As It Was - NYC History (2025)

29/06/2025

Studio 14th Street

Going to high school at Stuyvesant on 15th St, I often walked by the Palladium on 14th St. on my way to the subway.

The theater started as the Academy of Music in 1927 and morphed into an unbelievable dance and music club in the 70’s and 80’s with futuristic lighting, a HUGE dance floor and spectacular entertainment.

The Rolling Stones, Blondie, U2, the Ramones, Aerosmith, Prince and KISS all played there early on and then probably partied at Studia 54 afterwards. Both venues were owned by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager.

Even more amazing (in my opinion) was Julian Billiards on the second floor, a real, old-time pool hall that hadn’t changed for 40 years.

Unfortunately, real estate development always wins and it closed in 1997 and was demolished to make way for an NYU dormitory and Trader Joe’s.

Below is how I remember it - with the old Academy of Music sign with prices and the Billiards neon sign.

25/06/2025

How to Solve NYCs Rat Problem

47 Madison Street, in Manhattan’s Two Bridges neighborhood (between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges) is old. It was built around 1810 on what was then Bancker Street. It’s more its history and less its age that makes it noteworthy.

In the 1850’s it contained J. Marriot’s Sportsman’s Hall which was later taken over by Harry Jenning’s Rat Pit. The latter name gives a more apt description of what was really going on there.

The owners would pay people, mostly kids, 25 cents for each live rat they would bring in. The rats were used for a popular gambling amusement they created in the basement. A dog, usually a bull terrier, would be placed in a ring with over a hundred rats. The vociferous crowd would bet on how many rats the dog could kill in a specified time. When they got tired of that “game”, they would put two dogs in the ring and let them fight it out - sometimes to the death. These pastimes were so commonplace, they were recreated for a scene in the movie “Gangs of New York”.

Fortunately, the people with sense soon realized these enthusiasts should have better things to do and closed down most of the rat killing / dog fighting parlors soon afterwards. Also fortunately, 47 Madison Street still survives, looking much like it did during its notorious past.

For more like this and other great stories of New York City, take a most splendiferous walking tour with Brad and Blue Shoes Tours

21/06/2025

On the Lower East Side of Manhattan, you will notice a very pink tenement house at 76 Forsyth Street. In 1885, a 16 year old Bavarian immigrant and barber’s apprentice named Frederich moved there to live with his sister and her husband. The neighborhood at the time was called “Kleinedeutschland” or “Little Germany” because of the great amount of German immigrants who had settled there.
He realized there were better opportunities than cutting hair and in a few years he was operating a hotel/restaurant/brothel in Seattle. He eventually moved back to New York City where he began a real estate company which was made extremely profitable by his wife and son Fred after his death during the 1918 Spanish Influenza outbreak.
That man’s name was Frederich Trump, grandfather of “The Donald”.

20/06/2025

In 1958, Dr. Martin Luther King was doing a book signing at Blumstein's Department store in Harlem when a deranged women stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener. The point just grazed his aorta. They fortunately waited to remove the blade at the hospital, possibly saving his life.

19/06/2025

The Pelham Cafe’s Singing Waiter

For a small saloon in the notoriously bad neighborhood of Chinatown, Mike Salter’s Pelham Cafe was a popular place in 1905. It was always crowded by celebrities, Gangsters and tourists. Among others, John Jacob Astor, Sir Thomas Lipton (yes, the tea guy), August Belmont and even Prince Louis of Battenberg came to the backroom to see and hear the Professor on the tin pan piano and 17 year old Izzy Baline the singing waiter. When another bar in the area wrote an original song, Salter challenged Izzy and the Professor to write one too. The came up with “Marie from Sunny Italy”. Not sure what happened to the Professor, but Izzy Baline went on to have some success with songs like “White Christmas” and “God Bless America” under his professional name Irving Berlin.

19/06/2025

The Best H***y Tonk North of Abilene

The Lone Star Cafe at 61 Fifth Avenue was a great bar. It was only open from 1976-1989 but it made a lot of noise when it was here; especially with that iguana on the roof that its neighbors hated.
I was there more than a few times while working in the city. On the day of a concert, my friend and I would get there extra early and sit at the bar. We’d order burgers (they had great burgers) and a few beers and be ready for the show. Besides their regular guy Kinky Friedman, I remember seeing Pure Prarie League, Asleep at the Wheel and one of my favorite’s, Roy Orbison. Orbison was great, especially since I was only about 10 feet away still on my bar stool.
Oh, and the iguana on the roof is now on the roof of the reptile house at the Fort Worth Zoo.

19/06/2025

Not Throwing Away My Shot

Nope, this post is not about Alexander Hamilton, but about George Youle who built a 175’ tall shot tower on his farm near the East River on 53rd St. in 1821. A shot tower is a tall structure used to make the small round metal balls (shot) that were put in muskets and shotguns. You would drop the hot metal, usually lead, from the top of the tower and it would form into a ball as it fell before it hit water at the bottom to cool.

