New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Manhattan

Shoemaking to Sewing Machines: One Central NY Cobbler’s Path to Prosperity

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Russel Crego & Son Business Card, c.1885Shoemaking was a common trade for centuries, but quickly became a casualty of the industrial revolution in the 19th century. The development of the sewing machine in the 1840s, by Elias Howe, Isaac Singer (from Pittstown, Rensselaer County, NY) and others revolutionized the textile industry.

Machines that could stitch leather for shoes soon also appeared and events like the Civil War spurred the technology on. The U.S. Army ordered thousands of machine-made boots for its soldiers. During this time, Russel Crego (1820-1892) was one New York shoemaker who made a very successful leap from making shoes by hand to selling sewing machines, not only to factories but to the home market. [Read more…] about Shoemaking to Sewing Machines: One Central NY Cobbler’s Path to Prosperity

Meppel to Manhattan: Duveen, Altman, and the Relocation of European Art

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front of Benjamin Altmans Department StoreMeppel is relatively small Dutch municipality in the north-easterly agricultural province of Drenthe. It is a market town for dairy products, cereals, and pigs. What is the association between this sleepy country place and cosmopolitan New York City? [Read more…] about Meppel to Manhattan: Duveen, Altman, and the Relocation of European Art

Jet Ski Invasion of NY Harbor Rounds Manhattan’s Tip

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ECO Currey observing more than 400 jet skis approaching on the Hudson River in 2021 Jet Ski InvasionOn June 26th approximately 400 jet skis traveled from Long Island City in the East River, around the tip of Manhattan and up the Hudson River toward the George Washington Bridge, part of the annual New York City Jet Ski Invasion. [Read more…] about Jet Ski Invasion of NY Harbor Rounds Manhattan’s Tip

Modernist Misogyny & Lady Penrose of Poughkeepsie

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Vogue cover March 15 1927Elizabeth “Lee” Miller started her career in the fashion industry. Having been model and assistant to surrealist artist and photographer Emmanuel Radnitzky, better known as Man Ray, she had the drive and talent to pursue her own professional ambition. During the Second World War, she was one of five accredited female photo-journalists accompanying American troops.

In a turbulent life traumatic events in her youth and maturity took their toll and may have hampered the appreciation of her contribution. Full recognition of the artistic value of her work is long overdue. [Read more…] about Modernist Misogyny & Lady Penrose of Poughkeepsie

Posh Portals: Elegant Upper West Side Entrances

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posh portalsAndrew Alpern, author of Posh Portals: Elegant Entrances and Ingratiating Ingresses to Apartments for the Affluent in New York City (Abbeville Press, 2020), says first impressions count when it comes to the luxury buildings of the city, which is what inspired him to write Posh Portals.  [Read more…] about Posh Portals: Elegant Upper West Side Entrances

Engineering Theatre: The Brunel Legacy in London & New York

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Christopher Jones statue at St Mary the Virgin ChurchFor a long time Rotherhithe was London’s natural port, gaining its name from the Anglo-Saxon term for “landing-place for cattle.” There were shipyards in the area from Elizabethan times until the early twentieth century, and working docks until the 1970s. [Read more…] about Engineering Theatre: The Brunel Legacy in London & New York

A Rascal in Venice, Hero in Vienna, Opera Buff in Manhattan

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Piazza San MarcoDefrocked priest and poet Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote the words for Mozart’s three celebrated operas Don Giovanni, Le nozze di Figaro, and Così fan tutte. As the librettist’s ultimate challenge is creating character whilst thinking music, few could match Lorenzo’s achievement. [Read more…] about A Rascal in Venice, Hero in Vienna, Opera Buff in Manhattan

Myth and Migration: The Old West As Urban Invention

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The Island of UtopiaThe idea of utopia as a place of peace and plenty away from the hardships of ordinary life, is a recurring theme in literature. The term entered popular usage after publication of Thomas More’s Utopia in 1516. His Eden is an idyllic island society wholly removed from the corruption of sixteenth century England. [Read more…] about Myth and Migration: The Old West As Urban Invention

Manhattan ‘Flash’ Culture: Madams and Sporting Men

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Harris’s ListThroughout the nineteenth century, prostitution was rife in American cities. In 1820 there were an estimated two hundred brothels in New York, growing to more than six hundred after the Civil War. By the early 1840s the city was the nation’s whoring capital, its own Gomorrah.

Most houses of assignation before the Civil War were owned and controlled by women. Some madams made spectacular careers, nobody more so than Fanny White whose Mercer Street brothel was, from 1851 onward, a meeting place for Congressmen, dignitaries and diplomats – a Manhattan whoreocracy. [Read more…] about Manhattan ‘Flash’ Culture: Madams and Sporting Men