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Jared the NYC Tour Guide Blog

Posted: Jan 11, 2013 | 6:37 AM
by Jared Goldstein

January 11th in NYC History -
Happy Birthday, Hamilton;
William James and Mary J Blige;
First US Capitol of twice.

1757: Alexander Hamilton born in the West Indies.

As a Patriot, he founded the US Coast Guard, Customs Service, and the Treasury Department.

As a New-Yorker he established America's first bank, the Bank of New York and The New York Post.

We explore a great deal of Hamilton's colonial and early American history on walking tours of the Financial District.

1785: New York City becomes the new nation's capital even before the present Constitution.

Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, met at Federal Hall. NYC remained the capitol through the first years of the Constitution in 1789-90.

We explore NYC's early American history on Downtown Tours.

1842: William James, philospher and psychologist, born in NYC.

1925: Brooklyn conductor Aaron Copeland's career takes off from the Aoelian Hall with his modern and acclaimed First Symphony. Copeland will be known as the dean of American composers.

1971: Happy Birthday, Mary J. Blige.

1978: Toni Morrison's book, Song of Solomon won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the first time for a black, and the first in fifty years for a woman.

1995: The NHL and its players' association finally agree, ending a 105 day lockout, leaving only 48 games in the schedule.

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Posted: Jan 10, 2013 | 4:26 AM
by Jared Goldstein

Jan 10th in NYC History -

Beginnings: greatest Secretary of State, public television network, the Subway bids, The Sopranos, and a media behemoth too big to succeed.
Endings: Dashiell Hammett and, kind of, Congressman Powell.

1861: William Seward, a great New York politician, becomes Lincoln's Secretary of State, likely the best one in history.

1900: Bids are released for the Subway's construction running from City Hall to the Bronx. The first subway opened in 1904.

Coincidentally (?), on this date in 1863 London's Metropolitan (subway), opened.

1961: Dashiell Hammett, author of hard-boiled detective novels turned into popular films, died in NYC. He was born in 1894.

1967: National Education Television (NET) becomes the first noncommercial educational television network, connecting 70 affiliates. It's first broadcast is President Johnson's State of the Union address. NET will later morph in PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, which would soon make a big impact on television, such as with Sesame Street and Masterpiece Theater.

1967: Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, "Mr. Civil Rights," who represented Harlem for 26 years was banned from the House of Representatives pending an investigation into corruption. Powell was re-elected two years later after the the Supreme Court re-instated him.

In the early 1970s he lost the election to Charlie Rangel, who himself was censured for tax evasion three decades later. Rangel, also decades later, will defeat Powell's nephew to retain his seat. Rangel is still serving Harlem in Congress.

We explore the glories of Adam Clayton Powell and the ignominy of Charlie Rangel on Harlem tours.

1999: HBO premiered The Sopranos.

Many tours of Midtown, including my 42nd Street tour, show HBO headquarters.

2000: America Online agreed to buy Time-Warner for $162 billion. The new corporation was valued at $350 billion.

Time-Warner decided to spun off AOL in 2009.

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Posted: Jan 8, 2013 | 11:01 PM

January 9th in NYC History - 12 facts:

1808: NYC's first public works project: filling in Collect Pond with landfill from a flattened Broadway, drained by a canal where Canal Street is. Unemployed and hungry laborers threatened riot unless they got work.

This area is becoming a park. It was a parking lot for the courts (next to Civil and Family Courts, across from The Tombs, Criminal Court). Cars occassionally fell into the pond's sinkholes. It is nice that we are working with nature rather than against it, and it against us.

1854: The Astor Library opened at Lafayette Place, where the Public Theater is now.

It had more books than the Library of Congress.

This semi-public library was a forerunner of the NY Public Library. Washington Irving was the president and chief librarian.

1875: Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Sculptress, Patron of the arts, and founder of the Whitney Museum of American Art, born. She died in 1942. We explore some of her heritage sites on our Greenwich Village tours.

1903: The roots of the Yankees planted by the New York Businessmen who bought Baltimore's American League franchise for $18,000, moved them to upper Manhattan, renamed them the Highlanders, and then the NY Yankees in 1913.

1928: Popular author Judith Krantz born in New York City.

1941: Joan Baez, singer and activist born in Staten Island.

1942: Joe Louis defended his championship , knocking out Buddy Baer at 2:56 into the first round. Louis donated his $47,000 prize to the Navy Relief Fund, poignant since the attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base was a month earlier.

1946: Harlem Renaissance writer Countee Cullen died at 42.

1950: Rock singer David Johansen, from the New York Dolls and Buster Poindexter, born.

1954: Neil Smith, the Ranger's GM and President of their 1994 Stanley Cup Championship team, born in Toronto.

2006: "The Phantom of the Opera" became the longest-running show in Broadway history, surpassing "Cats," which ran for 7,485 performances.

