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Dyker Heights Christmas Lights: What to Know Before You Go
Every holiday season, an estimated 150,000 people make the journey to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Dyker Heights to admire its houses decked out with lights and holiday decorations. That number may not sound like a lot compared to the 6.5 million people who visit New York City overall during the holidays, but this is quite…
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NYC Subway Facts from the Most Basic to the Fairly Obscure
NYC’s subway system is a never-ending source of fascinating things, and I’m not just talking about all the stuff that is used as fodder for Subway Creatures. With over 100 years servicing the people of New York, the subway has racked up volumes worth of stats, facts, and trivia. Let’s go over a few of…
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How to Explore Inwood in a Day: An Inwood Neighborhood Guide
Inwood may be at the top of Manhattan island, but it’s rarely top of mind when people think of Manhattan neighborhoods. So why are we talking about Inwood on the blog today? Well, to be honest, it is partly because sometimes I want to be a little self-indulgent. I’ve lived in the neighborhood for over…
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These Books Will Show You What Life Was Like in Colonial NYC
Are you curious about New York’s early days? These four books, fiction and non-fiction, will show you what life was like in colonial NYC. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto New York City’s colonial history didn’t start…
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The NYC Juneteenth Reading List
Juneteenth commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Although the holiday originated in Galveston, Texas, it’s important to remember that slavery wasn’t only a Southern sin. The history of Northern states has also been tainted by slavery, especially New York State, which had the largest slaveholding population of all the Northern states and was among…
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A (Bad) Catholic’s Guide to NYC
It’s hard to think of NYC as a particularly religious city, let alone a Catholic one. But contrary to popular belief, plenty of New Yorkers worship the almighty God along with the almighty dollar, with Catholics making up the largest sect of the city’s religious folk. According to data from the Pew Research Center, 33…
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Five Surprising Connections Between MLK and NYC
Usually when we think of Martin Luther King, Jr., we picture him in the South in places like Birmingham and Montgomery, speaking out against the segregationist laws there. We don’t normally picture him up north, although segregation and discrimination were also a fact of life for people of color in the northern states. Partly because…
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Should These NYC Mayors Have Places Named After Them?
NYC has been led by 110 mayors over its nearly 400-year history, but most of the men who have had the honor of being “hizzoner” have long-faded into obscurity. Only a select few mayors have been memorialized, mostly with places named after them in NYC. So in honor of the city’s latest mayoral inauguration, let’s…
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Three Books to Help You Make Sense of the Twin Towers, 9/11, and the Freedom Tower
It’s been 20 years since the day that changed New York City, the country, and even the world, but I still feel no closer to comprehending what happened on 9/11 than I could as a confused six-year-old wondering why our parents were picking us up from school so early in the day. As I was…
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Where to Go to Learn About the Forgotten History of New York’s Waterfront
These days, New York City’s waterfront is a maritime playground, but for most of the city’s nearly 400-year existence, the waterfront used to be strictly business. Anyone who wasn’t a dock worker or a passenger on a ship steered clear of the shoreline, as all the action we’ve come to associate with New York City…
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NYC’s Surprising Presidential History and Where to Find It
Washington, D.C. is the seat of the U.S. national government, but it doesn’t have a monopoly on the country’s presidential history. Believe it or not, New York City is quite presidential if you look beyond the rats and the shoebox apartments. Keep reading and I’ll prove it to you! New York City was the first…