There were a few shot towers in New York City, (Centre St., Water St., Beekman St. and E. 15th St.), but this one lasted the longest and was not demolished until 1920. It gained some fame through paintings by Jasper Cropsey and Frederic Edwin Church and through many photographs.

This is a photo from 1906 showing Youle’s Shot Tower and the old farmhouse looking east.

Photo courtesy Museum of the City of New York

14/06/2025

They Don’t Make Them Like That Anymore

This is the third installment of my critically acclaimed series “Old Places to Eat and Drink in NYC” (I just made that up).

About 10 years ago or so I was in the city with my wife and 2 adult children and we stopped by the ABC Home Store on Broadway and 18th Street. It is a beautiful old store which opened originally as the W & J Sloane Department store in 1881 Well, I love old buildings but hate shopping, so after I had my fill of gawking at the inside of the old store, my son and I decided to find a bar to hang out in until my wife and daughter finished shopping.

Luckily, right down the block, we saw the very old sign of the very old Old Town Bar at 45 East 18th Street. I had heard about the place so we decided to go inside and partake in a few cold ones.

Surprise is an understatement. A beautiful 19th Century saloon with an original long bar, ceiling, floor, fixtures, booths and especially feel. The bartender, who had a great mustache and Irish accent, made the nostalgic overload complete. As a tour guide, historian and urban explorer I thought I was in heaven.

The bar opened as Vermeister’s in 1892 and changed it’s name to Craig’s during Prohibition when it started serving food so it could continue serving illegal spirits as a speakeasy. It is said that Governor Al Smith would stop by (he was a “wet” and didn’t believe in Prohibition). After Prohibition, it became the Old Town Bar. That great sign in front is from 1937.

And to make our visit even more perfect, when we went to use the restroom, we were treated to the grand porcelain magnificence of urinals from 1910.

A great time had by all.

By the way, the food is good and there is a dining room upstairs accessed by original creaky stairs. The dining room has old faded murals on the wall and the oldest working dumb waiter in NYC.

NYC Tax Photo 1940

12/06/2025

We’ve Got the Beat

One of my favorite walking tours is my Greenwich Village Tour. The neighborhood is a tour guide’s dream because there is so much to see and talk about in a very walkable area. And as an added bonus, some of my favorite places to eat are there also.

As a small example, take MacDougal Street. Besides having Denino’s and Mamoun’s (my favorite pizza and falafel places), it also has Cafe Wha?, one of the most famous music and comedy venues in NYC. Not only did Bob Dylan make his first NYC appearance there in 1961, but Jimi Hendrix (as Jimmy James and the Flames) and Bruce Springsteen (with the Castiles) had early gigs there. It was also a comedy club with Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor learning their craft there. And those are only a small example who played there.

Down the block on Bleecker Street was the Cafe Au Go Go where the Grateful Dead made their first NYC appearance and Linda Ronstadt appeared barefoot with the Stone Poneys (think Different Drum). Right across the street is still the Bitter End, where their Tuesday night hootenannies became famous with the likes of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs and Peter, Paul and Mary. It is also where Neil Young and James Taylor bombed early in their careers.

This is just some of the stuff I get to tell people on my tours as I walk them around the neighborhood. It’s also why I have so much fun doing it.

1940 NYC Tax Photo of Gas Station that is now Cafe Wha?

09/06/2025

My Hero

I love Italian hero sandwiches (grinder, hoagie, torpedo, sub, wedge - I’m from NYC, they’re heros). Lots of Italian meats, sharp cheese, the works (lettuce, tomato, onion, oil, vinegar, oregano, salt, pepper) and I’m in heaven. I will travel over an hour just to get a great sandwich.

Of course I have my favorite - It’s Jimmy’s in Sheepshead Bay. I’ve been going there for over 50 years and though I now I live over 50 miles away, I still gotta go back to get my fix.
(my favorite sandwich, by the way, is roast beef, pepperoni, Swiss cheese and the works. A little odd, but tastes great).

Of course there are many other terrific hero places in New York City. A few that I will also go out of my way for are Sal, Kris and Charlie’s Deli in Astoria; Faicco’s in the Village, Defonte’s in Red Hook and Mike Greco’s Deli on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.

Now, I’m hungry.

I’m sure there are others. If you have one to recommend, I’m all stomach, uh, ears.

07/06/2025

Herring Salad and Leberknodel

A few doors down on 14th Street from my last post (The Palladium) was LuChows, one of the most iconic German restaurants in NYC.
Celebrities, opulence and the ambience from when it opened in 1882.

Real estate prices, a changing neighborhood and tastes (look at the menus) eventually overtook the nostalgia and it closed exactly 100 years after opening in 1982.

As It Was - NYC History

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