Greg and Tom have taken off their historian hats and have become -- movie critics? Close but not quite!

This week we're giving you a 'sneak preview' of their Patreon podcast called Side Streets, a conversational show about New York City and, well, whatever interests them that week. In honor of the Academy Awards, the Bowery Boys hosts pay homage to the great Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert while looking at five award-worthy films with strong New York City connections:

-- Anora with its captivating south Brooklyn locations

-- A Complete Unknown, taking us back 1960s Greenwich Village 

-- Wicked, a spritely interpretation of the Broadway musical

-- The Brutalist, an epic about more than just architecture

-- Saturday Night, a frenetic tribute to the comedy-show icon which turns 50 years old this year

To listen to all episodes of Side Streets, support the Bowery Boys on Patreon 

This episode was edited by Kieran Gannon

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Alain Locke's classic essay "The New Negro" and the literary anthology featuring the work of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen and other significant black writers of the day.

The rising artistic scene would soon be known as the Harlem Renaissance, one of the most important cultural movements in American history. And it would be centered within America's largest black neighborhood -- Harlem, the "great black city," as described by Wallace Thurman, with a rising population and growing political and cultural influence.

During the 1920s, Harlem became even more. Along "Swing Street" and Lenox Avenue, nightclubs and speakeasies gave birth to American music and fostered great musical talents like Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington. Ballrooms like the Savoy and the Alhambra helped turn Harlem into a destination for adventure and romance.

What were these two worlds like -- the literary salons and the nightclubs? How removed were these spheres from the everyday lives of regular Harlem residents? How did the neighborhood develop both an energetic and raucous music scene and a diverse number of churches -- many (like the Abyssinian Baptist Church) still around today?

Visit the website for more details and more podcasts

Get tickets to our March 31 City Vineyard event Bowery Boys HISTORY LIVE! here

And join us for our Gilded Age Weekend in New York, May 29-June 1, 2025. More info here.

This episode was edited by Kieran Gannon

One of America's first great Italian neighborhoods was once in East Harlem, once filled with more southern Italians than Sicily itself, a neighborhood almost entirely gone today except for a couple restaurants, a church and a long-standing religious festival.

This is, of course, not New York's' famous "Little Italy," the festive tourist area in lower Manhattan built from another 19th-century Italian neighborhood on Mulberry Street. The bustling street life of old Italian Harlem exists mostly in memory now.

If you wander around any modern American neighborhood with a strong Italian presence, you'll find yourself around people who can trace their lineage back through the streets of Italian Harlem. Perhaps that includes yourself.

But it's not all warm nostalgia and fond recollections. Life could be quite hard in Italian Harlem, thanks to the nearby industrial environment, the deteriorating living conditions and the street crime, the early years of New York organized crime.

So who were these first Italian settlers who left their homes for what would become a hard urban life in upper Manhattan? What drew them to the city? What traditions did they bring? And in the end, what did they leave behind, when so many moved out to the four corners of the United States?

Visit the Bowery Boys website for more adventures into New York City history

This show was produced by Kieran Gannon.

FURTHER LISTENING: Past Bowery Boys episodes with links to this show
-- The Story of Little Italy
-- Nuyorican: The Great Puerto Rican Migration
-- Columbus Circle

Join us on Patreon for extra podcasts and lots of other goodies

Share your love of the city’s history with a Bowery Boys Walks gift certificate! Our digital gift cards let your loved ones choose their perfect tour and date.

Grab a Bowery Boys tee-shirt, mug or water bottle at our merchandise store.

A star of the New York City skyline is reborn -- the Waldorf Astoria is reopening in 2025! And so we thought we'd again raise a toast to one of the world's most famous hotels, an Art Deco classic attached to the Gilded Age's most prestigious name in luxury and refinement.

Now, you might think you know this story -- the famous lobby clock, Peacock Alley, cocktail bars! -- but do we have some surprises for you.

The Waldorf Astoria — once the Waldorf-Astoria and even the Waldorf=Astoria — has been a premier name in hotel accommodations since the opening of the very first edition on 34th Street and Fifth Avenue (the location of today’s Empire State Building).

But the history of the current incarnation on Park Avenue contains the twists and turns of world events, from World War II to recent diplomatic dramas. In essence, the Waldorf Astoria has become the world’s convention center.

Step past the extraordinary Art Deco trappings, and you’ll find rooms which have hosted a plethora of important gatherings, not to mention the frequent homes to Hollywood movie stars.

To celebrate the renovated hotel's reopening this spring, the Bowery Boys present a newly re-edited and re-mastered version of their original show from 2016.

This show was re-edited and remastered by Kieran Gannon.

Join us on Patreon for extra podcasts and lots of other goodies

Share your love of the city’s history with a Bowery Boys Walks gift certificate! Our digital gift cards let your loved ones choose their perfect tour and date.

Grab a Bowery Boys tee-shirt, mug or water bottle at our merchandise store.

There were very few history podcasts around back in the year 2008, but the Bowery Boys Podcast was certainly here ... and so was The Memory Palace, hosted by Nate DiMeo, presenting small, often forgotten vignettes from history in a descriptive, narrative format.

In this special interview episode, Greg talks with Nate on the occasion of his new companion book "The Memory Palace: True Short Stories of the Past" (Penguin Random House) which features many of his fable-like historical portraits, including many from New York City history -- from revolutionary amusements on Coney Island to less frequented corridors within the Metropolitan Museum of Art

And Greg and Nate go deep on the relationship between history and memory, on the reliability of memory to help us relive the past and how our own experiences can help fill in the gaps within histories that seem lost to us today. 

Featuring a couple of elephants, the Wallendas, Parks and Recreation, the X-Men, a very large painting of Versailles, and the big secret about the monster hiding in your closet right now.

Listen to episodes of The Memory Palace here. it's also available on Spotify, Apple and the other podcast players, the same places you find the Bowery Boys. 

This episode was produced by Kieran Gannon. 

To donate to those affected by the California wildfires, head over to these verified fundraisers at GoFundMe

Join us on Patreon for extra podcasts and lots of other goodies

Share your love of the city’s history with a Bowery Boys Walks gift certificate! Our digital gift cards let your loved ones choose their perfect tour and date.

Grab a Bowery Boys tee-shirt, mug or water bottle at our merchandise store.

Just the name "Tiffany" evokes the glamour and elegance of the Gilded Age. But there is much more to the story than just the eponymous retailer who continues to sell fine jewelry and decorative objects today. 

In this episode of the Gilded Gentleman podcast, Carl Raymond is joined by Lindsy R. Parrott, the Executive Director of The Neustadt Collection, one of the country's most important collections of Tiffany glass and archival materials, to discuss the two Tiffanys - Charles Lewis Tiffany who began the original retail silver and jewelry and his son Louis Comfort Tiffany who created revolutionary designs in stained glass.   

Subscribe and follow The Gilded Gentleman Podcast for more tales of America during the Gilded Age.

This episode was edited by Kieran Gannon

Greenwich Village is one of America's great music capitals, an extraordinary distinction for an old neighborhood of tenements, townhouses, dive bars and a college campus.

So many musical titans of jazz, folk, pop and rock and roll got their start in the Village's many small nightclubs and coffeehouses, working alongside artists, writers, actors and comedians to create an American cultural mecca unlike any other.

And it was here, on January 24, 1961, that a nineteen-year-old young man from Minnesota entered the fray -- Robert Zimmerman, otherwise known as Bob Dylan.

The Village completely transformed the young folk singer into the voice of a generation, working out his transformation on the minuscule stages of the Gaslight, Cafe Wha? and Gerde's Folk City.

But this show isn't strictly about Dylan's ascent to greatness, but the neighborhood -- the people, the streets, the basements! -- which cultivated artists like Dylan (and Billie Holiday and Nina Simone and Pete Seeger and Barbra Streisand and Joan Baez and so on.)

PLUS: Bob Moses and Jane Jacobs stop by for a hootenanny (and a protest)

Visit the website for a list of music credits, research sources and further listening ideas

Join us on Patreon for extra podcasts and lots of other goodies

Share your love of the city’s history with a Bowery Boys Walks gift certificate! Our digital gift cards let your loved ones choose their perfect tour and date.

Grab a Bowery Boys tee-shirt, mug or water bottle at our merchandise store.

Does your personal library overwhelm your home? Are there too many books in your life -- but you'll never get rid of them? Then you have a lot in common with Gilded Age mogul J.P. Morgan!

Morgan was a defining figure of the late 19th century, engineering corporate mergers and crafting monopolies from the desk of his Wall Street office. In the process Morgan became one of the wealthiest men in America -- but he did not tread the traditional path through New York high society. He preferred yachts over ballrooms.

And books! There were so many books that Morgan decided to start the new century with his own personal project -- the construction of a library.

Today the Morgan Library and Museum is open to the public and, as an active and thriving institution, continues to highlight the world's greatest examples of the printed word -- from Charles Dickens's manuscript for A Christmas Carol to past exhibitions on Beatrix Potter, James Joyce and even The Little Prince.

Tom and Greg explore the biography of J. Pierpont Morgan then head to the Morgan Library to speak with Jennifer Tonkovich, the Eugene and Clare Thaw Curator of Drawings and Prints. And then they wander through the winding connections of buildings that comprise the Morgan Library & Museum -- from Morgan's study (and its 'hidden' vault of books) to the glorious main stacks.

Visit the website for further images and information

Join us on Patreon for extra podcasts and lots of other goodies

Share your love of the city’s history with a Bowery Boys Walks gift certificate! Our digital gift cards let your loved ones choose their perfect tour and date.

Grab a Bowery Boys tee-shirt, mug or water bottle at our merchandise store.

The Rockettes are America’s best known dance troupe — and a staple of the holiday season — but you may not know the origin of this iconic New York City symbol. For one, they’re not even from the Big Apple!

Formerly the Missouri Rockets, the dancers and their famed choreographer Russell Markert were noticed by theater impresario Samuel Rothafel, who installed them first as his theater The Roxy, then at one of the largest theaters in the world — Radio City Music Hall.

The life of a Rockettes dancer was glamorous, but grueling; for many decades dancing not in isolated shows, but before the screenings of movies, several times a day, a different program each week. There was a very, very specific look to the Rockettes, a look that changed — and that was forced to change by cultural shifts — over the decades.

This show is dedicated to the many thousands of women who have shuffled and kicked with the Rockettes over their many decades of entertainment, on the stage, the picket line or the Super Bowl halftime show.

This show is a re-edited and remastered version of our 2014 show with a new introduction -- in honor of the upcoming 100th anniversary celebration of the dance troupe which would become the Rockettes.

Join us on Patreon for extra podcasts and lots of other goodies

Share your love of the city's history with a Bowery Boys Walks gift certificate! Our digital gift cards let your loved ones choose their perfect tour and date.

Grab a Bowery Boys tee-shirt, mug or water bottle at our merchandise store.

What is Thanksgiving without the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? The annual march through Manhattan -- terminating at Macy's Department Store -- has delighted New Yorkers for a century and been a part of the American tradition of Thanksgiving since it was first broadcast nationally on television in the 1950s.

Macy's began the parade in 1924 as a way to promote the new Seventh Avenue extension of their Herald Square location -- and to overshadow its department store rival Gimbel's. That first parade had many of the hallmarks of our modern parade -- from floats to Santa Claus - however it was much longer. Six miles!

One major tradition is thankfully gone -- releasing the parade balloons into the air and encouraging New Yorkers to chase after them. After one near disaster in 1932 (airplane, meet balloon zebra) this curious contest was discontinued.

By the late 1930s, the real world began seeping into the fairy-tale parade route, and during World War II, the parade was cancelled entirely -- a prohibition kicked off in a rather violent balloon deflation ceremony led by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.

Television would change the parade -- and the holiday -- forever. With NBC broadcasting starting in the 1950s, people could tune in from across the country, creating more opportunities to promote .... everything!

By the 1970s, the parade was a festival of commercialism, a beloved kitsch-fest featuring lip-syncing vocalists, ever larger balloons, morning show hosts and product placements embedded within other product placements.

But harsh winds and cold could be detrimental to the balloons and, sometimes, to the bystanders. Why will you never see a Cat In The Hat balloon in the parade again?

FEATURING: A cast of B and C list celebrities, thousands of out-of-town marching bands and a few favorite balloons (Snoopy, Underdog, the Tin Man and more)

Visit the website for pictures and other information about the parade

Read Greg's extensive article on the New York City connections of the film Miracle on 34th Street

The energy and personality of New York City runs through its local businesses -- mom-and-pop shops, independently run stores and restaurants, often family run operations.

We live in a world of chain stores, franchises, corporate run operations and online retailers that have run many of these kinds of stores out of business. But what is New York without its diners, its small book shops, its curious antique stores and its historic delis?

These kinds of shops contribute to the health of a neighborhood. And today we're celebrating them with Nicolas Heller, better known to his 1.4 million Instagram followers as New York Nico, "the unofficial talent scout of New York City."

But he's also helped lift up small businesses and even helped them survive through the pandemic and beyond.

And now Heller's new book New York Nico's Guide to NYC, he highlights 100 of his favorite small business from all five boroughs. So we thought we'd geek out with him for about an hour, talking about our favorite small places in the city.

FEATURING: Astor Place Hairstylists, Pearl River Mart, Katz Deli, Casa Amadeo, Fishs Eddy, DeFonte's in Red Hook and many, many more

And remember to shop local this holiday season!