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.
#189 TAXI: History of the New York City Taxicab
#188: The Murder of Stanford White
#187: Super City: New York and the History of Comic Books
#186 Hell's Kitchen: New York's Wild West
#185 Adventures on Governors Island
#184 The Flatiron Building: A Story from Three Sides
#183 Orchard Street: Life in the Lower East Side
#182 Mae West: "Sex" on Broadway
#181 Park Slope and the Story of Brownstone Brooklyn
#180 The Chelsea Piers and the Age of the Ocean Liner
#179 The Fight for Bryant Park
#178: The Crystal Palace: America's First World's Fair
#177 The Big History of Little Italy
#176 Billie Holiday's New York
#175 Bowery Boys 2014 Year In Review
#174 American Kicks: A History of the Rockettes
#173 Ruins of the World's Fair: New York State Pavilion
#172 Ghost Stories of Brooklyn
#171 The Keys to Gramercy Park
#170 The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra