History.Workshoppin’: Issue 1 (August 2024)
To all the folks who asked, “Do you have a newsletter?”: here it is. I plan to send these no more than every other month, with updates to my tour schedule, highlights from recent research, shoutouts to other tour companies and recently visited cool spots, and any other relevant news.
Coming Up Next
August is a weird month for giving tours. It’s definitely the midst of tourist season (which can go either way in terms of my clientele), but it’s also stupid hot most of the day. To top it all off, August is one of the months that is least bad for me to take a vacation or staycation. But then the calendar flips to September, and we get a first taste of fall. Foliage! Sweater weather! It’s an immediate jump from one of my least-favorite tour seasons to my absolute favorite, and my upcoming tour calendar represents it. Visit my website and hit the register now button to sign up for any of the following dates/times.
August
8/4, 11:00 a.m.: Lower East Side History and Foodways
8/4, 5:00 p.m.: The Bridges of Gowanus: Rezone Remix
8/11, 11:00 a.m.: NEW: Quenching Gotham’s Thirst: New York Before the Croton Era
8/25, 11:00 a.m.: Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park, and LGBTQS Lives in NYC
September
9/1, 11:00 a.m.: The Bridges of Gowanus: Rezone Remix
9/8, 5:00 p.m.: Greenwich Village: Activists and Agitators
9/22, 5:00 p.m.: Lower East Side History and Foodways
9/29, 11:00 a.m.: The Bridges of Gowanus: Rezone Remix
9/29, 4:00 p.m.: Meatpacking District and Chelsea
October
10/5, 1:00 p.m.: Green-Wood Cemetery, Sunset Park, and LGBTQS Lives in NYC
10/6, 11:00 a.m.: Meatpacking District and Chelsea
(more tour dates potentially to come, but I’m also reserving some time to, y’know, save democracy)
November
11/9, 2:00 p.m.: Frederick Douglass in Brooklyn
11/10, 1:00 p.m.: Quenching Gotham’s Thirst: New York Before the Croton Era
11/16, 2:00 p.m.: Greenwich Village: Activists and Agitators
11/17, 1:00 p.m.: The Bridges of Gowanus: Rezone Remix
Some Other Projects
I’m writing, producing, and recording a suite of audio tours for NYC Ferry! This has been percolating for a few months, as the ferry system embarks on a tourism program geared at out-of-towners in addition to local commuters. As someone who uses the ferry with enough regularity to make ten-trips worthwhile and to give me a roster of favorite ship names (Ocean Queen Rockstar, whaddup), I am exceptionally excited to begin this work. More on this to come in future newsletters; for now, you can give my past virtual tours a look or a listen.
Something from the Archive
I’m back doing some research at the Center for Brooklyn History on water infrastructure in pre-consolidation Brooklyn, which has for now made its way into an epilogue of my first Quenching Gotham’s Thirst tour (on the path to the Croton system, focused on Lower Manhattan) and will become a new tour of its own in time for next year’s Jane’s Walk NYC. There is such an enormous physical breadth, and historical depth, to cover when discussing the history of the Brooklyn system, the insufficiency of which was a key factor in the 1898 amalgamation. (In contrast to the city of New York, which could get water from points north, the city of Brooklyn had to go east — to streams, ponds, and driven wells initially as far east as Rockville Centre, and then farther still to Massapequa.) Yet it has largely been lost to public memory (except for the old Ridgewood Reservoir and the place names of North and South Conduit Avenues, Aqueduct Racetrack, and the very colorfully named Force Tube Avenue). The main reservoir, at Mount Prospect, is now the Brooklyn Public Library central branch, and Mount Prospect Park. The pumping station in Freeport burned down. And the sources of supply have been overtaken by towns, villages, and hamlets dotting Long Island’s south shore.
To that end, one of my favorite finds was this map featuring Conselyea’s Pond, now in Rosedale, Queens’s Brookville Park, where I played (and, for a season, umpired) Little League, rode my bike, sledded, and had some classic family flag football games for a few Thanksgivings. So it was just plain cool to see the pond, then in the rural marshland of Foster’s Meadow at the center of the park shown in this nineteenth-century map in CBH’s collections:
Foster’s Meadow didn’t even have the railroad come through for another decade or so, and the name Rosedale would not emerge for another thirty years. Much of what makes Brookville Park aside from the pond didn’t start getting built until the New Deal. And at the center of my childhood park, a pond that served as a source of drinking water for thousands of Brooklynites dating back over a century before I was born.
History is all around us, folks. You just have to connect the dots.
I’m a Terrible Businessperson, So Here’s Another Tour You Might Like
For a few years after the New York Public Library acquired Arthur Russell’s papers, I had an idea in mind to head up to the Library for the Performing Arts, do some research, and make an Arthur Russell–focused tour. Then I found out that one already existed, that new tour iron immediately got thrown out of the fire, and I headed to Jesse Rifkin’s Walk on the Wild Side Tours to sign up.
Sadly, a tour about key spots in Arthur Russell’s life and career doesn’t get a lot of play, so I had to wait a few months to snag a spot. But man oh man is it a thorough, moving tour. Jesse’s a musician and historian with a like-minded viewpoint to the history of development and gentrification, which really comes through in his tour repertoire. (It also emerges in his newish book, This Must Be the Place.) Sight kinda unseen, among his staple tours, I’d recommend Post-Punk, Disco, & Hip Hop Downtown, which covers similar ground as the Arthur Russell walk.
Some Sensory Stimuli
My spouse, Chrisinda (she of the outstanding costume design newsletter, Suds), had her book club meeting at Brighton Beach recently, and following a refreshing, quiet late morning picnic along the water, we walked to Oriental Boulevard in Manhattan Beach to Hot Potato House, which certainly represents truth in advertising. Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew, this place knows how to cook a tater, Ukrainian-style. From the latkes (or draniki) to the vareniki dumplings, from shepherd’s pie to a glorious fish soup, this spot was a tasty way to end a nice day. I’m definitely hopping on the B1 for another beach day later this summer (the farther east from Coney, the better the time, in my personal experience), and similarly plan to stop here again.
Hot Potato House is located at 109 Oriental Boulevard in Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, right off the B1 and the B49, a ten-minute walk away from the B, the Q, and the B68 at Brighton Beach, a decent hike from the B4, and pretty much equidistant between the Brighton and Manhattan beachfronts.
How Is Reading The Power Broker Going, Daniel?
A couple weeks behind schedule, I’m afraid. Secretary Mayor Pete will have to wait until I get back onside. The good news: many of the upcoming chapters are ones I have read in college. The bad news: most of them are about Robert Moses tearing the Bronx apart.
Hope to see you in the streets soon; otherwise, I’ll talk to you sometime in Spooky Season, friends. Until then, consider forwarding this newsletter to a friend, and have a great rest of the summer.