New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

Performing Arts

3 New Yorkers Awarded MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grants

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Kristina Douglass, 2025 MacArthur FellowThe MacArthur Fellowship is a $800,000, no-strings-attached award to extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential.

Among the 22 individuals to receive a MacArthur Award in 2025 are three from New York State, including: Archaeologist Kristina Douglass of Manhattan; Improvising Musician and Composer Craig Taborn of Brooklyn; and Composer, Lyricist, Playwright, and Vocalist Heather Christian of Beacon, NY. [Read more…] about 3 New Yorkers Awarded MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grants

Local Pageants Once Brought History to Life

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Lake George Village’s Shepard Park, the scene of numerous historical pageants from 1912 to 1955 (Fred Thatcher photo, courtesy Bolton Historical Museum)Before the documentaries of Ken Burns, there were historical pageants – a popular form of entertainment by means of which Americans also digested information about the history of their nation and their region.

From the 1850s to the 1950s, historical pageants, or folk dramas, as they were also called, were a characteristic feature of life in American communities, celebrating American history and/or a town’s founding, its most memorable historical events and its most prominent citizens. [Read more…] about Local Pageants Once Brought History to Life

1869: A Bengal Tiger Roams Lake George

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A Bengal tiger (photo by Gary M. Stolz, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, once billed as “The Greatest Show on Earth,” ceased operation in 2017.  The circus and its predecessors date to 1871.

In 1869, two years before this long-running circus first opened, Campbell’s Circus and Menagerie was at Lake George when it made national and international newspaper headlines. [Read more…] about 1869: A Bengal Tiger Roams Lake George

Spiritual Trickster Gurdjieff in 1920s New York

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George Gurdjieff (Library of Congress)Almost everyone who encountered Armenian-Greek spiritual teacher Georges Ivan Gurdjieff (ca. 1866-1877 – 1949) in 1920s New York agreed he was enigmatic, strong, and charismatic. Perhaps, also, brash and mercurial. Beyond that, his merits (or faults) lay in the eyes of beholders.

A reporter for Time magazine in 1930 illustrated this, in the way he described Gurdjieff to readers. Gurdjieff, then in his 50s, had recently met with students in a popular Manhattan salon owned by the writer and social activist Muriel Draper. [Read more…] about Spiritual Trickster Gurdjieff in 1920s New York

Circus Broadsides: Preservation of New York History

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LaFayette's Circus advertisement between 1824 and 1825 (New York State Library)The New York State Museum’s circus posters, shared as part of their “Look at This” social media series, inspired the State Library to digitize circus-related documents found in their collections.

Their search for NYS Library circus materials began in the Manuscripts and Special Collections Unit, where they found circus broadsides from NYS and beyond. Most of these date back to the mid-nineteenth century and are over 150 years old, making their condition and the vibrancy of the ink all the more striking. [Read more…] about Circus Broadsides: Preservation of New York History

London ‘77: A Lost Punk Rock Archive

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London 77 Lost Punk ArchiveThis Saturday, August 16 at 2 pm, Bronx County Historical Society will host Drew Stone, and Tish and Snooky (of Manic Panic) at the Museum of Bronx History for a book talk “London ‘77: The Lost Archive,” look at a musical era that changed the face of modern music.

Buried and forgotten for more than 45 years, vivid photos by photographer Gregory Rudolph Smith have been rediscovered. For eighteen months in 1977 and 1978, Smith documented the golden age of the Punk era in London. [Read more…] about London ‘77: A Lost Punk Rock Archive

A Tourist’s Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City

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The Tourist's Guide to Lost Yiddish New York CityThe Tourist’s Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City (SUNY Press, 2025), offers a new look at over a century of New York City‘s history of Yiddish popular culture.

