Old New York History

New York City: 1917 (Vanity Fair, 1917)

A VANITY FAIR article covering the social and patriotic transformation of New York City just eight months after The U.S. entered the First World War:

Already the greatest manufacturing center in the world, our coming into the War made New York the money center, the distributing center, the very hub of the universe as far as resources were concerned. London and Paris sank to the level of mere distributing points….


An additional event took place in 1917: Congress granted full U.S. citizenship rights to the citizens of Puerto Rico – but they didn’t move to New York until the Fifties. Click here to read about their integration.

New York City: 1917 (Vanity Fair, 1917) Read More »

New York City Bars at Four in the Morning… (Stage Magazine, 1937)

Tickled by the New York laws that prohibited bars from serving spirits between the hours of 4:00 to 8:00 a.m., this correspondent for Stage Magazine, Stanley Walker, sallied forth into the pre-dawn darkness of a 1937 Manhattan wondering what kind of gin mills violate such dictates. He described well what those hours mean for most of humanity and then begins his catalog of establishments, both high and low, that cater to night crawlers.

For something a shade rougher, more informal, smokier: Nick’s Tavern, at 140 Seventh Avenue South [the building went the way of Penn Station long ago], dark and smoky, with good food and carrying on in the artistic traditions of the old speakeasies.


Click here to read about the arrest and conviction of New York’s high society bootleggers.

New York City Bars at Four in the Morning… (Stage Magazine, 1937) Read More »

Greenwich Village Bohemians (Vanity Fair, 1916)

Robert Benchleystyle=border:none (1889 – 1945) drama critic, humorist and actor. Upon graduating from from college (1912) he began his career writing for a number of New Yorkstyle=border:none papers. At the time this witty anthropological study of Greenwich Village wildlife was printed, Benchley was serving as a contributing editor for Conde Nast’s ‘Vanity Fair’.

Click here if you would like to read a 1934 profile of Robert Benchley.

Greenwich Village Bohemians (Vanity Fair, 1916) Read More »

A Word on New York Waiters (Stage Magazine, 1939)

Waiters are to New York City what lobbyists are to Washington and celebrated illustrator, author and all-around foodie Ludwig Bemelmans (1898 – 1962) had some thoughts on this very diverse group:

New York is full of waiters, Chinese, American, Congo, French, Italian and German waiters, Jewish and Christian waiters, Vegetarian and Greek waiters, many good waiters, many bad waiters.

Click here to read an article by Benny Goodman concerning the arrival of Swing on Park Ave.

A Word on New York Waiters (Stage Magazine, 1939) Read More »

Frank Lloyd Wright Hated the U.N. Building (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1947)

When architects and builders howled in protest when the firm of Wallace Harrison (1895 – 1981)was commissioned in 1947 to design the United Nations Center in New York City, the editors of SCRIPT MAGAZINE dashed off asking Frank Lloyd Wright to pick up his quill and ink-up his arguments against the project – and here it is.

Frank Lloyd Wright Hated the U.N. Building (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1947) Read More »

Sing Sing Prison: Home of the Bad New Yorkers (Click Magazine, 1938)

Sing Sing Prison was where the vulgar New Yorkers of the criminal variety spent much of their time:

Murderers and felons, rogues and embezzlers, an average of 2750 of them inhabit Sing Sing Prison at Ossining, N.Y. on the bank of the Hudson River. Theirs is a world apart. A world of gray stone walls and steel bars. When the gates clang shut behind them they enter upon a life scientifically regulated by Warden Lewis E. Lawes (1883 – 1947)…CLICK MAGAZINE takes you inside the grim walls and shows you what happens to the convicted criminal from the day he is committed to Sing Sing Prison until the day he leaves as a free man.

This is a photo-essay that is made up of twenty-five black and white pictures.

Read about the religious make up of Sing Sing Prison in the Thirties.

Sing Sing Prison: Home of the Bad New Yorkers (Click Magazine, 1938) Read More »