Manhattan

Relic Hunting in Northern Manhattan

Reginald Pelham Bolton

“I chanced to visit an old inn near Fort George some years ago and I noticed a human skull that the proprietor kept among the bottles above his bar.  The man told me he had unearthed it, together with several swords and cannon balls, in his yard.  I offered to buy it, not caring much [...]

Read the full article →

215th Street Stairs

215th Street stairs in Inwood, New York City

Generations of Inwood residents have trudged up and down the familiar stairs which connect Broadway with Park Terrace East. The steps themselves have stood frozen in time as the surrounding neighborhood reached maturity. The stairs are a familiar sight to anyone who has ever passed through Inwood. The ancient passageway was built in an era [...]

Read the full article →

The Undiscovered Country: Northern Manhattan in 1904

Seaman Drake Arch in 1904

In 1904 Inwood’s first modern apartment building appeared on the corner of Dyckman and Broadway (then still referred to by many as the Kingsbridge road). The erection of the Solano and Monida Apartments should have have served as warning that the agrarian lifestyle residents had known for so many generations was  nearing an end.  So [...]

Read the full article →

1943 “Inwood Chatter” Advertisements: Now and Then

Inwood Chatter, 1943.

Not long ago I posted the contents of a June, 1943 issue of the “Inwood Chatter,” essentially a scrapbook put together by local schoolchildren and sponsored by local businesses. While the topic of children living under the cloud of war is a fascinating topic, my attention eventually turned to the advertisement section at the back [...]

Read the full article →

A Civil War Veteran and His Inwood Truck Farm

Inwood Truck Farm post

Imagine yourself a soldier returning from the Civil War. Disoriented. Jobless. Before that bloody War Between the States you had been a farmer.  A New York City farmer at that! But Manhattan had changed much in your absence. You simply couldn’t plant a potato patch wherever you pleased anymore. Gone were the wide-open farms and [...]

Read the full article →

Down and Out on a Dyckman Street Barge

Texas Guinan

“Today, Isobel and Margaret have only memories, but with ambition undimmed.  They exist in poverty on a discarded and rotting river barge.  It wouldn’t even float were it not jammed in the mud of stagnant Sherman Creek, near the Dyckman Street landing in New York.” (San Jose News, August 8, 1928)   As the summer [...]

Read the full article →

The Arras Inn

Thumbnail image for The Arras Inn

In 1928 pulp fiction author Vina Delmar burst onto the publishing scene with “Bad Girl,” a shocking and scandalous exploration of pre-marital sex and pregnancy. At the time of its publication “Bad Girl” was considered so racy it was banned in parts of the country. The petite 23-year-old with porcelain skin and lustrous black hair [...]

Read the full article →

A Grain Field in City Limits: Inwood, 1895

Thumbnail image for A Grain Field in City Limits: Inwood, 1895

A GRAIN FIELD IN CITY LIMITS NEW YORK HERALD July 14, 1895 It Waves at 211th Street Awaiting the Reaper and Is Manhattan’s Last IS ON HISTORICAL GROUND That Part of the Island Was Devastated by Two Armies in the Time of Washington POINTS OF INTEREST NEAR BY “RIPE and awaiting the scythe of the [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries