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Robert Chiles

Back To The Borscht Belt: Jewish Vacationland Ruins in the Catskills

December 10, 2021 by Robert Chiles Leave a Comment

The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America's Jewish VacationlandThe latest episode of Empire State Engagements features a conversation with Marisa Scheinfeld on her book The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish Vacationland (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016).

She discussed her work as a historian and photographer to document and convey the history, ruins, nature, pathos, and possibility of the shuttered Catskill resorts that transformed Jewish American history and helped form twentieth-century U.S. popular culture. [Read more…] about Back To The Borscht Belt: Jewish Vacationland Ruins in the Catskills

Filed Under: History, Hudson Valley - Catskills Tagged With: Catskills, Historic Preservation, Podcasts, Tourism

The Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age

October 7, 2021 by Robert Chiles Leave a Comment

Saving Americas CitiesThe most recent episode of Empire State Engagements features a conversation with Dr. Lizabeth Cohen Professor in the Department of History at Harvard, who discussed her Bancroft Prize-winning book Saving America’s Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). [Read more…] about The Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Architecture, development, Historic Preservation, Nelson Rockefeller, New York City, Podcasts, Roosevelt Island, The Bronx, Urban History

Sailors’ Snug Harbor on Staten Island (Author Interview)

July 25, 2021 by Robert Chiles Leave a Comment

Bosom FriendsThe most recent episode of Empire State Engagements features a conversation with Dr. Thomas J. Balcerski of Eastern Connecticut State University about his New York History journal article “‘The Little Spark of Manhood I Have Left’: Governor Thomas Melville and the Aged Seamen of Sailors’ Snug Harbor,” and his recent monograph Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). [Read more…] about Sailors’ Snug Harbor on Staten Island (Author Interview)

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Cultural History, Labor History, Maritime History, Podcasts, Social History, Staten Island

Scorsese’s ‘Gangs of New York’ and New York History

June 24, 2018 by Robert Chiles 4 Comments

D.T. Valentine’s Manual, “The Five Points in 1859,” 1860 Because I teach urban history, immigration history, and in particular New York history, I often have students inquire about the merits of Martin Scorsese’s 2002 film “Gangs of New York.”

Here are a few observations about the movie and about New York history. [Read more…] about Scorsese’s ‘Gangs of New York’ and New York History

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Immigration, New York City, Tammany Hall, Vice

Ward’s Island Fire And New York’s Charitable Hospitals

February 23, 2018 by Robert Chiles Leave a Comment

“The Homeopathic Hospital on Ward’s Island,” 1875Readers will recall that one of the most important periods of reform in New York history was spurred by the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of March, 1911: in the wake of this horror, protective labor legislation was passed at a frenzied pace, informed by the State Factory Investigating Commission and shepherded through the legislature by Assemblyman Alfred E. Smith and Senator Robert F. Wagner.

It is a tragic, even shameful irony that the Empire State’s major initiative for improving one aspect of its health care infrastructure was to be inspired by another, less well known conflagration. On February 18, 1923, only seven weeks after Al Smith was inaugurated for his second tenure as governor, a fire at a hospital for the mentally ill on Ward’s Island in New York killed twenty-four patients and three state employees. [Read more…] about Ward’s Island Fire And New York’s Charitable Hospitals

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Medical History, New York City, Public Health, tuberculosis

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