Henry H. Sapoznik – a Peabody Award-winning co-producer of NPR’s Yiddish Radio Project – tells the story in over a baker’s dozen chapters on theater, music, architecture, crime, Blacks and Jews, restaurants, real estate, and journalism. [Read more…] about A Tourist’s Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City

Ventriloquism & America’s First Modern Public Libraries

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The New York Public Library Main Branch during its late stage construction in 1908 with the lion statues not yet installed at the entranceNew York-born John Bigelow started his career in 1849 as co-owner with William Cullen Bryant of the New York Evening Post. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him Consul in Paris and promoted him to American Ambassador four years later.

His diplomatic efforts were aimed at influencing the French in favor of the federal government. Working with Charles Francis Adams, U.S. Minister to the United Kingdom, he blocked political attempts to have France and Britain intervene in the Civil War on behalf of the Confederacy, thus paving the way for the United States victory. [Read more…] about Ventriloquism & America’s First Modern Public Libraries

Trump Regime Kills Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)

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CPB Station Finder showing clusters of NPR and PBS stations funded by CPBThe Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) has announced it will shut down. The move follows the Republican Party’s cutting of all the nonprofit’s funding. 89 NPR and PBS station transmitters in New York will be affected.

CPB, a private, nonprofit corporation authorized by Congress in 1967, is the steward of the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting. It’s support for more than 1,500 locally managed and operated public television and radio stations nationwide will end in September the organization said. [Read more…] about Trump Regime Kills Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)

Belly Dancing, Sol Bloom & the Middle East

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Jean-Léon Gérôme, “La danse de l’almée,” 1863. (Dayton Art Institute, Ohio)In 1867 nineteen-year-old Brooklyn-born painter Edwin Blashfield traveled to Paris to study with Léon Bonnat whose studio attracted French and foreign students (John Singer Sargent was another American attendee).

The young painter enjoyed his apprenticeship and spent a considerable time exploring Europe and the Middle East before returning to the city of New York in 1881. [Read more…] about Belly Dancing, Sol Bloom & the Middle East

OZmosis: A Compendium of The Wizard of Oz’s Artistic Influence

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OZmosis: The Enduring Popularity & Artistic Influence of The Wizard of OzNew York native Frank Baum‘s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has been inspiring artists – filmmakers, political cartoonists, poets, sculptors, songwriters – for more than 100 years.

OZmosis: The Enduring Popularity & Artistic Influence of The Wizard of Oz (2025) by Noel Holston collects and annotates works from tin-can sculpture to movie musicals. It’s an illuminating and amusing compendium. [Read more…] about OZmosis: A Compendium of The Wizard of Oz’s Artistic Influence

Queens Musical Legacy Honored

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Coventry music CollageThe Coventry (formerly Popcorn Club), a legendary Queens music venue that shaped the 1970s rock scene in New York City, has been honored with a historical Queensmark Award by the Queens Historical Society.

Known for helping to launch the careers of bands such as KISS, The Ramones, and the New York Dolls, the Coventry’s impact extended far beyond its walls, embodying Queens’ contribution to the cultural fabric of New York City and the global music scene. [Read more…] about Queens Musical Legacy Honored

Birthplace of Sound Film Re-Opening for Public Tours

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First sound-on-film feature movie poster for Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, 1927While attending Yale University, Theodore (Ted) Case explored his love of science through the transmission of light and the reproduction of sound, developing a method of photographing sound waves which he referred to as a “lightograph.”

Upon his return to Auburn, NY, Case would establish laboratories in the basements of the family homes on Genesee Street and Casowasco on the shores of Owasco Lake. When his father inherited the Willard Mansion, the two restructured one of the greenhouses on the property into a working laboratory: The Case Research Laboratory. [Read more…] about Birthplace of Sound Film Re-Opening for Public Tours

Barton Hall, Cornell ’77: A Legendary Grateful Dead Show

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Grateful Dead, possibly at Barton Hall in 1977It was 46 years ago this week that one of the most notable Grateful Dead shows ever was performed at Barton Hall at Cornell University on May 8, 1977. One of the most revered and traded shows in the band’s history, the Barton Hall show is a thing of legend, a perfect way to introduce new fans to the band and a performance for the ages with stand out versions of numerous Dead songs.

