​​Blogs

While doing historical research, Gilbert Tauber, member of the planning committee of the BNHG, came across a surprising  document in the New York County Clerk's office.  In this article he notes the significance of the long overlooked 1917 New York Military Census and its possibilities for further research.
 
 

Earlier this year, while doing some research at the New York County Clerk’s office, I noticed a stack of large-format volumes bound in bright red cloth.  I learned that they were records from a statewide military census that was conducted in June 1917    
​The volumes consisted of bound, typewritten ledger sheets listing names, addresses, ages, occupations, marital status, and much other information for most of the adult male population of Manhattan.  According to the Bruce Abrams, the longtime archivist there, these volumes have never been published or digitized.  (They are also difficult to search in their present form because they are alphabetized only by the first letter of the last name.)  Although I have been doing historical research on NYC for many years, I had never heard of this census.  It piqued my interest because my father had fought in World War I as a member of New York’s 77th Division
 
Looking into the New York Times online archives, I learned that the 1917 Military Census had included all New York State residents between the ages of 16 and 50, both men and women.  The questions asked went far beyond those of the Federal census, including citizenship; any previous military experience; responsibilities for care of dependents; and any special skills of potential use to the war effort, such as nursing, the ability to type, drive a motor vehicle, or pilot an airplane.  The questionnaires were slightly different for men and women.  Upstate, the census was conducted through a house-to-house survey.  In New York City, the authorities set up hundreds of census stations where people could come to fill out their questionnaires.  The stations were largely staffed by volunteers, mainly women, from such organizations as the YWCA, the National League for Women’s Service and the Young Women’s Hebrew Association.  It appears that the census was successful in reaching all but a tiny percentage of its target population.

Written by Pam Tice, member of the Bloomingdale Neighborhood History Group’s Planning Committee,  this post is the eight in her series on the past of buildings on the Bloomingdale neighborhood of the Upper West Side.

It was Bloomingdale’s residential development brought numerous retail food shops into the neighborhood, from the late 1880s to today, when the latest food store opening can still create excitement (see the frequent reporting on the new Trader Joe’s!). This post began as a search into our neighborhood food stores, focusing primarily on 86th to 110th Streets. This is a bit of an evasive topic, since most stores were small family-run businesses that did not advertise, and nor were publicly photographed.   Moreover, the stores were part of a larger food retailing history from which individual stores developed, and how certain common products were created.  Restaurants are another significant part of the neighborhood food story which were covered in an earlier post.
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Food history is a popular topic among historians now.  A recently-published book, Feeding Gotham: The Political Economy and Geography of Food in New York 1790-1860, by Gergeley Baics gives a fascinating history on how “food provisioning” developed in New York City. This book details the changes in the city’s food distribution as it changed from restricted public marketplaces built by city government to privatized food distribution as a function of the marketplace. These food markets were once part of the city’s landscape: Fly Market (replaced by Fulton), Catharine Street, Essex, Jefferson in Greenwich Village, and the Washington Market, on the lower west side. By the 1870s, the Gansevoort Farmer’s Market, near the Washington Market, was established: a vast stretch of wagons, as pictured below. Meat, poultry and dairy purveyors as well became the distribution center for the wholesale merchants who supplied the retail stores. This section of the city eventually gave way to Hunt’s Point in the 1960s, and what we now call Tribeca emerged as a new residential neighborhood.

​Marjorie Cohen of the BNHG planning committee wrote this article which appeared originally in the website brickunderground.com

New York City has a history so rich and complex that it's probably impossible for one person to absorb it all. There are multitudes of books on the subject, and untold additional documents and artifacts relating to forgotten events and communities that have yet to be uncovered, that are sitting dusty under someone's floorboards, or that have been altogether lost to time and the elements. That's not to say it's not an enriching thing to try to wrap your head around.

For the New York history curious, we rounded up recommendations from local historians and authors of resources to begin exploring the big city's vast past. So far we have heard their picks for the best books about the city as a whole, and books about specific neighborhoods and communities. Now, we've got their picks for the best blogs, websites, podcasts, and social media feeds for understanding what came before.

If you finish the list and find yourself still wanting more, historian Justin Ferate has over 800 web resource recommendations on his website, organized by category.

Daytonian in Manhattan
​“Tom Miller has exhaustively researched more than 200 buildings, most on the Upper West Side. If a building looks interesting, he’s probably jumped on it. His commentary is always fun to read, and Christopher Gray of the New York Times, who passed away recently, was the only other person who did what Miller does on a regular basis.”—Jim Mackin, historian andwalking tour guide
“Excellent and engaging research about notable Manhattan buildings that often includes the back story of their development and construction. The blog’s historical images and items of social and cultural interest give a well-rounded assessment of both the subject building and its cultural milieu.”—Ferate

In a previous blog,  Marjorie Cohen asked  11 authors and historians to choose The 25 best books about New York City history. So many good books came up in the process that she decided to save some of the haul for further lists. Having highlighted books that deal with the entire city in some way or another, in this blog she  rounded up the best neighborhood-specific New York history books, again as selected by an array of experts. Here are their picks, organized roughly by the part of the city they cover.  

Lower Manhattan

South Street: A Photographic Guide to New York City’s Historic Seaport, by Ellen Fletcher Rosebrock
"Rosebrock’s book was published in 1974 by the still relatively new South Street Seaport Museum. It remains an excellent guide to the neighborhood, but is particularly interesting for its historic images, both those illustrating the 19th-century Seaport, and those showing the neighborhood in all its 1970s shabbiness—a period in the Seaport’s history that now seems equally remote.”—Anthony Robins, architectural historian and author or New York Art Deco

​The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited: A History and Guide to a Legendary New York Neighborhood, by Joyce Mendelsohn
“Were I limited to one recommendation for a book about the Lower East Side, this book would definitely be it. Briefly and succinctly, Mendelsohn chronicles sites and the historic transformation of this immensely culturally rich neighborhood. Five self-guided walking tours let the reader view more than 150 sites, aged tenements nestled next to luxury apartment towers which in turn abut historic churches and synagogues. This book is a treasure!”—Justin Ferate, historian

Dr. William Seraile's summary of his BNHG presentation on February 27, 2018.
William Seraile is Professor Emeritus of History at Lehman College of the City University of New York.  He is the author of five books, including  “Angels of Mercy:  White Women and the History of New York’s Colored Orphan Asylum.” 
The Colored Orphan Asylum (COA) was founded in 1836 by three Quaker women.   It was sorely needed, since youth of color were excluded from orphanages for white children. The orphanage faced many obstacles throughout its existence including financial panics, fires, diseases and chronic money shortage. Racism led to its complete destruction in the Draft Riots of July 1863, when its building at 43rd and Fifth Avenue was looted and burned by the mob.  The frightened children and staff escaped to the protection of a nearby police precinct and then to Blackwell’s Island (Roosevelt Island).

Winifred Armstrong and Barbara Ernest composed this pamphlet for the Park West History Group (predecessor of the BNHG) in 2007

Whether you were born in New York, moved here decades ago, or just arrived, you might be curious to know something about what was here before you. Kenneth Jackson, editor of The Encyclopedia of New York City, says that over ten thousand books have been written about the city, including about a hundred a year from 1990 on, so sorting the wheat from the chaff is a daunting task indeed.
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To get a sense of what's essential reading for the New York history neophyte, we asked 11 historians and authors to tell us their favorite books of New York history, along with an explanation of why each title made the cut.