To wrap up our 15th anniversary celebration -- and to set up our big 400th episode -- we take a fond look at one corner of New York City which taught us to love local history.
Perhaps you know this area for Seward Park, the first municipal playground in the United States, or for Straus Square, named for Nathan Straus, philanthropist and co-owner (with his brother Isidor) of Macy's Department Store. Today, trendy artists and influencers instead spend their weekends in Dimes Square, just one block (and seemingly one world) away.
In the 19th century, as Rutgers Square, this area became a small portion of a large German immigrant community called Kleindeutschland. In an inconceivable historical moment, a statue was almost raised here -- to William 'Boss' Tweed, leader of Tammany Hall.
By the late 19th century, this place was the center for American Jewish culture, and East Broadway became Yiddish publishers row, hosting newspapers and magazines from a host of perspectives. In the 20th century, thanks to a mid-century housing boom (fueled partially by the labor unions firmly rooted to this place), some also called it Cooperative Village, with hundreds of old, deteriorating tenements replaced with new high rises.
It's a neighborhood that means so much to so many -- and we hope you learn to love it all yourself, no matter what you call it.
PLUS: We're join by staff members of the Forward, celebrating its 125th year of publication. Forward archivist Chana Pollack joins us along with Ginna Green and, hosts of the the newspaper column-turned-podcast version A Bintel Brief.
#432 The Lenape Nation: Past, Present and Future
Rewind: History of the New York City Subway
#431 Park Avenue: History with a Penthouse View
#430 The Story of Flushing: Queens History, Old and New
#429 The Moores: A Black Family in 1860s New York
The Age of Innocence: Inside Edith Wharton's Classic Novel
#428 The New York Game: Baseball in the Early Years
#427 The Chrysler Building and the Great Skyscraper Race
#426 Behind the Domino Sign: Brooklyn's Bittersweet Empire
#425 It Happened at Madison Square Park
Rewind: Truman Capote and the Black and White Ball
#424 Kosciuszko! The Man. The Bridge. The Legend.
#423 Leonard Bernstein's New York, New York
#422 Grace Church: A Most Fashionable History
Christmas in Old New York: Holiday History
#421 Evacuation Day: Forgotten Holiday of the American Revolution
#420 Garbo Walks: Old Hollywood in New York
The Official Gilded Age Podcast: S2 E1 with Lord Julian Fellowes
Rewind: The Gilded Age Mansions of Fifth Avenue
#419 Ghost Stories by Gaslight
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Lore