There is something in the name Niagara Falls that induces in the American imagination a nostalgia for things we’ve never known but feel we’ve always known; of road trips in Winnebagos, of our grandparent’s honeymoon, of holding hands in yellow rain slickers. Ingrained from an early age through black and white movies starring Marilyn Monroe and grainy photos of great ... Read More »
In 1899, The New York Herald hired journalist, and part-time composer, Monroe Rosenfeld to write a series of articles about the burgeoning song-writing business in New York. It is Rosenfeld, in an attempt to convey the cacophony of sound emanating from the popular music houses of the day all at once, who coined the phrase “Tin Pan Alley.” Eventually, the ... Read More »
The headquarters of General Washington and his men, the home of one of early America’s most infamous men, and the location of numerous ghostly sightings- all in a days work for the oldest remaining house in Manhattan. Read More »
Not all things are created for the pursuit of beauty or glory. Sometimes, they are created purely from spite. Such is the case of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. In the midst of a family feud with his aunt, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, William Waldorf Astor decided to take his revenge by building a hotel directly next store to her ... Read More »
Above 8th St. in New York City, the streets run only one of two ways, horizontal from the East River to the Hudson River and vertical, reaching to north to the Harlem River. All except for a single street that is; Stuyvesant St. It is here, on the one street allowed to cut diagonally across from the West Village to ... Read More »
“Once upon a time there was a tavern Where we used to raise a glass or two Remember how we laughed away the hours And dreamed of all the great things we would do” And so begins Gene Raskin’s song, “Those were the Days,” written in the early 1960s as a lament for the passing of the golden folk ... Read More »
With the constant re-vamping of New York City and the bleeding over of neighborhoods into the next (“East Williamsburg,” anyone?), few places have held strong to their traditional roots. In that small subset of Old New York institutions that rages against the dying of the old ways is Ferrara’s Bakery & Cafe, a spot where espresso snobs’ and sugar addicts’ ... Read More »
Celebrations: It is the 4th of July in the US this weekend and there is no better place to celebrate than in New York City. This year the annual fireworks display, put on by Macy’s, returns to the Hudson River where the department store will be launching 40,000 shells on six barges beginning at 9:30pm. Earlier in the ... Read More »
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