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Theatre

1899 And The Making Of New York City

April 26, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp 5 Comments

original St James Hotel on Broadway & 26th StreetOn August 31st, 1901, Polish-American anarchist Leon Czolgosz booked a room in Nowak’s Hotel at 1078 Broadway.

Six days later he made a trip to Buffalo, site of the Pan-American Exposition where President William McKinley was due to speak. He shot him from close range. [Read more…] about 1899 And The Making Of New York City

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Architecture, Auburn Prison, Crime and Justice, Fires, Irish Immigrants, Jewish History, Manhattan, New York City, Oscar Hammerstein, Performing Arts, Sing Sing Prison, Theatre, Theodore Roosevelt, Transportation History

Florenz Ziegfeld: The Incarnation of Broadway

April 20, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

The Follies in 1907Impresario Florenz (Flo) Ziegfeld Jr. was an American icon who developed the modern Broadway revue and established its global leadership in entertainment. He invented show business.

Florenz hit his stride with the Follies of 1907. A combination of European refinement, the signing of high quality performers (chorus girls), choreographers and lyricists, a relatively short show of forty minutes presented with lightning speed and precision, created an unprecedented sense of theatrical excitement. [Read more…] about Florenz Ziegfeld: The Incarnation of Broadway

Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: Chicago, Cultural History, Dance, German-American History, Immigration, Jewish History, Manhattan, Musical History, New York City, Performing Arts, Theatre, womens history

Macabre Mania From Charles Allan Gilbert to Andy Warhol

March 8, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp 2 Comments

Cimitero dei Cappuccini, Roma, late 1870sThe ossuary under the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini at Via Veneto in Rome houses the skulls and bones of some 4,000 former Capuchin monks who were interred there between 1631 and 1870. The dead were buried without coffin and later exhumed to make room for newly deceased. Their remains were transformed into “decorative designs.”

In the summer of 1867 Mark Twain visited the Capuchin Convent and recorded his observations of the crypt’s “picturesque horrors” in The Innocents Abroad. What the novelist witnessed were arches built of thigh bones; pyramids constructed of “grinning” skulls; and other structures made of shin and arm bones. Walls were decorated with frescoes showing vines produced of knotted vertebrae; tendrils made of sinews and tendons; and flowers formed of knee-caps and toe-nails. [Read more…] about Macabre Mania From Charles Allan Gilbert to Andy Warhol

Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: Art History, Cemeteries, Cultural History, Halloween, Manhattan, New York City, painting, Performing Arts, Theatre, womens history

Radio Station WGY’s 100th Anniversary of Broadcasting

February 18, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

WGY Radio Players performing a scene from William Vaughn Moody's The Great Divide in 1923Capital Region radio station WGY, New York State’s oldest broadcaster, will celebrate their 100th year with a live afternoon of broadcasting on Sunday, February 20th.

WGY’s original licensee was General Electric (GE), headquartered in Schenectady. In early 1915, the company was granted a Class 3-Experimental license with the call sign 2XI. That license was canceled in 1917 due to the First World War, but 2XI was re-licensed in 1920. [Read more…] about Radio Station WGY’s 100th Anniversary of Broadcasting

Filed Under: Arts, Capital-Saratoga, Events, History, Mohawk Valley Tagged With: Cultural History, General Electric, Musical History, Radio History, Theatre, Troy, Union College, WGY Radio

Anna Ben-Yùsuf: The Bravery of a Migrant Mother

February 16, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

Dorothea Lane, Migrant Mother, 1936From the early times of explorers and settlers to the present day, the United States has been a nation of immigrants. Diversity makes the nation tick.

In the history of migration the (often neglected) participation of women has been crucial. Tales of hardship and bravery are legion. The plight of women who have had to make painful sacrifices has been highlighted by artists and historians, though more easily forgotten by the general public.

