Red Hook: Brooklyn on the Waterfront bhiggs Fri, 01/27/2012 - 13:43
Description

From the Bowery Boys website:

"Red Hook, Brooklyn, the neighborhood called by the Dutch 'Roode Hoek' for its red soil, became a key port during the 19th century, a stopping point for vessels carry a vast array of raw goods from the interior of the United States along the Erie Canal. In particular, two manmade harbors were among the greatest developments in Brooklyn history, stepping in when Manhattan's own decaying wharves became too overcrowded.

With these basins came a mix of ethnicities to Brooklyn, and along with new styles of row houses came the usual mix of vices—saloons and brothels along Hamilton Avenue. This fostered the development of crime along the docks, and Red Hook soon witnessed firsthand the opening salvos of 20th Century organized crime.

How did the history-rich, nautical neighborhood go from a booming center of employment to one of the worst neighborhoods in the United States by the 1990s? And can some surprising twists of fate from the last twenty years help Red Hook return to its glory days?

Featuring: Revolutionary War forts, shantytowns, Vaseline factories, famous gangsters, the gateway to Hell, and cheap Swedish furniture!"

Electric New York: Edison and the City Lights bhiggs Fri, 01/27/2012 - 13:39
Description

From the Bowery Boys website:

"The streets of New York have been lit in various ways through the decades, from the wisps of whale-oil flame to the modern comfort of gas lighting. With the discovery of electricity, it seemed possible to illuminate the world with a more dependable, potentially inexhaustible energy source.

First came arc light and 'sun towers' with their brilliant beams of white-hot light casting shadows down among the holiday shoppers of Ladies Mile in 1880. But the genius of Menlo Park, Thomas Edison, envisioned an entire city grid wired for electricity. From Edison's Pearl Street station, the inventor turned a handful of blocks north of Wall Street into America's first area entirely lit with the newly invented incandescent bulbs.

ALSO: The War of Currents, the enigmatic Nicola Tesla and the world's first electric Christmas lights"

The First Apartment Building

Description

From the Bowery Boys website:

"Well, we're movin' on up....to the first New York apartment building ever constructed. New Yorkers of the emerging middle classes needed a place to live situated between the townhouse and the tenement, and the solution came from overseas—a daring style of communal and affordable living called the 'apartment' or 'French flat'.

The city's first was financed by Rutherford Stuyvesant, an old-money heir with an unusual story to his name. He hired one of the upper class's hottest architects to create an apartment house, called the Stuyvesant Apartments, with many features that would have been shocking to more than a few New Yorkers of the day.

The building's first tenants were sometimes well-known, often artists and publishers, and almost all of them with a fascinating story to tell. Listen in to hear about the vanguard first renters of this classic, long-gone building."

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Description

"Founded in 1824 in Philadelphia, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is one of the oldest historical societies in the United States and holds many national treasures. The Society's building, designed by Addison Hutton and listed on the City of Philadelphia's Register of Historical Places, houses some 600,000 printed items and over 19 million manuscript and graphic items." The Society's library is one of the preeminent libraries in the nation, housing extensive manuscript collections from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Finally, the Historical Society has paired with Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania through a Strategic Alliance Agreement, and the Society has become "a chief center for the documentation and study of the ethnic communities and immigrant experiences."

The site offers an online catalog, 10 online manuscript collections, an online event calendar, exhibit information along with nine online exhibits, purchasing information for the society's publications, and educational resources, including lesson plans, readings, primary sources, online exhibits, and information on educational workshops.

Characteristics of Census Tracts in Nine U.S. Cities, 1940-1960

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Logo, Data & Information Services Center
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A 28-page study, including charts, of 1960 census data compiled according to residence areas, or "tracts," within the cities of Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Newark, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Also provides census data for 1940 and 1950 with regard to Chicago and Detroit. Offers raw data and percentage computations on total population of tracts, number of males and females, African-American ethnicity, foreign origin, age, marital status, income level, education, units of substandard housing, rent amounts, employment figures, and salary levels. Also provides medical-related data, such as numbers of hospitals, hospital beds, pharmacists, and types of physicians in each tract. Of use for those studying mid-20th-century urban history. See "History Matters" entry Data and Program Library Service: Online Data Archive for information on other social science studies available at this site.

Longue Vue House and Gardens [LA]

Description

Longue Vue features Classical Revival style buildings and landscaped gardens, a collection of European and American decorative and fine arts pieces, and museum exhibits. The estate itself was designed in 1939–1942 for philanthropists Edgar Bloom Stern, a New Orleans cotton broker, and his wife Edith Rosenwald Stern, an heiress to the Sears-Roebuck fortune.

The house offers exhibits, tours, educational programs, and educational and recreational events.

Documenting Our Past: The Teenie Harris Archive Project

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Photo, Charles Teenie Harris, c. 1950-1970, Documenting Our Past
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This archive of 1,500 photographs taken by Teenie Harris, photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier, "one of the largest and most influential Black newspapers in the country," documents African American urban life in Pittsburgh from the 1930s to the 1960s. This is a sample of the 80,000 images that make up the full collection. Many of the images have not been identified and the site's authors ask assistance (a submission form accompanies each image).

Visitors can browse the collection through 15 galleries of 100 images each. They can also comment on images and view the comments of others. Following the link to the Teenie Harris image collection in the Historic Pittsburgh Images Collections at the University of Pittsburgh allows visitors to browse the 541 images that have been identified with full captions. The site also offers a chronology of Harris's life. This site is useful for researching the history of Pittsburgh and its African American community as well as urban history or African American history in general.

Remembering Nagasaki

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Photo, Nagasaki, August 10, 1945, Yosuke Yamahata
Annotation

Part of the Memory Exhibition, this site commemorates the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima through the presentation of images of the devastation in the former city and discussion of issues relating to the dropping of the bombs and historical memory of the events. The exhibit contains a slide show of 18 photographs by Japanese army photographer Yosuke Yamahata, taken in Nagasaki on August 10, 1945, the day after the bombing--"the only extensive photographic record of the immediate aftermath of the atomic bombing of either Hiroshima or Nagasaki"--with accompanying comments by Yamahata and a 1,200-word memo he wrote in 1952 on "Photographing the Bomb"; a sampling of approximately 65 recollections from people of different ages, nationalities, and ethnic backgrounds on how they learned about the bombing; excerpts from a public online forum on "the process of representing history, the inhumanity of war, the ethical responsibilities of scientists and technologists, and the historical decision to use the bomb"; and a list of 9 related films, 2 CD-ROMs, 27 books, and 13 links. A well-organized and powerfully presented exhibit.