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On November 5 I am going to have a double-feature day: At 10:00 AM take a cemetery walking tour in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn. Followed by a 2:00 p.m. book talk about World War I New York: A Guide the City’s Enduring Ties to the Great War, which will be held at the Queens Historical Society in Flushing. To begin the day, I will lead a free tour of the only national cemetery in NYC in Continue Reading →
My July 31 talk at the New-York Historical Society was recorded and broadcast by C-SPAN3. It’s based on my book World War I New York: A Guide to the City’s Enduring Ties to the Great War. You can stream it here. It is part of the American History TV series.
I have paid my respects to the Confederate soldiers buried in Brooklyn. Oh, you didn’t know that more than 500 war dead who served in the Confederate States of America are interred there? There are more Confederate graves in New York City than any other place in the Northeast? I’ve been waiting to talk to a couple of reporters for two days, since I wrote a book about city war memorials, and give tours of Continue Reading →
On Independence Day I’ll be climbing the 215 steps up to the pedestal of the Statue of the Liberty. I’m making five trips in five consecutive days, down from four trips last week. As a licensed tour guide, I’m among the lucky few who get to visit the most famous landmark in the country for my “job” so often. Taking visitors to Liberty Island and Ellis Island is an incredible privilege. When I began leading Continue Reading →
One hundred years ago on Sunday, General John J. Pershing woke up in Times Square. He was in bed in the Astor Hotel, which once was on the corner of Broadway and W. 44th Street. I do not know how he got from Forty-second Street to the Battery Maritime Building at 10 South Street, but I like to think that instead of a car he and his group took the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) Continue Reading →
The last week has been a whirlwind ever since my new book World War I New York: A Guide to the City’s Enduring Ties to the Great War was published by Globe Pequot. I was on the edge for weeks because the book was delayed, and I was worried it would miss the centennial on April 6. To say it was close was an understatement. April 4 I finally got a chance to see the Continue Reading →
It is Women’s History Month. Who celebrates Jane Grant as the co-founder of The New Yorker? Was it, perhaps, The New Yorker? Or newyorker.com? Or another Condé Nast publication, such as Vanity Fair or Vogue? You’d be wrong in every case, just like you’d be wrong to choose The New York Times, where Grant was the first female reporter in the city room, before World War I. The one (and only one) place that recognizes Continue Reading →
In thirty days is the centennial of American entry in World War I on April 6. To mark the occasion, beginning today I am going to post a daily countdown with a different sketch by Private C. LeRoy Baldridge. He was a sketch artist in the war and his work was widely distributed. I am going to post these images daily until April 6 on my Tumbler, Twitter, and Facebook Page. Here is a little Continue Reading →
In the basement of an American Legion hall in the Bronx I saw an Army coat from the Teddy Roosevelt administration, a shirt worn in 1918, and a display of medals that were museum-quality. There was also a rubber rat and caps galore. This could only be a flea market for World War I buffs, and it was held on Saturday, February 25. If there was one story that came out of the inaugural event Continue Reading →
Kensico Vaudeville Project #14 Name: Celina De Dio Act: Animal Trainer Born: About 1872, Germany Died: 12 November 1935, Wards Island, Manhattan A dog and pony show is such a common colloquial term today. But this was the act of German-born performer Celina De Dio. After a short career in London variety halls as a dancer, De Dio became an animal trainer. She was always on the bottom tier of vaudeville. For ten years she Continue Reading →