Zaida Ben Yùsuf joined the American labor force in the 1890s. She was in the vanguard of women who became professionally involved in the production of periodicals, as magazines reached a mass readership and photographs supplanted illustrations. But it was her migrant mother who had blazed the trail. [Read more…] about Anna Ben-Yùsuf: The Bravery of a Migrant Mother

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Art History, Fashion History, Immigration, Labor History, Manhattan, Muslim-American History, New York City, Photography, Publishing, Theatre, womens history

Early Albany Theater & The Ghost of Rev. Freylinghausen: An English Tale of Dutch Albany

February 1, 2022 by Peter Hess Leave a Comment

Philippe Mercier (1689-1760) after - Robert Wilks (1665–1732), as Captain Plume in 'The Recruiting Officer' by George FarquharAnne McVickar Grant says in her Memoirs of an American Lady: With Sketches of Manners and Scenery in America, as they Existed Previous to the Revolution (1808), a memoir of an aunt of General Philip Schuyler, that theater began in Albany in 1760. She says that British soldiers quartered at Albany, built a stage and produced The Beau’ Stratagem. The 1707 play by Irishman George Farquhar details the exploits of two young men on hard times who plan to travel and seduce wealthy women for the their money. Unexpectedly, one falls in love.

Grant says the soldiers felt that the moral of the story was missed on the Albany residents, “so indifferent was the English Language understood by them.”  Almost 100 years after the English occupation of Albany, the Dutch language was still predominant. In fact, pockets of Dutch speakers remained into the 20th century. [Read more…] about Early Albany Theater & The Ghost of Rev. Freylinghausen: An English Tale of Dutch Albany

Filed Under: Arts, Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Albany, Albany County, Cultural History, Dutch History, Performing Arts, Theatre, Vice

Podcast Highlights Potpourri From ‘The Historians’

January 7, 2022 by Bob Cudmore Leave a Comment

The Historians LogoThis week on The Historians Podcast, highlights from recent episodes with excerpts from programs on the Lincoln assassination; reviving New York City’s Broadway theaters; an Adirondack lumber baron; a woman bandit from the Wild West; the disappearance of Judge Crater; and Transcendentalism in Concord, Massachusetts in the 1800s. [Read more…] about Podcast Highlights Potpourri From ‘The Historians’

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History, New York City Tagged With: Adirondacks, New York City, Podcasts, Theatre

The Cabaret Trail: 1920s Urban Nightlife in New York, Paris & London

December 8, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

President Emmanuel Macron honouring Josephine Baker’s cenotaph at the PantheonOn November 30th, St Louis-born entertainer and civil rights activist Josephine Baker became the first Black woman to be inducted into the Pantheon in Paris, the highest honor that France bestows.

Baker had started her career as a young dancer in Vaudeville shows where her exuberant talent was quickly spotted. When she moved to New York City she joined in the festival of black life and art now known as the Harlem Renaissance, but segregation and racism drove her away from home. [Read more…] about The Cabaret Trail: 1920s Urban Nightlife in New York, Paris & London

Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: Art History, Black History, Cultural History, Dance, French History, Harlem, Harlem Renaissance, Jazz, Musical History, New York City, Performing Arts, Theatre, Vice, womens history

Saving the Broadway Theater Business (Podcast)

November 26, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Historians LogoThis week on The Historians Podcast, New York City attorney and walking tour guide Jim Kaplan explains the role played by Democratic Party district leader Jimmy McManus in reviving the Broadway theater industry and the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in Manhattan.

An online version of Kaplan’s story was published in New York Almanack.
[Read more…] about Saving the Broadway Theater Business (Podcast)

Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: Jimmy McManus, Performing Arts, Podcasts, Tammany Hall, Theatre, Urban History

Proctors Theatre Collaborative Wins Historic Preservation Award

November 22, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Universal Preservation Hall by Richard LovrichThe Proctors Collaborative of Albany and Saratoga Springs has won a 2021 Excellence in Historic Preservation Award from the Preservation League of NYS.

The 28,000-square-foot industrial building in Albany’s Arbor Hill neighborhood that is now home to Capital Repertory Theatre (theRep) and the formerly condemned church that is now Universal Preservation Hall (UPH) represent very different preservation projects. [Read more…] about Proctors Theatre Collaborative Wins Historic Preservation Award

Filed Under: Arts, Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Albany, Architecture, Historic Preservation, Performing Arts, Preservation League of NYS, Saratoga Springs, Theatre

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