News and Views from the Empire State
In the course of the nineteenth century, powerful and relatively stable explosives were developed. Dynamite became synonymous with radicalism and the moniker “dynamitist” preceded that of terrorist.
On September 16, 1920, a bomb was set off on a busy corner of Manhattan’s financial district. At 12:01 pm, a horse-drawn wagon concealing 100 pounds of dynamite was detonated. The blast killed thirty-eight people. [Read more…] about The First Red Scare: Socialist Suppression and Explosive Anarchism
During the American Civil War – which, despite attempts to argue otherwise, was in effect America’s crusade against slavery – several hundred thousand citizens from New York State enlisted in the United States Army.
Many from Saratoga County (and also some from Essex and Fulton Counties) joined the 77th Regiment, its unit number chosen to recall the 1777 Battle of Saratoga during the American Revolution. It was known as the “Bemis Heights Regiment,” the place so evocative of the “turning point” of the War of Independence. [Read more…] about The Life and Death of Saratoga’s Statue to the 77th Regiment
New York State Police report they were involved in a pursuit from Utica into the heart of the Adirondacks 90 miles away.
Police say strip spikes were deployed twice, but did not stop the driver. The pursuit ended at Blue Mountain Lake, in Hamilton County. [Read more…] about Police Chase Winds Through Adirondack Park
In 1912, investigative journalist Alfred Henry Lewis published The Apaches of New York, an anecdotal narrative of notorious gangs in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
What strikes here is the use of the word “apache” in the sense of urban gangster. The term was re-imported from French slang in reference to thugs that roamed the eastern districts (“faubourgs”) of Paris prior to the First World War. [Read more…] about Apaches in Paris and New York
Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site has announced a virtual book club, set for the month of August that features Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal by author Jack Kelly. [Read more…] about ‘Heavens Ditch’ Virtual Book-Club Read
The term “red light district” is believed to have first appeared in print in Ohio in 1894.
One folk etymology relates that red light districts referred to areas frequented by off-duty railroaders, but this is probably apocryphal. The story goes that railroaders would hang their lanterns outside so the crew-callers could find them, but red lights already had an association with prostitution, and therefore areas of vice, long before that. [Read more…] about Mame Fay: Stories From Troy’s Red Light District
In a short essay published earlier this week in Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian Institute Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch wrote that the recent killing in Minnesota of George Floyd has forced the country to “confront the reality that, despite gains made in the past 50 years, we are still a nation riven by inequality and racial division.” [Read more…] about Smithsonian Offers ‘Talking About Race’ Portal
During Prohibition the social life of so many Americans was made criminal overnight. Here’s a little nugget from the July 2, 1931 Ticonderoga Sentinel.
One wonders if the men arrested here ever served any hard time. I suspect they did. [Read more…] about July 1931: Prohibition Agents Seize A Still Near Lake George
In early November 1966, my sister and I ― armed with a bucket of home-made paste, a wide brush, and a thick roll of “Vote No” posters ― headed off from my student apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to plaster the surrounding area with the signs.
The Patrolman’s Benevolent Association (PBA), a very powerful police union, had placed a referendum on the New York City ballot to remove civilians from the Civilian Complaint Review Board. [Read more…] about Subversion of NYC’s Police Brutality Policies: A Short History
The killing – some would say execution – of George Floyd by a senior Minneapolis police officer (and field trainer) and the militarized police response to Black Lives Matter protests have led to calls for a systematic reevaluation of policing in the United States.
The issues raised by protestors are definitely not new. In 1960, James Baldwin wrote in an Esquire magazine article that the police “represent the force of the white world, and that world’s real intentions are, simply, for that world’s criminal profit and ease, to keep the black man corralled up here, in his place.” [Read more…] about The 1900 New York City Anti-Black Police Riot