Tag: History

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.

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.

New York Botanical Garden

In the Bronx covering 250 acres is the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). This living museum contains one million living plants. Although not on the immediate itinerary of most visitors, its holiday train show and beauty in spring and fall should be seen by visitors to the city.

The NYBG was founded in 1891. It sits on land once part of the vast Lorillard Estate, which was set aside on the freshwater Bronx River (the only freshwater river in the city limits). Wealthy New Yorkers felt that the NYBG would help to improve the city and preserve a pristine area of the city in the face of rapid expansion of the city. The collection of plants encompasses several habitats from all over the world in addition to one of the only old-growth forest groves left in the city. Many specimens are located in the large Enid Haupt Conservatory, which was completed in 1902 and gained its current name in 1978 after Mrs. Haupt gave money to save it from demolition.

The NYBG is not only for displaying plants, but also contains large botanical research facilities as well as the largest library in the U.S. specifically concerning plants and related matter. There is also a large facility on the grounds that has frozen DNA samples for research purposes. This is the type of information you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

The High Line

Since 2009, the High Line in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan has delighted visitors and natives alike, helped to revitalize a formerly derelict area of the borough, and become one of the most innovative parks in the city. This linear park has a colorful history.

Before the arrival of the High Line, the Meatpacking District was similar to the Chicago Stockyards or the “Porkopolis” nickname of Cincinnati in that it was a major center of butchering and food processing. Major rail lines ran trains down tracks on 10th Avenue, leading to many people getting crushed by the trains (despite the presence of “Chelsea Cowboys” warning people of the trains). By the 1930s, the city decided that the tracks needed to be removed, leading to the construction of the High Line, which originally went from Spring Street to 34th Street. The track, which was so successful, caused major food processors such as Nabisco to build buildings around the tracks so they could offload freight. With the advent of more reliable trucking after World War II, the High Line declined in importance until the last train ran in 1980. While some sections were demolished, the present section was deemed too expensive for the city to remove. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, neighborhood activists successfully fought and won to have the viaduct converted into a linear park—similar to one in Paris, France. The park opened in stages in 2009, 2011, 2014, and 2015.

Open every day, the park has caused rapid development in the area with the opening of many new hotels and a spike in neighboring property values. The park has proven so successful that other cities such as Chicago and Philadelphia are eyeing similar proposals to build a High Line-style park. In 2017, Sights by Sam hopes to add a tour that includes the High Line and the Meatpacking District. This area is a must-do for any visitor to the city to see along with the Whitney Museum or while going to nearby shops.

New Years in New York

The turn of the new year is not only a national holiday, but a great day of celebration in New York. In addition to famous displays to mark the new year all over the world, New York differs from many in that there are no fireworks. Due to local ordinance in the city, no fireworks are allowed to be set off within city limits, leading to one of the most unique New Years traditions in the world.

In 1904, the New York Times located to Times Square. To mark the location, the paper had a grand celebration with fireworks to mark the arrival of 1905. This event attracted thousands, but the main place to mark the new year was still in Lower Manhattan. This changed for 1908 when the Times launched the first lightbulb-coated ball to drop down the 151’ pole atop their headquarters at One Times Square. This spectacle soon became the preferred way to ring in the new year (coupled with a fireworks ban that would force this to become the main celebration for the city after supposed problems with fireworks ringing in 1907 that nearly caused a stampede in Lower Manhattan). Over the years, six different balls have been used to ring in the new year. The sixth and newest has been in use since 2009—weighing nearly 12,000 pounds and over 12’ in diameter.

The only time there has not been a ball drop since 1908 was during World War II in 1942 and 1943. Due to blackout restrictions, no lights were allowed. Instead, crowds gathered in Times Square and prayed for the safety of U.S. and Allied soldiers fighting around the world—accompanied by Army sound trucks playing chimes. For this year, as in all years, up to 1.5 million people (along with thousands of NYPD and NY State Troopers) will ring in the new year at Times Square. This is the type of information that you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Port Authority Bus Terminal

On the west side of Midtown is one of the most important transportation centers in the city. The very aptly-named Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) is managed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Its construction was meant to consolidate the various smaller bus terminals around the city into one unit, of which close to a dozen were believed to exist in the city limits at one point.

Constructed between 1950 and 1979, the PABT has 223 slips to allow large intercity buses to bring passengers into Manhattan. Many of these arrivals and departures are for New Jersey Transit commuter buses that bring thousands of commuters into the city from New Jersey. These commuter buses are bolstered by fleets of smaller buses (jitneys or vans) that help to bring in more people. Long distance buses from the East Coast and all over the country also call on PABT. During the morning, so many buses make their arrival into PABT, which is near the NY entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, that the buses have an exclusive lane from the New Jersey side that brings them directly to the terminal.

With the proliferation of Chinatown buses and other transportation providers operating (sometimes illegally) curbside bus pickup, the city’s Department of Transportation estimates that it would take at least four PABT-sized terminals to completely clear the streets of the city of intercity bus traffic. Although it has been talked about for some time, an immediate solution to crowding at PABT is still several years away. This is the type of information that you will learn on a Sights by Sam tour.

Your City and New York: Baltimore

Less than 200 miles from New York lies the industrial city of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1729, there are similarities between the Empire City and the Charm City.

Like New York, Baltimore owes its growth to its port. The Port of Baltimore is the 16th largest port in the U.S. (the Port of New York-New Jersey is 3rd). While it is still very much a working port area, Baltimore (like Brooklyn) has reclaimed much of its waterfront for recreational use, such as in the Inner Harbor and the Camden Yards stadium complex. When the Inner Harbor was a functioning port, it was one of the major ports in the country that received immigrants to this country between the late 1800s and early 1900s, rivaling Ellis Island as the point of entry for many arrivals. Immigrants would arrive in the city and be processed before settling in the region or taking the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad west or the Pennsylvania Railroad north or south. As an aside on this, several streetcars preserved at the Baltimore Streetcar Museum have colored glass panes running along the top of the cars, which attempted to help immigrants who could not speak English find their way around town.

For fans of baseball, Baltimore is the origin city for the New York Yankees (who played their first two seasons in the American League as the original Baltimore Orioles before moving up north). The city also has major significance as it was the birthplace of George Herman “Babe” Ruth, the first superstar of the game. Other similarities between the two cities are the trove of Revolutionary War and War of 1812-era sites in the city. Although New York had a grand set of harbor fortifications that were prepared to repel a British assault during the War of 1812 (Castle Clinton, Castle William, and Fort Wood in New York Harbor), they are not quite as famous as Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, which secured its place in American History forever during the Battle of Baltimore—commemorated in the Star Spangled Banner. Although the merits of my next point may be debatable, Baltimore also has a unique dining scene—not only in several enclaves such as a Little Italy, Greektown, and a bar district in the charming Fells Point neighborhood near the Inner Harbor.

There are other commonalities with both cities—including devastating great fires and protests during the Civil War. If you are from the Baltimore region and would like see sights in New York that have a connection to the Charm City, you may be able to arrange this on a customized tour with Sights by Sam.