2006: Howard Stern goes to satellite radio. In 2005, he signed a $500 million exclusive broadcast deal with Sirius Satellite Radio's subscription-based radio service .

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Posted: Jan 8, 2013 | 3:32 PM
by Jared Goldstein

Jan 8th in NYC History

1790: GW delivers first state of the union address
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-george-washington-delivers-first-state-of-the-union

1904 Peter Arno, a pioneering cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine, is born.

1933Charles Osgood, Broadcast journalist, turns 80

1941 William Randolph Hearst halts ads for Citizen Kane
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/william-randolph-hearst-stops-citizen-kane-ads

1965...The world's largest sapphire – the Star of India
– comes home to New York in the coat pocket of an assistant district
attorney. The stone had been stolen, along with several others, from the
Museum of Natural History three months earlier. They are recovered from
a locker in a Miami bus depot with the help of one of the thieves.

1971Jason Giambi, Baseball player, turns 42

Ragtime wins the National Book Critics Circle Award, 1976

?1982AT&T settled the Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against it by agreeing to divest itself of the 22 Bell System companies.?

1987The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 2,000 for the first time, ending the day at 2,002.25.

1988: Defying bans on destroying SRO's and demolishing buildings without permits or safety, Developer Harry Macklowe had four buildings, including two SROs demolished overnight. Macklowe perfunctorialy pad the $2 million fine and constructed the luxurious 43-story Hotel Macklowe there.

1998Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was sentenced in New York to life in prison.

2007A Moroccan man convicted of aiding three of the four pilots who committed the 9/11 attacks was sentenced by a German court to the maximum 15 years in prison.

?
80John Carroll 1/8/1735 - 12/3/1815
First Roman Catholic bishop in the United States58

Nicholas Biddle 1/8/1786 - 2/27/1844
American financier

72Frank Nelson Doubleday 1/8/1862 - 1/30/1934
American publisher

80Jose Ferrer 1/8/1912 - 1/26/1992
American actor and director
?

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Posted: Jan 7, 2013 | 12:37 AM
by Jared Goldstein

January 7th in New York City History

NYC proposed as independent and neutral city-state for Civil War,
and many big birthdays, big events and firsts.

1789: The first US Presidential election elected George Washington. As it was during the Confederation from 1784-1788, NYC was the capitol of the former British colonies along the east coast.

1861: As Civil War loomed, Mayor Fernando Wood proposed that New York become a "free city" so as not to lose trade with seceding Southern states. More specifically, Wood proposed that New York City secede from the Union and become a city-state to preserve its profitable trade with the South.
The City Council rejected the suggestion by a wide margin.

1873: Adolph Zukor, who built Paramount, born.

1891: Harlem Renaissance figure, writer, and researcher Zora Neale Hurston born.

1912: Cartoonist Charles Addams born. He died in 1988.

1927: Transatlantic telephone service begins connecting New York and London.

1946: Jann Wenner, born in NYC, Magazine publisher (Rolling Stone based in NYC), turns 67.

1955: Singer Marian Anderson debuted with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, becoming the first black person to perform as a member in its 71 year history.

She sang contralto in the role of the dramatic sorceress Ulrica in Verdi's Masked Ball, which earned her many curtain calls, including from two black porters who bought tickets to see her as audience members.

1957: Talk show host Katie Couric turns 56 years old today.

1970: Lou Rawls sings the ABCs song on the first season of Sesame Street.

1976: Former Yank 2nd baseman Alfonso Soriano born.

1991: The US Supreme Court refused to consider a challenge to the NFL's free agency system. To see how it turned out for the players and owners, see January 6th 1993.

1992: Met's pitcher

Tom Seaver elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with the highest margin, 98.8%. It would have been higher, but for a protest vote against the banning of Pete Rose.

1996: The Blizzard of '96 closed schools and most businesses. 20.2 inches of snow blew in over about a day and a half. At that point, it was the city's 3rd largest snowfall, coming in behind the blizzards of 1947 and 1888.

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Posted: Jan 6, 2013 | 12:34 AM
by Jared Goldstein

January 6th in NYC History:

Teddy and Dizz Died;
E.L.Doctorow and the Telegraph Born;
the importance of Morristown, NJ;
Elvis waist up;
Wires submerged;
Free-Agents Capped.

1777: After recent victories, Washington sets up camp 33 miles east of New York City, in Morristown, N.J. This helped inspire 17,000 New Yorkers to join the militia.

1838: Samuel Morse publicly demonstrated the telegraph, in Morristown, N.J. He died famous and wealthy in New York City April 2, 1872, at 80. On my Greenwich Village Tour, we see NYU where he was a Professor of Painting and Sculpture.