The band played its first of three shows at Cornell (1977, 1980, and 1981) on May 8, 1977, and were booked by the Cornell Concert Commission after some troubles with booking live acts in the years prior. [Read more…] about Barton Hall, Cornell ’77: A Legendary Grateful Dead Show

The Black Crook: Burlesque Comes to New York

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The Black Crook tableau featuring the key players (Library of Congress)Niblo’s Garden was a venerable name in the theater business.  Its first shows dated back to the presidency of Andrew Jackson. The finest Shakespeareans and grandest divas graced its stage. Its audiences witnessed New York debuts of Italian operas, the dancing of the polka, and the military antics of the French Zoaves.  The original theater at the corner of Broadway and Prince Street burned in 1846. Newly rebuilt on the same spot, Niblo’s reopened in 1849.

The theater’s greatest triumph opened on a September evening in 1866. The ballet corps of The Black Crook pranced out before an overflow crowd. [Read more…] about The Black Crook: Burlesque Comes to New York

Marian Anderson & DAR Diversity History

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A kodachrome photograph of Marian Anderson taken January 14, 1940 by Carl Van Vechten, cropped (Yale University Library)World-renowned Black opera singer Marian Anderson (1897 – 1993) got her first big break after winning a 1925 singing competition sponsored by the New York Philharmonic.  She performed at the Metropolitan Opera in Manhattan in 1955, becoming the first Black artist to do so. Throughout her career, Anderson performed all over the world while also lending her talent to the struggle against racial injustice. The granddaughter of Black people once enslaved in Virginia, she sang at the March on Washington in 1963 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom that same year.

Back in April 1939 however, Anderson was denied access to auditoriums in Washington, DC, and instead performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. [Read more…] about Marian Anderson & DAR Diversity History

Harry Belafonte’s Early Career in Greenwich Village

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Portrait of Harry Belafonte ca 1957In 1951, Harry Belafonte decided he was finished with singing. For the past few years, he had been taking acting classes at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School with the influential German director Erwin Piscator, alongside Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier.

All the while he was performing with the American Negro Theater. [Read more…] about Harry Belafonte’s Early Career in Greenwich Village

The Harlem Odeon 145th Street Theatre

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Harlem Odeon Theatre on 145th Street, 2025The Harlem Renaissance was a period of flourishing arts, with New York City’s Harlem neighborhood offering African-American artists a place to freely express themselves artistically, intellectually, and politically.

Iconic figures, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday all contributed to this artistic and cultural movement. [Read more…] about The Harlem Odeon 145th Street Theatre

Noble Sissle’s Lucky Lake: An Interracial Catskills Lake Colony

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Noble Sissle in 1951 (by Carl Van Vechten)To many historians, World War I Harlem Hell Fighters Band lead vocalist, composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer and playwright Noble Sissle (1889-1975) is the man most responsible for ushering in the Harlem Renaissance.

In Sullivan County, NY history however, he will be forever remembered as the celebrity name behind Lucky Lake, “America’s first and only inter-racial lake colony community.” [Read more…] about Noble Sissle’s Lucky Lake: An Interracial Catskills Lake Colony

Italian-Americans as Alien Enemies: Westchester Opera Star Ezio Pinza

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Italian-Americans behind metal wire fencing at an American internment camp (National Italian American Foundation)In 1766 jurist William Blackstone published his Commentaries on the Law of England in which he defined the term “enemy alien” as it was understood in common law. He confirmed that during a time of war “alien enemies have no rights, no privileges.” The Crown exercises absolute power. In a simple turn of phrase, the Oxford professor anticipated the agony of millions of migrants. [Read more…] about Italian-Americans as Alien Enemies: Westchester Opera Star Ezio Pinza

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