Behind The Scenes

  On August 17, 1893, Mae West was born in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the daughter of a prizefighter and a fashion model.  From an early age she was an entertainer, performing at her church and then making a name for herself in vaudeville, both as a performer and a playwright. Under the pen name “Jane Mast,”…

Everyone knows that immigrants came through Ellis Island to settle in America, but where did they go before that? The answer is Castle Garden,  now known as the Castle Clinton National Monument, on the southern tip of Manhattan. Originally a fort, Castle Garden was constructed between 1808 and 1811, and at that time wasn’t even connected…

Governors Island, situated right off Brooklyn’s Buttermilk Channel, has played an important part in New York’s military history. During the American Revolution, canons on the island protected the East River. During the Civil War, Castle Williams and Fort Jay held Confederate prisoners of war. In 1966, it became a National Coast Guard base. And throughout,…

I actually came to New York for acting school. I graduated NYU in 2005, and kinda-sorta auditioned for stuff for a couple of years while working a terrible office job. I’d always thought about food as a plan B, and after realizing I wasn’t cut out to try and make a living at acting, I started looking into culinary school.

This year, the historic Grand Central Terminal turns 100. Designed by the architectural firms of Reed and Stem and Warren and Wetmore, the Beaux-arts style building serves as a transportation hub and tourist destination, with its elaborate astrological ceiling and iconic concourse clock. But New York City was already a destination by 1913. What was at 42nd and…

In 1857, the Board of Commissioners of Central Park decided that they needed to actually build Central Park. So they announced a design competition to plan the site, with a reward of $2,000. The Board chose Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s winning entry, which elegantly balanced open and designed spaces with wilderness, from 33 entries, only five of…

Ben Franklin was known for many things, but one of his most enduring legacies is his Poor Richard’s Almanack.  Published under his pseudonym, Ben Franklin released a yearly almanac from 1732 to 1758, filled with calendars, poems, sayings, and weather and astrological information. It is from these almanacs that we get most of Ben Franklin’s…

New York has long been a food capital, from the upscale kitchens of our finest restaurants to the bagels and sausages on the street corners. But as anyone who has walked around Brooklyn has figured out, the next chapter of New York’s food history has everything to do with the local, “artisanal” food scene that…

For this edition of our interviews with A Taste of New-York History vendors, we got a special treat! Shamus Jones of Brooklyn Brine invited us to tour their Brooklyn production facilities, where we watched pickles get born.  They start off with fresh cucumbers from Mr. Pickle, the “old guard Brooklyn pickle makers” who expanded to…