New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Great Depression

The Great Depression in New York City: A Primer

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Crowd in front of the New York Stock Exchange, October 1929As the 1920s advanced, the economy soared. But with that dramatic expansion came irrational exuberance and unchecked speculation: stock prices reached levels that had no basis in reality; margin purchases were rampant; banks handed out loans lavishly and imprudently; and giddy product production resulted in a vast oversupply of goods.

On Tuesday, October 29, 1929, it all came crashing down. This is the story of the Great Depression in New York City. [Read more…] about The Great Depression in New York City: A Primer

Hudson River Tugboat Views: The West Shore Railroad, Track Walkers & Hoboes

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Tug Callanan No 1 at Troy June 25, 1954 (Hudson River Maritime Museum)Railroads have been operating along the east shore of the Hudson River for virtually its entire length between New York and Albany since 1851 and along the west shore of the river from Haverstraw [in Rockland County, NY] to a point below West Park [in the Town of Esopus, Ulster County] since 1883, Hudson River boatmen have had plenty of opportunity to observe the changes that have taken place over the years in railroading. [Read more…] about Hudson River Tugboat Views: The West Shore Railroad, Track Walkers & Hoboes

Central Park Casino: The Epitome of Jazz Age New York City

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Central Park Casino, Late 1920sThe Central Park Casino, situated at Fifth Avenue and 72nd Street, was a premier New York City restaurant and nightclub, epitomizing the era of the Jazz Age. The Casino, with its grand dining room and perfectly polished dance floor, entertained some of the most prominent names in New York, from Tammany Hall politicians to Broadway stars and even royalty. Yet this exclusive, glamorous, and somewhat dangerous, appeal that was the Casino’s trademark, led to its demise during the darkest days of America’s great financial crisis. [Read more…] about Central Park Casino: The Epitome of Jazz Age New York City

New York City In the Roaring 20s: A Primer

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Jazz, the Charleston, flappers, prohibition and a lot moreAs the ravages of the First World War and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic receded into the past, a new spirit gripped New York City. Energy seemed to infuse every aspect of city life, from business to leisure and everything in between. For a decade, New Yorkers by and large lived, worked and partied with abandon. [Read more…] about New York City In the Roaring 20s: A Primer

Wall Street History: The Great Depression & A New Deal For Working People

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out of work men during the Great Depression (retouched)In 1933, during Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s first year as President, the Democrats launched a number of New Deal social welfare and economic recovery efforts to combat the Great Depression.

Among the more popular and successful of these was the creation of the Public Works Administration (PWA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), jobs programs which were modeled on similar programs in New York State. [Read more…] about Wall Street History: The Great Depression & A New Deal For Working People

The First Great Reset: Wall St, the Great Depression & the Pecora Commission

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Crowd at New York's American Union Bank during a bank run early in the Great Depression (ca 1931)Initially many thought the severe Wall Street crash of October 1929 was a temporary phenomenon and like many subsequent crashes (i.e. 1987, 2008) the stock market would recover in a few months or years.

Unfortunately, this did not prove to be the case. After some upward spurts, stocks on the New York Stock Exchange continued to fall for the next three years and economic conditions throughout the country continued to worsen, so that by 1932 the market closed at 41, a drop of 89% over its 1929 high of 381. Employment in Wall Street firms plummeted, as the once heady activity evaporated and the Great Depression took hold.

The response would require a great reset between Wall Street and working Americans. [Read more…] about The First Great Reset: Wall St, the Great Depression & the Pecora Commission

Wall Street History: Individual Investors & The Crash of 1929

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Gasoline Marketing Territories of the Standard Oil companies in 1918The break-up of Standard Oil and other monopolies during the Trust-busting Era, created somewhat greater competition, but did not significantly impact Wall Street, or its major players. For example, after the success of the Justice Department in the 1911 Supreme Court Case United States v. Standard Oil (in which the Court ruled that Standard Oil of New Jersey violated the Sherman Antitrust Act), the company was ordered broken into 34 ostensibly independent companies. *

The stock in each of these companies was distributed to Standard Oil Company shareholders (principally the Rockefeller family) and each company had separate boards of directors and separate management, but by and large they continued to operate on separate floors of the same building — 26 Broadway in Manhattan. [Read more…] about Wall Street History: Individual Investors & The Crash of 1929

Featured Collections: Great Depression Photos

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Farm and woodlot in New York State about thirty miles west of Albany by Paul Carter FSA Photo courtesy Library of CongressBetween 1935 and 1942 photographers of the New Deal’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) documented the lives and struggles of Americans enduring the Great Depression.

Considered one of the largest documentary photography projects ever undertaken, the photographs include some of the most familiar and powerful images of the nation to emerge from the Depression. Many have reached iconic status in American culture.

The images, held at the Library of Congress, were made in every region of the nation and number in the tens of thousands, and include are photographs made by Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Ben Shahn, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, Carl Mydans, Russell Lee, John Vachon, Marion Post Wolcott, Jack Delano, and many others. [Read more…] about Featured Collections: Great Depression Photos

Albany County’s West Mountain: Some History

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Lewis Sherman HouseWest Mountain refers to the highlands in the southwest quadrant of the Town of Berne, NY, and is the highest point in Albany County at 2,160 ft.

A map of Van Rensselaer Patroonship leases made in 1787 does not shows anyone living on West Mountian, but white settlers probably started clearing land there within a few years of that date.  A few years later there were enough folks to organize the Baptist Church of Christ, just north of the Rensselaerville-Berne town line. A schoolhouse was built next door, jointly operated by both towns. [Read more…] about Albany County’s West Mountain: Some History