Ideas, Opinions, Genealogy, and Book Reviews
This is interesting in several ways. First, there is the name Reidy. OK, that one is probably only of interest to me and a few hundred or maybe a few thousand others.
Also I like stuff about changes in New York City (NYC). Maybe a bigger audience there. And real estate development in NYC has been much in the news lately.
Continue reading “Reidy Restaurant remains and real estate in NYC”
The full title New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal that Launched the Progressive Era was a bit long to fit as my title. The author is Daniel Czitrom. The history of New York City is an interesting one. At least, I find it interesting.
The story is set in gilded age New York City. It was 1892 and the rich were very rich, the poor were very poor, the police and the city government were corrupt, and Tammany was in charge of it all. Continue reading “New York City Exposed”
One of my Christmas presents was City on a Grid: How New York Became New York by Gerard Koeppel. I spend much of the next few days reading and learning about the New York Grid.
One of the first things that strikes a visitor to New York City is the grid pattern of streets in Manhattan. The grid doesn’t include the southern end of Manhattan since the old city was at the southern tip of the island that that just grew organically. The grid doesn’t extend to the far north of the island. But the grid does rule on most of the island. Continue reading “New York Grid”
Thanks to Netgalley I was able to start an advanced reading copy (ARC) of “Gowanus: Brooklyn’s Curious Canal” by Joseph Alexiou before the book was in the stores. Unfortunately I am not a particularly fast reader and so the review is just coming out now, almost a month after the publication date. I grew up in the New York City (NYC) area and enjoy reading about New York City and surrounding areas. I’m also a history fan so this book seemed right up my alley.
I’ve read several books on the history of NYC and Brooklyn is usually mentioned but not in any great detail. This differs from others I have read in that the focus was on Brooklyn. The focus is the canal but there is much about Brooklyn in general but more on the area known as South Brooklyn. Continue reading “Gowanus: Brooklyn’s Curious Canal”
I read a review of the latest addition to the Gaslight series (a mystery in old New York City). It was a favorable review but I have no idea where I saw it. The series involves several murder investigations in old New York City. Yes back in the 1890s when Teddy Roosevelt was a New York City Police Commissioner.
I like some historical fiction and a good mystery so I thought I would give it a try but Murder in Murray Hill which was the new one was 16th in the Gaslight series. So it seemed to me that it was better to start at the beginning.
I did a bit of looking around and learned Continue reading “Gaslight mystery in old New York City: Murder On Astor Place”
I’m categorizing this post as genealogy but it is more about history and I don’t have a history category. I’ve been researching several families in New York City (NYC) and have run across some really good historical maps and some interesting blogs.
The New York City public library has digitalized many historic maps as well as other materials. Although many do not appear to be of the resolution you would like for reading detail, the is a window that lets you zoom in and move the map.
In addition, the David Rumsey Collection has a wonderful collection of digitalized maps that you should be able to view on your computer. The nice thing is that although the map you see at first may not seem to have the resolution you need, you can zoom in on any area. The is also a 1852 map of NYC that is combined with a Google map of the current city. Check it out!
There are several blogs that have good information on New York City history. Some of the pictures are amazing. Some specialize in a certain area. Others are more general. I’ll be adding to this list as I find more.
See the NYC links tab.
I’ve been delving into New York City history today. Yesterday I found out I had made a wrong assumption in my genealogy and I figured today I should figure out what really happened.
Early this year I wrote about my great grandfather William Ready. He died of injuries resulting from a case of reckless blasting on Christmas eve 1895. I had just always assumed the blasting had something to do with creating the New York City subway system.
I was wrong. Continue reading “Reckless blasting in New York City history 1895”