Category: Blog

Basketball Scandal and New York

In addition to the end of winter, March also marks the annual start of college basketball’s “March Madness,” where college basketball teams from every state compete to be the NCAA’s champion. Many rivalries exist among various teams, but New York was the center of one of the most infamous moments in the sport’s history.

In the late 1940s through the very early 1950s, the City College of New York (CCNY) Beavers were among one of the most elite college basketball teams in the country. The program had at one point won the NIT and NCAA tournament in the same year. It eventually came to light that many of the players on the 1949-1950 CCNY squad were implicated in a point-shaving scandal in a game between CCNY and the University of Kentucky. It would be found during the subsequent investigation by the federal government that other NYC-area schools such as New York University, Long Island University, and Manhattan College—in addition to other schools in the Southeast and Midwest, would be implicated in similar scandals under the direction of organized crime families.

As a result of the scandal, CCNY deemphasized its basketball team, moving them to Division III and never regaining its former glory. As another punishment to the region and its involvement in the scandal, the NCAA did not hold tournament play in the New York City region for decades. Because of the passage of time, this scandal has largely been forgotten by most of the public, but still casts a shadow over college athletics. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Meatpacking District

On the West Side of Manhattan exists a neighborhood between Greenwich Village and 14th Street that has gone through several transitions throughout its history. The Meatpacking District, long the preserve of food processing and less than savory activities, is now one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in Manhattan.

The Meatpacking District was formerly a part of Greenwich, NY, the small town that was eventually incorporated into New York as Greenwich Village. Although originally residential, industry and railroads began to appear in the district after the Civil War, making it an industrial area. The neighborhood became known for processing food, especially meat. From the 1870s to the 1960s, there were slaughterhouses and food processing plants dotting the neighborhood. The High Line was built in the 1930s to relieve congestion in the area.

As food processing in the area declined, the area entered into decay, with the Meatpacking District becoming associated with very unseemly activities such as crime and vice. From the late 1990s through the 2000s, many new stores and boutiques came into the area as the result of a drop in crime during the Giuliani years. Today, the area is famous for hosting high end shops and the new home of the Whitney Museum of American Art. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Metropolitan Life North Building

At Madison Square Park is the 700 foot Metropolitan Life Tower, that is topped by the “Light that Never Fails” (to symbolize that the company would always protect its customers). To the north of this landmark is the stub of what was to be the world’s tallest tower.

In the late 1920s, Metropolitan Life sought to construct an annex to their headquarters that would have been the tallest building in the world. Harvey Wiley Corbett was the lead architect on this project, which would have built a 100-story Art Deco tower—among the tallest in the world. Construction started in 1928, but the building was far from complete by the time the stock market crashed in 1929. Work was stalled until the early 1950s, when Metropolitan Life decided to halt construction at its current height of 451’ and 28 stories.

For many years, the building was used as archives for Metropolitan Life and was also used as a location for many films due to its eclectic style. It now houses offices. This building can be seen on a Sights by Sam tour.

Astor Place

At the confluence of Eighth Street, Lafayette Street and Fourth Avenue in the East Village is Astor Place.  The plaza forms the divide between Lower Manhattan and Midtown Manhattan (specifically between the East Village, Chelsea, and Union Square).  This plaza is also the site of one of the most recognizable pieces of artwork in the city in addition to the site of one of the bloodiest nights in city history.

Astor Place was named after the Astor Family, specifically John Jacob Astor, fur trapper and real estate magnate.  Astor, being of German descent, was considered “new money” in the 1800s and not allowed to partake in some of the city’s high society circles—dominated by wealthy Dutch and English-descended families.  This did not stop him from developing many areas of the city, which included a high-end residential area at Astor Place.  After Astor’s death, an opera house was built at Astor Place in 1847.  In 1849, there was a riot over the choice of if an American or British actor would play the lead in Macbeth.  This riot led to the opera house being called “Dis-Astor Place” by the newspapers and forcing the venue to close the same year.

