![Mora. [Lillian Russell]. ca. 1880. Museum of the City of New York. 39.368.87](https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/untitled010-e1471019185541.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
My Hand-tinted Summer: The Cabinet Card Collection
The Museum holds an amazing collection of cabinet cards and carte-de-visites featuring an array of Broadway entertainers, opera singers, and popular personalities (as well as some of their pets), … Continue reading
A Dinner on Horseback
We have written about quite a few dinners and parties of the Gilded Age on this blog but I don’t think many top C.K.G. Billings’s Horseback Dinner held at Sherry’s Hotel and … Continue reading
An American Pioneer in Photojournalism: Jessie Tarbox Beals
March is Women’s History Month, a time when we celebrate women’s contributions to our history, culture, and society. This month provides the perfect opportunity to highlight some of these female … Continue reading
The short, sad story of actress Clara Bloodgood
On the evening of December 5, 1907, respected actress and society woman Clara Bloodgood fatally shot herself in a Baltimore hotel room. She was in town to star as the … Continue reading
Lucy Ashjian and the Photo League
The name Vivian Maier is well known today – a talented photographer recently plucked from anonymity and brought to the attention of the wider world. Few, however, know Lucy Ashjian, … Continue reading
![Samuel H. (Samuel Herman) Gottscho (1875-1971), Colored Concrete Statue "Motherhood", flanking passsages to Great Court [at Harlem River Houses], 1936. Museum of the City of New York. 41.239.4](https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/mny75490.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
Affordable New York: Harlem River Houses
The Harlem River Houses complex, located along the Harlem River Drive between 151st and 153rd Streets, is a site full of firsts. It was the first public housing development in … Continue reading
The New York City Marathon: The Great Race
The New York City Marathon began humbly in 1970, with 127 participants running laps around Park Drive in Central Park. On that day a total of only 55 runners crossed … Continue reading
Speedway Concourse and Transverse Road, AKA the Grand Concourse
In 1874 the disparate villages of Westchester County (Morrisania, Kingsbridge, et al.) were annexed to New York City and formed what we now know as the Bronx. At the time, … Continue reading
Cymbeline; what’s a love story without some scandal?
It was January 25, 1897, the opening night of William Shakespeare’s romance Cymbeline, based on the legend of an early Celtic British king, at Wallack’s Theatre. The lavish production starred … Continue reading
Napoleon Sarony: Celebrity Photographer
Before paparazzi and the celebrity media we all live with today, there were 19th century photographers, like Napoleon Sarony (1821-1896), who became internationally renowned for their celebrity portraits. Born in Québec, Sarony began his … Continue reading
A Call to Serve: Scenes from the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service
With fresh tears in her eyes, a young girl approached Lillian Wald, a graduate of New York Hospital School of Nursing. Concerned for the girl’s well-being, Wald followed the child … Continue reading
![Vandamm. [Maurice Evans as Sir John Falstaff in "King Henry IV, Part I".] 1939. Museum of the City of New York. 68.80.6292](https://mcnyblog.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/68-80-6292.jpg?w=155&h=110&crop=1)
Vandamm Studio
27 years. Over 2,000 Broadway productions. Countless negatives of every conceivable actor who graced the New York stage. Saying that the Vandamm Studio was the photograph studio for Broadway would … Continue reading
Benjamin J. Falk, photographer and master of light
It’s 1881. You’re an actor in the latest smash-hit sensation. Wanting to gain a little publicity for yourself, the show, and a potential national tour, the producers send you off to … Continue reading
