight, thousands of New Yorkers convened on the park’s largest lawn to watch the Leonid meteor showers, which were expected to be particularly brilliant. Although the crowd was let down — dense cloud cover prevented visibility — the gathering nonetheless offered a convivial atmosphere. Spectators brought chairs, blankets, and hot beverages, and the event became an after-dark picnic, with some marveling at the novel scene. One woman observed, “All these people in the park after midnight, and no one is getting mugged.”

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Arts & Culture, Nature & Environment, Postwar New York, ManhattanGuest UserComment
The Deuce Times Two
The Deuce Times Two

The Deuce Times Two

By Jeffrey Escoffier

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The famous opening line of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities certainly seems like an appropriate way sum up 1970s New York, but I cite it also because the novel itself comes up in The Deuce’s first season as a book that launches a young prostitute on the road to reading and going back to school. Objectively life in New York City during the 1970s and early 80s was pretty bad — high crime rates, rampant homelessness, loose trash everywhere, whole neighborhoods of abandoned buildings crumbling and burning — yet it was an incredibly creative time as well: in music, art, performance, theater and sexuality. This was brought home to me recently when a 70-year-old retired professor of history said to me: “I know everything was so terrible in that period, but it was also incredibly exciting.”

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Arts & Culture, Crime & Policing, Gender & Sexuality, Manhattan, Urban Decline & Fiscal CrisisGuest UserComment
Ephemeral Reminders of the Good Government Movement
Ephemeral Reminders of the Good Government Movement

Ephemeral Reminders of the Good Government Movement

By Sandra Roff and Sarah Rappo

For an archivist, opening a box from an unexpected archival collection can reveal strange and often wonderful items that can shed light on persons, places or events. Much of what is found between the pages of reports, tucked into scrapbooks, or loosely scattered in cartons can prove to be unexpected treasures for researchers. Under the umbrella term ephemera, the value of these archival finds has been chronicled in assorted journal articles and in the publications of the Ephemera Society.

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Progressive Era, ManhattanGuest UserComment