One of the most distinctive features of Astor Place today (aside from the Kmart and the very stylish 1904-vintage subway canopy) is the cube-shaped scultpure.  Entitled The Alamo, this cube shaped structure was designed by University of Michigan artist Tony Rosenthal.  The sculpture weighs almost one ton and is made of corrosion-resistant steel.  The cube was previously on a platform which allowed it to turn and pivot, but this feature has since been removed.  It was recently restored in late 2016.  This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Your City and New York: New Orleans

The Big Easy and the Big Apple are both important cities and vacation destinations.  Aside from their similar nicknames and that they have “new” in their names, there are other similarities between these two great cities.

New Orleans and New York are both the result of European powers (the French in Louisiana and the Dutch in what would become New York) looking to profit commercially in North America.  Both New Orleans and New York owe their founding and survival to their location as ports near great rivers: the Mississippi and the Hudson Rivers.  The coastal location near oceans has made them great ports in the U.S. (the first and third largest, respectively).  This coastal location has unfortunately made them susceptible to devastating hurricanes in recent years given their dense populations.

Culturally, there is some similarity between the cities as well: both New Orleans and New York are centers of African American culture and music—notably important areas in jazz music.  Both cities are also fervent about their sports teams.  While New Orleans is known for its Mardi Gras carnival, New York is also famous for its annual West Indian Labor Day parade, which has a carnival-like atmosphere.  The cities also each attract writers, who have written about the highs and lows of city life in the Deep South and in the concrete jungle.  Even in death, both cities are home to spectacularly-designed cemeteries that are tourist attractions in their own right.

Not surprisingly, New Orleans and New York are both on the top of leisure destinations for visitors domestically and internationally.  While there are the noticeable climactic differences between these cities, their commonalities are indeed more than superficial.  This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

The Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is one of the most famous art museums in the country and the world.  The permanent collection of the museum has several notable artworks by artists such as Van Gogh, Picasso, Seurat, Matisse, and Dali, among many, many others.  The museum also has several temporary exhibitions that bring subjects as diverse as artist retrospectives to trends in mid 20th Century furniture design.

The MoMA was first formulated in 1929 and opened shortly after the stock market crash of that year.  It moved to its current location in 1939.  It gained prominence early in its history with exhibits about Van Gogh and Picasso.  The museum has been expanded several times—in the 1980s and in the early 2000s.  A satellite campus has been opened in Long Island City, Queens, at P.S. 1 to showcase contemporary art.  Another large expansion is in the works to be completed by 2020.  In addition to its painting and sculpture collection, the MoMA houses thousands of sketches, books, and movies deemed important for preservation.

The museum is very popular on Fridays after 4:00PM when admission fees are waived.  The MoMA is worth a spot on the itinerary of any visitor to the city.  This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Bryant Park

Tucked into Midtown between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, book-ended to the east by the NY Public Library is Bryant Park. This 9.6 acre park was built next to the former Croton Reservoir in 1847. In 1853, an industrial exposition was held at the site, where an observation tower was built and the first safety elevator was demonstrated. The area returned to use as a park after the exposition. It would eventually be named after Willian Cullen Bryant, longtime editor of the New York Post and ardent abolitionist. After a period of neglect between World War II and the 1980s, the park was restored and is now popular once again.

Bryant Park is also famous for the surrounding buildings. The most famous is the New York Public Library’s main location at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Other famous buildings include the American Standard Building, which is now the site of a hotel. This building is clad in black and gold, supposedly looking like a radiator at night. The Bank of America Tower/One Bryant Park towers 1200’ over the park from a caddy-corner location. This structure is one of the tallest and largest green buildings in the city. While not in the park, the Empire State Building is visible from almost half a mile away, its famous and familiar edifice towering over the park.

Today, Bryant Park is famous as a popular lunch spot among Midtown office workers and for its annual holiday market in winter. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Industry in New York

In today’s society where many manufactured goods are made in the South and West of the U.S. or come into the country in containers on great ships, manufacturing in New York City seems to be a foreign concept. On the contrary, the city has a long and industrious (no pun intended) history.

