History, Natural History & the Arts
The Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room, a unique pop-up exhibit of “radical transparency” is opening this Friday in New York City.
The Reading Room is located in Tribeca, but for security reasons, the exact street address is not being published in advance. [Read more…] about Unique Exhibit Putting Trump, Epstein Records on View
Village Preservation’s Tom Fox Photography Collection includes images of the Hudson River waterfront dating from the 1970s, 80s and 90s taken by Fox, who played an influential role in the research, planning, and advocacy for the redevelopment of the waterfront. [Read more…] about Featured Collection: NYC Hudson River Waterfront Photos
There is a nationwide movement to reconsider the names of places and teams and to stop honoring racists and racist symbols. The Cleveland Indians will soon be no more; the baseball team will be known as the Cleveland Guardians. The Washington Redskins are now the Washington Football Team while a new name is being considered.
A bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave trader, a Confederate general responsible for atrocities committed against African American troops serving in the United States army, and a founder of the terrorist Ku Klux Klan, was finally removed from the state capitol building in Nashville, Tennessee. [Read more…] about Manhattan Street Names Tied to Slavery Listed from A to Z
A Musical History of the Lower East Side, presented by Charles R. Hale has been set for Tuesday, June 12 at 7 pm at the American Irish Historical Society, 991 5th Avenue, New York, NY. Charles R. Hale has developed a reputation as a storyteller who blends imagery and performance art to create uniquely New York experiences.
This concert will present songs reflecting the historically rich ethnicity of the New York City’s Lower East Side. The cast will perform Irish laments, Yiddish and Ladino music, operatic and Neopolitan songs, German lied, jazz and blues, all representative of the ethnic groups who have passed through the Lower East Side. The show will also include images and historical narration provided by Charles. [Read more…] about A Musical History of the Lower East Side
You may have noticed that the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) have been making some noise lately about how much of Lower Manhattan has landmark protection. This is really no surprise to anyone who has been paying any attention for the past 50 years – Lower Manhattan includes some of New York City’s oldest concentrations of historic architecture and strong communities who have invested a lot of time, energy and money in maintaining, protecting and revitalizing them.
What’s strange is that the folks at REBNY think this is a bad thing: “We think the city’s future is tied to growth. We think we need to generate new housing, generate new jobs, that generates new tax dollars. If we start landmarking more and more of the city, we are landmarking away the city’s future economic growth” REBNY President Steven Spinola recently told NY1. [Read more…] about The NY Real Estate Board’s 50-Year War on Landmarks
I just finished reading Mark Kurlansky’s The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell
. It’s basically a short history of New York City told through the city’s natural environment and one of its most significant natural resources (possibly second only to its natural harbor) – the oyster.
I’ve also read, and can highly recommend, three of Kurlansky’s previous books.
Cod: A Biography of The Fish The Changed the World
The Basque History of the World
All have implications for New York History – according to esteemed Iroquoisian Dean Snow, the word Iroquois is derived from a Basque word, a demonstration of their subtle impact in our region during their search for Cod off the Grand Banks, Cod they then salted to preserve. Throughout all three books Kurlansky includes historic recipes and other culinary history.
The Big Oyster is a must read for those interested in natural history, marine history, the Atlantic World, and food history as well as those with a taste for urban history and the New York City underworld of oyster cellars, cartmen, and seedy public spaces of all kinds.
Erik Baard of the blog Nature Calendar:Your Urban Wilderness Community posted an interesting interview with Kurlansky last week, and also points us to the upcoming Spring/Summer 2008 Oyster Gardening Event:
This program, in collaboration with NY/NJ Baykeeper and the New York Harbor School, seeks to increase stewardship among residents of the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary by working with volunteers from schools and community organizations in New York City to help prepare an oyster reef off the Tribeca waterfront. The project builds on the results of NY/NJ Baykeeper oyster reef restoration in New Jersey and research conducted by The River Project at its Pier 26 field station in New York.
A taste of the interview with Kurlansky:
Erik Baard: The Dutch and British settlers used that shell lime to construct stone homes. And I’m kind of curious about the many ways oysters were used. It’s a very versatile product, the meat, the shell being used for construction of buildings… How else were they used?
Mark Kurlansky: They were used in roads, you know, paving roads and in landfill. They were use to fertilize soil, to increase the lime content of the soil, which used to be called “sweetening the soil.” You could just plow oysters under. In fact, Europeans who visited were surprised to see that. The European way was always to grind it up and create this lime powder that you use as fertilizer, but New York farmers used to just take whole shells and put them in the earth.
Erik Baard: And this would lower the acidity?
Mark Kurlansky: Right. Okay.
Erik Baard: Now also, Pearl Street, you clarified some mythologies on that.
Mark Kurlansky: Yes, for some reason there’s a lot of mythologies about Pearl Street. I was just on Pearl Street last Saturday, I was thinking about this. Pearl Street was the waterfront in Dutch times, in the original Manhattan. It continues now several blocks further because of landfill. And there’s lots of stories about why it was called Pearl Street. But the real reason seems to be that on the waters edge there, the Indians had left large piles of shells.
Erik Baard: It wasn’t paved with the oyster shells?
Mark Kurlansky: No you often hear that but, one of the first things I noticed when I was researching this book was that the street got its name before it was paved
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