1890: NYC completed the massive project to move most communications lines underground. This was two years after the Blizzard of 1888 caused havoc when the rainforest of telegraph and telephone wires were grounded.

This didn't work out after 2012's Super Storm Sandy Surge. As of this date, there are still businesses Downtown without Verizon phone service. 122 years of uptime isn't bad, though.

1919: NYC's Teddy Roosevelt,, the 26th president of the United States, died in Oyster Bay, N.Y., at age 60.

1933: E.L. Doctorow, New York writer, born.

1947: Courts uphold NYC's ability to require rent control.

1957: Elvis Presley performs his last time on The Ed Sullivan Show. The uproar over his previous performances result in filming him only from the waist up. We see the Ed Sullivan Theater on my John Lennon's NYC Tour.

1993: Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie died after 75.

1993: The NF L granted players free agency, and owners a salary cap.

1996: Blizzard of 1996 begins, among many others on the East Coast, there are deaths in Harlem beneath a collapsed church roof.

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Posted: Jan 5, 2013 | 1:47 AM
by Jared Goldstein

Jan 5 in NYC History

Robinson retires;
Sugar Hill crosses over into the charts;
Birthdays;
Birth of scheduled shipping revolutionizes trade.

1818: The sailing ship James Monroe sets off from New York for Liverpool at exactly 10 a.m., marking the beginning of international shipping run on a set schedule – a revolutionary idea in its day.

This is just part of the South Street Seaport's rich and innovative heritage that I touch on in my Seaport Tours, which is the official tour of both the South Street Seaport Museum and the South Street Seaport Mall.

1877: Clergyman Henry Sloane Coffin born. He died in 1954.

1925: Lou Carnesecca, champion basketball coach for St. John's University (1989 NIT and 1985 NCAA Final Four), and the New York Nets' 1972 ABA Finals, born in NYC.

1931: Alvin Ailey Jr., choreographer and dancer; founded Ailey American Dance Theater, born. He died in 1989.

1942: Charlie Rose, Broadcast journalist, turns 71.

1946: Diane Keaton, Actress, turns 67.

1953: George Tenet, Former CIA director, turns 60.

1957: Jackie Robinson, who integrated the Major
Leagues in 1947, announced his retirement from baseball weeks after the Dodgers trade him to the cross-town rival Giants for $35,000 and a pitcher.

1970: Soap opera "All My Children" premiered on ABC-TV.

1973: Bruce Springsteen's debut album, "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.," released.

1980: The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" becomes hip-hop's first Top 40 hit. We see the Sugar Hill projects during my Harlem tours.

1993: Reggie "Mr. October" Jackson becomes a Baseball Hall of Famer.

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Posted: Jan 4, 2013 | 3:53 PM
by Jared Goldstein

A testimonial about an Introduction to Manhattan walking and subway tour

From a former tour-going guest (SLQ from Texas) who referred me her cousins:

Dec 25th 2012

"Thank you Jared for taking care of my family while they were visiting NY from Louisiana. They enjoyed their time in the city They are Julie M______ and Carly Tammy Murphy and Justin! They had a wonderful Christmas Vacation. Hope you are having a wonderful Christmas. Thanks again!"

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Posted: Jan 4, 2013 | 3:15 PM
by Jared Goldstein

Testimonial about my Harlem Tour Dec 23, 2012

“private tour in Harlem”

Reviewed December 26, 2012

it happened that I was the only one on the tour to Harlem and Jared was my guide on that walking tour that sunny day!

He was very informative and fun about so many things which are hidden from a regular tourist! We visited a baptist church on Sunday and I enjoyed the mess and gospel singing. Then we had a walk around the district and I've got many curious explanation from Jared.

It seems Harlem became closer now that it used to be before.

Visited December 2012

Thank you, Poleff from Moscow!

I did this tour through my beloved client NYC Urban Adventures. Booking me through them provides a more affordable alternative if you want a standardized tour offered at certain times.

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Posted: Jan 4, 2013 | 2:39 AM
by Jared Goldstein

January 4th in NYC History

1821: Elizabeth Ann Seton goes to heaven. Born in 1774, Sainted in 1975, the First American-born Saint. On Downtown Tours we see the Shrine of Elizabeth Ann Seton, as well as St Peter's Church where she had her miraculous vision.

1877: Railroad and shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt died, leaving an estate of more than $100 million. Vanderbilt had built the New York Central Railroad and Grand Central Terminal. I like to share stories of 'the Commodore' on my tours of Grand Central Terminal, which he built, and tours of Staten Island Ferry, which he founded.

1936: Billboard Magazine (founded 1894 in NYC), published the first pop music chart based on record sales. This signaled the transformation of popular music from sheet music performed on pianos.

1944: Ralph Bunche becemees the first African-American in the U.S. State Department, when he joins the staff as a territorial studies expert.

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