Being at the epicenter of a major port and with an incoming labor from overseas and across the country, New York became a major industrial hub. Manufacturing was concentrated on the West Side of Manhattan and in Brooklyn, among other locations. The industrial heritage of the city is still evident in the many lofts that dot Lower Manhattan, Williamsburg, and the Brooklyn waterfront. Unlike many other cities, New York had many varied industries, which helped the city weather downturns in a particular industry. With that said, the industries tended not to be heavy such as steel manufacturing—with concentration on food processing, consumer goods and durable goods among others.

From a high point in the first half of the 1900s, manufacturing declined over time in the city due to a combination of companies moving to Right to Work states in the South and West, the rising price of real estate in the city/confined building sites, and more liberalized international trade. Statistics by the Wall Street Journal indicate that manufacturing employs a little under 80,000 in the city—far down from 190,000 thirty years ago. Statistics indicate that this sector is growing in the city and is focused on high end goods. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Disappeared Shopping Districts

New York is in a constant state of change. As a constantly evolving metropolis, neighborhoods change and businesses come and go. Due to the free market society that we all enjoy, there are specialty retail districts in the city that no longer exist. While there are still vestiges of some shopping districts such as garments on Orchard Street, there are several areas of the city that were once known for retailing particular products:

Radio Row
In the 1920s, radios were first put together by consumers themselves. As people began to demand nicer radio sets and companies such as Crosley entered the marketplace to fill the void, radio shops began to proliferate on Cortlandt Street in Lower Manhattan. The area soon attracted more radio and electronics vendors, filling this area of Lower Manhattan with the sounds of radios and attracting both consumers and hobbyists. At its heyday, 300 businesses selling radios and related components filled the area, giving it a crowded and loud feel. The shops in Radio Row also sold other electronic items, but were a victim of the land they sat on. As Lower Manhattan began to decline after World War II, there were many redevelopment efforts proposed. One of these included the World Trade Center, which ultimately doomed Radio Row as the district was condemned by eminent domain to construct the World Trade Center complex.

Book Row
As the epicenter of the U.S. publishing industry and with several universities, it would only be natural that New York would be the center of a large book district. Starting in the 1890s, bookstores, especially secondhand ones, started to proliferate on Fourth Avenue south of Union Square. This neighborhood, which bristled with shops and pushcarts selling books, was THE place to buy books in the city. Because of the number of bookstores, there was rampant specialization among the type of books that some stores sell. Like Radio Row, however, rising real estate values led to many of the shops closing. Today, Strand Books and a few others soldier on as the only survivors of the once vast district.

Changing tastes in retail and land values often change the nature of a district. This is evident today with the auto shops near Citi Field in Willet’s Point and with packing plants in the Meatpacking District. While the areas mentioned in this article are but shadows of their former selves, they form an important part of the city’s social history and its influence on generations of New Yorkers. The former sites of Radio Row and Book Row can be seen on a Sights by Sam tour.

Coffee in the City

Every neighborhood in New York from Tottenville to Riverdale has at least one place that will be serving the quintessential beverage of New York—coffee. Although not a native product of the state (milk is the official New York State beverage), coffee not only fuels hundreds of thousands of commuters per day, but has a big imprint on the city’s history.

Because of New York’s position as a major port, coffee was first imported to the colony by the Dutch. This was in contrast to many English colonies, where the preeminent beverage was tea. After the Revolutionary War, coffee started to become the preeminent beverage in the city as tea was seen as too reminiscent of British domination. Coffee roasters proliferated in the city and the coffee beans were primarily brought through New York for most of the history of the U.S. In 1882, a coffee exchange was set up to regulate the wholesale coffee trade in the city—which many nefarious people tried to attempt to corner (and so that the quality of coffee could be improved upon). Previously considered a pursuit for wealthier people (the traders who would later form the New York Stock Exchange often met in a coffee house), the drink eventually became more accessible to all Americans.

In addition to the cargo of coffee coming through the city, arrivals to New York from Europe, Africa, and other countries in the Americas also brought their styles of preparing coffee with them. By the time national chains such as Starbucks arrived in the city, specialty coffees and methods of preparation were hardly unknown to most New Yorkers. The city remains a bastion of caffeine-enriched goodness with the drink available in any part of the city. Unofficial estimates state that New York is the largest consumer of coffee in the country (perhaps because it is the city that never sleeps). This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.