Tag Archives: Books About New York City

A Rarity – Summer Vacations In The Late 19th Century

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19th Century Summer Vacation?

For Most People There Was No Such Thing.

Congress Hall Hotel, Saratoga Springs, NY ad 1886

Summer is underway. For many people summer vacation plans are in place.

Yet, vacations are something we take for granted and are a relatively modern notion.

What was leisure like in the late 1870s?

Your family lives in the city. Your job as a shipping clerk; pressman; dressmaker; bookkeeper; engineer; blacksmith; engraver or iron worker pays the bills, and you may be able to put a little money aside each month.

New York Sun Help Wanted ads 1872

Your work schedule: 10 hours a day, six days a week.

Days off?

One. Sunday. The Lord’s day of rest. Continue reading →

Book Review – Of Things That Used To Be, The Bronx In The Early 20th Century

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A Step Up From New York’s Tenements

Nathan (Nat) D. Lobell’s Of Things That Used To Be  A Childhood On Fox Street In The Bronx In The Early Twentieth Century is a memoir concentrating on a striving South Bronx neighborhood full of  immigrants, primarily Jewish, Irish and Italian between World War I and the 1920s. Continue reading →

Women’s Corsets, Bras, Underwear, Silk Petticoats And Bodices -1919

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Undergarments For Women From James McCreery & Co. 1919

The two illustrations seen here are excerpts from a full page ad. This advertisement comes from the April 27, 1919 New York Sun daily newspaper. Shown is an array of intimates of the late teens that a fashionable woman would wear beneath their clothes.

The uptown location of James McCreery & Co. at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street Continue reading →

Hotel Brunswick & Windsor Hotel Fifth Avenue – 1891

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A Typical Day On Fifth Avenue -1891

Here are two views of Fifth Avenue from the 1891 book History And Commerce Of New York (American Publishing and Engraving).

In our first illustration above we are looking north along Fifth Avenue towards The Hotel Brunswick (with flag on the roof) at the corner of 26th Street.

The second illustration below, Continue reading →

Old New York In Photos #169 – Elevated Train 1872

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An Early Elevated Train In New York 1872

This magic lantern slide came with absolutely no identifying information.

What can you glean from the photograph?

This early boxy type engine runs on steam and is named “Kingsbridge.” It is almost certainly named after the Bronx neighborhood. Many of the early engines had names like “Brooklyn” and “Spuyten Duyvil.”
Continue reading →

Books About The General Slocum Disaster

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June 15, 1904: The Steamer General Slocum Is Consumed By Fire At Hell Gate Killing Over 1,000 People, Mostly Women and Children

Crowd gathered around the recovered body of a child from the General Slocum, North Brother Island, New York City, June 1904 photo George Ehler Stonebridge / NY Historical Society

This year marks the 120th anniversary of a tragedy that has been mostly forgotten, the General Slocum Disaster.

If you are unfamiliar with the General Slocum and the inferno that killed over 1,000 people, we  previously wrote about it here.

Delving deeper into full length accounts of the General Slocum, you have several choices.

A total of eight books and two government reports are solely devoted to the tragedy and encapsulate the story thoroughly. Continue reading →

Harlem In the Teens & Twenties As Seen By Frederic A. Birmingham

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Growing Up In Bucolic Harlem Before And After World War I

Frederic A. Birmingham’s 1960 memoir of New York, It Was Fun While It Lasted (J.B. Lippincott Company), describes a Harlem which few New Yorkers would recognize today.

The action takes place from approximately 1915 -1925, when Birmingham was between the ages of 4 and 14. Continue reading →

Old New York In Photos #160 – 38th Street Between 11th & 12th Avenues

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An Area Surrounded By Change, 38th Street Off 11th Avenue – 1934

This photograph taken by Percy Loomis Sperr on August 31, 1934 shows a mostly desolate section of the west side of Manhattan. 38th Street between 11th and 12th Avenues has still not been absorbed by the Hudson Yards building boom.

There has been great change, but there are many vacant lots and Incredibly nearly 90 years later, Continue reading →

Irish New York 1964 – From Earl Wilson’s New York

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A Vanished Irish New York Described By Columnist Earl Wilson

The Bronx, Gaelic Park, Irish Bars and Dance Halls

Earl Wilson (1907 – 1987) was a New York Post based nationally syndicated columnist (It Happened Last Night). Wilson also wrote several books during his nearly fifty year journalism career.

Among Wilson’s best books is an atypical guide book to New York called Earl Wilson’s New York (Simon and Schuster, 1964).

While Wilson covers some of the usual touristy things to do, such as where to stay and eat, he also writes about “Where To Find A Psychiatrist For Your Dog” Continue reading →

New York City Prostitution in 1870

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New York Prostitution By The Numbers – 1870

Over 10,000 Prostitutes Of All Types In A City of 942,292

A Mix Of Farmers Daughters, Servants, Teetotalers, Drunkards, Native Born, Recent Immigrants, Widows, The Young, Single & Refined Ladies & Illiterates

Illustration From George Ellington's book The Women Of Of New YorkFrom an interesting and self-published 1870 book, Personals or Perils of the Period by Joseph Hertford comes this analysis of the prostitutes of New York. There were at least 10,000 prostitutes coming from various work backgrounds and social statuses. Excerpting from this chapter, Hertford writes: Continue reading →