To wrap up our 15th anniversary celebration -- and to set up our big 400th episode -- we take a fond look at one corner of New York City which taught us to love local history.
Perhaps you know this area for Seward Park, the first municipal playground in the United States, or for Straus Square, named for Nathan Straus, philanthropist and co-owner (with his brother Isidor) of Macy's Department Store. Today, trendy artists and influencers instead spend their weekends in Dimes Square, just one block (and seemingly one world) away.
In the 19th century, as Rutgers Square, this area became a small portion of a large German immigrant community called Kleindeutschland. In an inconceivable historical moment, a statue was almost raised here -- to William 'Boss' Tweed, leader of Tammany Hall.
By the late 19th century, this place was the center for American Jewish culture, and East Broadway became Yiddish publishers row, hosting newspapers and magazines from a host of perspectives. In the 20th century, thanks to a mid-century housing boom (fueled partially by the labor unions firmly rooted to this place), some also called it Cooperative Village, with hundreds of old, deteriorating tenements replaced with new high rises.
It's a neighborhood that means so much to so many -- and we hope you learn to love it all yourself, no matter what you call it.
PLUS: We're join by staff members of the Forward, celebrating its 125th year of publication. Forward archivist Chana Pollack joins us along with Ginna Green and, hosts of the the newspaper column-turned-podcast version A Bintel Brief.
The Algonquin Round Table
#222 Who Killed Helen Jewett? A Mystery By Gaslight
#221 New York: Capital City of the United States
#220 George Washington's New York Inauguration
#219 Newsies on Strike!
#218 Lincoln Center and West Side Story
#217: Truman Capote's Black And White Ball
#216: Edwin Booth and the Players Club
01 The Wheel: Ferris' Big Idea ('The First' Podcast Special Preview)
#215 Ghosts of the Gilded Age
#214 Bronx Trilogy (Part Three) The Bronx Was Burning
#213 Bronx Trilogy (Part Two) The Bronx is Building
#212 Bronx Trilogy (Part One) The Bronx Is Born
#211 The Notorious Madame Restell: The Abortionist of Fifth Avenue
#210 Digital City: New York and the World of Video Games
#209 The Waldorf-Astoria's Complicated History
#208 Great Hoaxes of Old New York
#207 The First Subway: Beach's Pneumatic Marvel
#206 The Lenape: The Real Native New Yorkers
#205 The Disappearance of Dorothy Arnold
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