David Grim’s Fairy Tale: The New York City Fire in Myth

By Benjamin L. Carp

On September 21, 1776, a fifth of New York City burned to the ground... But for almost 250 years, most New York City historians either ignored the Great Fire… or argued for its unimportance. They assumed that the fire was caused either by accident or by apolitical miscreants, and they chose to diminish the reports of outraged eyewitnesses who believed the fire was deliberate… most Americans never heard this story, then or since…

Africans in Harlem: An Untold New York Story

Reviewed by David O. Monda

Boukary Sawadogo’s book Africans in Harlem: An Untold New York Story resonated with me as an African migrant living in Harlem. From the introductory section, “Africa in Harlem,” to the conclusion of the last chapter, “Searching for Africa in the Diaspora,” the writer allowed me to understand the genesis, formation, and growth of this community.

Contemporary Era, Immigration, Manhattan, ReviewsGuest UserDecember 20, 2022Comment

Stephanie Azzarone, Heaven on the Hudson

(Podcast) Stephanie Azzarone, Heaven on the Hudson

Interviewed by Robert W. Snyder

On the west side of Manhattan, Riverside Park winds between the banks of the Hudson River and the elegant housing of Riverside Drive. In her new book Heaven on the Hudson: Mansions, Monuments, and Marvels of Riverside Park (Fordham UP, 2022), Stephanie Azzarone seeks to lift the park and its surroundings from the shadows of more famous places, like Fifth Avenue, Central Park, and Central Park West.

Built Environment, Housing & Realty, Interviews, Manhattan, Nature & Environment, Podcasts, Waterfront & IslandsGuest UserDecember 7, 2022Comment

“Fellow Citizens Too”: Puerto Ricans and Migration Politics in the New York Amsterdam News, 1954

**“Fellow Citizens Too”: Puerto Ricans and Migration Politics in the New York Amsterdam News, 1954**

By Daniel Acosta Elkan

On March 1, 1954, four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire on the members of the House of Representatives from the gallery of the body’s chamber in Washington DC. This was but the most dramatic event in an important year for the Puerto Rican diaspora, and its effects were felt in profoundly local ways. In East Harlem, the most prominent stateside Boricua community, the FBI conducted a number of raids on bars, restaurants, and other community spaces. The New York Amsterdam News, the city’s leading Black newspaper, reported that “Negroes and Puerto Ricans are reportedly being rounded up, searched, and subjected to other indignities.”

Immigration, Manhattan, Politics, Postwar New York, Race & EthnicityGuest UserNovember 16, 2022Comment

Before Central Park

Reviewed by Kara Murphy Schlichting

Before Central Park is Sara Cedar Miller’s fourth publication about New York City’s famous greensward. Miller is historian emerita and, since 1984, a photographer for the Central Park Conservancy. Before Central Park is distinctive in its combination of Miller’s photography, her expert understanding of the park’s geography and archeology, and her meticulous real estate history of parkland from the 17th through the 19th centuries.

Central Park Soundscapes: The Rumba Cypher

By Berta Jottar

Since the late 1950s, New York City has been an epicenter of rumba outside Cuba. For more than six decades, a rumba circle in Central Park has embraced those of African descent from Spanish-speaking islands (Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans) and Latin America (Panamanians, Colombians), local African Americans, AfroLatinxs (Nuyorican, NuyoDominicans, Cuban Americans) and those from other diasporas including American Jews. A focus on Central Park rumba illustrates the intricacies and ancestral functionings of the African Diaspora present in contemporary New York.

Arts & Culture, Immigration, Manhattan, Parks, Race & EthnicityGuest UserSeptember 6, 2022 Comment

Dutch-American Stories: Mass Murder on Manhattan

By Mark Meuwese

Settler colonialism is not a story of friendly relations throughout. The confrontation with an unfamiliar other creates wariness and suspicion and often leads to violent outbursts in which noncombatants become innocent victims. Manhattan in the seventeenth century was no exception, as the events of 1643 show.

Manhattan, Native Americans, New Amsterdam, Race & EthnicityGuest UserJuly 26, 2022 Comment

Review: Hugh Ryan’s The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison

Reviewed by Rachel Corbman

Fifty years ago, an art deco prison towered over Greenwich Village. Between the years of 1929 and 1971, tens of thousands of women and trans masculine people passed through the Women’s House of Detention, waiting for a trial or serving sentences. In The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison, Hugh Ryan convincingly demonstrates why this largely forgotten prison matters to queer history. Despite Ryan’s central focus on the so-called House of D, The Women’s House of Detention does not read like an institutional history. Rather, Ryan weaves together the life histories of dozens of women and transmasculine people, following them before and after their time at the House of D.

Crime & Policing, Gender & Sexuality, Manhattan, Reviews, BrooklynGuest UserJuly 19, 2022Comment

Review: Terry Williams, The Soft City: Sex for Business and Pleasure in New York City

Reviewed by Timothy J. Gilfoyle

Public sex in New York evolved amidst wide-ranging social and economic change in Gotham from 1979 to 2018. The “Disneyfication” of Times Square and the elimination of the most visible forms of public pornography attracted the most attention and commentary. But an evolving sexual revolution of sorts simultaneously occurred throughout the city. For four decades, the sociologist and ethnographer Terry Williams was watching closely, taking notes. Literally.

“Never No Wells of Lonelinesses in Harlem:” Black Lady Lovers in Prohibition Era New York

By Cookie Woolner

In 1928, the British novel The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall was published in the United States, which brought conversations on the topic of lesbianism into the mainstream like never before. The book was one of the first on the subject written by someone who openly identified as queer. Although the novel was deemed controversial and became the object of censorship trials in the United States and at home in Britain, this notoriety helped it become a best seller in bookstores nationwide, including in Harlem. In February 1929, African American journalist Geraldyn Dismond reviewed the annual masquerade ball at the Hamilton Lodge, which had become one of the preeminent institutions of queer life uptown.