New York Illustrated by Camera: Manhattan in the 1930s
August is a time for traveling, and so with the city full of visitors this month, we’re turning our attention to the outsider lens on New York, circa 1930. Recently, … Continue reading
Tea, a New York drink
Okay, coffee is more popular, be it a regular deli cup (hot, light, and sweet) or a compostable cup of slow-drip, cold-brewed, artisanal bean. With your alluring caffeinated goodness and … Continue reading
Brigs, Barges & Wild Rovers: Transit from the Port of New York
Before the mid–20th century, when air travel took over as the fastest mode of transporting people and our things around the globe, our ancestors primarily relied on ships for trade … Continue reading
Alexander Hamilton’s “sweet project”: The Grange
Now that Alexander Hamilton has been restored as one of the most talked-about New Yorkers (including his story’s place as Broadway’s best new musical in the 2016 Tony Awards sweep), … Continue reading
Young Chuck Connors, Mayor of Chinatown
“Mayor of Chinatown” Chuck Connors enthralled New Yorkers around the turn of the century with tall tales and colorful language describing the ethnic neighborhood he inhabited. Connors claimed to have … Continue reading
How a Colonial Relic Became a Civil War Memento: Tracing Object History in the Silver Collection
Over the course of digitizing the Museum’s silver collection, we’ve come across many objects with storied histories, but not many can weave a historical path through our collection with the … Continue reading
State Dinners at the Lotos Club
New Yorkers, as we know, love to document their peer group—even colonial New Yorkers did it, as Curator Bruce Weber recently described in a post on the City Musuem’s exhibition … Continue reading
Ice Skating
Nobody is certain when humans first began ice skating, but it is believed that they did so at least a few thousand years ago. The first skates were sharp pieces … Continue reading
The New York Women Who Dismantled Prohibition
Women have been considered some of the most visible advocates of the temperance movement—the movement beginning in the nineteenth century to voluntarily abstain from drinking alcohol. Less known is … Continue reading
The Sporting Life: A look at Harry T. Peters as huntsman
Harry Twyford Peters was born in Greenwich, Connecticut in 1881, and entered the coal business after graduating from Columbia College in 1903. He worked at Williams and Peters, his … Continue reading
Can you hear me now?
Most of us hardly think about the technical logistics of communication these days. With the touch of a few buttons we can send an email or text message, or pick … Continue reading
Hygienic whiskey and little nerve pills: The rise of direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising
Before the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, the manufacture and sale of so-called “medicine” in the United States was unregulated. This wild west atmosphere enabled … Continue reading
Celestial Sphere, Color Movies, Gardens on Parade!
Help the Museum digitize its 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair Collection! The Museum’s New York World’s Fair collections continue to be a major resource for researchers all over the globe, … Continue reading
