Gotham Center Podcasts: Recent Episodes
The Gotham Center for New York City History
A podcast featuring scholars and experts talking about New York City’s most important historical sites and organizations, for Open House New York (OHNY) Weekend. Each recording presents a story or narrative about some participating location or institution, which can be used to supplement in-person visits, or to bring the OHNY Weekend experience home to anyone unable to see these NYC treasures.
Site and Sounds: 9/11 MemorialBy James YoungOn today’s episode of Sites and Sounds, James Young talks about the 9/11 Memorial at Ground Zero.
Site and Sounds: TWA Terminal, JFK International AirportBy Nicholas D. BloomThis year marks the fourth season of Sites and Sounds, a podcast series by the Gotham Center for Open House New York’s annual OHNY Weekend. All this week Gotham will bring you new episodes of this award-winning podcast. Check out more about OHNY Weekend, happening October 16-17. In today’s episode of Sites and Sounds, Nicholas D. Bloom talks about the TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport.
Site and Sounds: National Lighthouse MuseumBy Eric Jay DolinIn today’s episode of Sites and Sounds, Eric Jay Dolin talks about the National Lighthouse Museum.
Site and Sounds: New York Botanical GardenBy Jane GarmeyIn today’s episode of Sites and Sounds, Jane Garmey talks about the New York Botanical Garden.
Site and Sounds: Hart IslandBy Melinda HuntOn today’s episode of Sites and Sounds, Melinda Hunt talks about the public graveyard at Hart Island.
Site and Sounds: International Caribbean Center African Diaspora Institute By Tyesha MaddoxIn today’s episode of Sites and Sounds, Tyesha Maddox talks about the International Caribbean Center African Diaspora Institute.
Site and Sounds: Bike New YorkBy Evan FrissOn today’s episode of Sites and Sounds, Evan Friss talks about the the history of the bicycle and cycling spaces in New York.
Graham Russell Gao Hodges, author of David Ruggles: A Radical Black Abolitionist and the Underground Railroad in New York City, on Mother Zion A.M.E. Church and its nationally influential antislavery leaders.
Brendan Cooper, author ofThe Domino Effect: Politics, Policy, and the Consolidation of the Sugar Refining Industry in the United States, 1789–1895, on the rise and fall of the enormous Williamsburg, Brooklyn factory.
Bob McGee, author of The Greatest Ballpark Ever: Ebbets Field and the Story of the Brooklyn Dodgers, on the iconic stadium (formerly in Crown Heights) and its still-bemoaned departure.
Sharon Zukin, author of Point of Purchase: How Shopping Changed American Culture, on ‘B. Altman’s,’ the famous Midtown department store, and the new world of consumption it helped make.
Stacy Horn, author of Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, and Criminal in 19th-Century New York, on the notorious ‘lunatic asylum,’ prison, workhouses, and hospitals that once stood on Roosevelt Island.
Shane White, author of Prince of Darkness and Stories of Freedom in Black New York, on the African Grove, a theater company which played with an entirely black cast and crew to mostly black audiences in the last days of slavery in NYC.
Alexander Manevitz, author of The Rise and Fall of Seneca Village: Remaking Race and Space in Nineteenth-Century New York City (forthcoming), on the free black community destroyed to build Central Park.
Leslie Alexander, author of African or American? Black Identity and Political Activism in New York City, 1784-1861, on the African meetinghouse, headquarters of the secret society that created the state’s first incorporated black organization; for a century, NYC’s most prominent black mutual aid group.
Christopher F. Minty, author of “American Demagogues”: The Origins of Loyalism in New York City (forthcoming), on James Rivington and his controversial printshop in Hanover Square.
Russell Shorto, author of the national bestseller The Island at the Center of the World, on Fort Amsterdam and the Dutch colony it protected.
Randall Mason, co-author of North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City, onthis now-abandoned, once-feared part of Gotham’s archipelago, which served for decades as (often forced) quarantine for the ill during various epidemics.
Charles Affron, co-author of Grand Opera: The Story of the Met, on the world famous opera company.
Edith Gonzalez, a historical archaeologist, on Wyckoff House, the oldest structure in NYC, a Dutch-era farmhouse situated in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Canarsie.
Gail Fenske, author of "The Skyscraper and the City: The Woolworth Building and the Making of Modern New York," on the architectural landmark in Tribeca.
Fred Goodman, former Rolling Stone editor and the author of "The Secret City: Woodlawn Cemetery and the Buried History of New York," on the Bronx graveyard next to Van Cortlandt Park.
Kurt Schlichting, author of "Waterfront Manhattan: From Henry Hudson to the High Line," on the Waterfront Museum in Red Hook.
Michael Hattem, co-founder of the Junto and historian of colonial NYC, on the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument, where the remains of nearly 11,000 P.O.W.'s in the American Revolution are buried, in Fort Greene.
Pamela Hanlon, independent historian and the author of "A Worldly Affair: New York, the United Nations, and the Story Behind Their Unlikely Bond," on the international body's headquarters in Turtle Bay.
Blanche Wiesen Cook, Graduate Center historian and the definitive biographer of Eleanor Roosevelt, on her former home, now a CUNY-affiliated think tank in the Upper East Side.
R. Scott Hanson, NYC field researcher for Harvard’s Pluralism Project and the author of "City of Gods: Religious Freedom, Immigration, and Pluralism in Flushing, Queens," on the neighborhood's famous Quaker meetinghouse.
Peter Derrick, MTA veteran and the author of "Tunneling to the Future: The Story of the Great Subway Expansion That Saved New York," on the Transit Museum in Downtown Brooklyn.
Robin Nagle, author of "Picking Up" and the anthropologist-in-residence at NYC's Department of Sanitation, on the Newtown Wastewater Treatment Plant in Greenpoint.
Olga Sooudi, an anthropologist at the University of Amsterdam and the author of "Japanese New York: Migrant Artists and Self-Reinvention on the World Stage," on the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City.
Steve Lang, professor of urban studies at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY and the author of “Striving for Sustainability on the Urban Waterfront," on the Newtown Creek Alliance.
Margaret Oppenheimer, author of "The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel," on the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Washington Heights, Manhattan's oldest house, famed for its notable inhabitants General Washington and Aaron Burr.
David Gary, curator at the American Philosophical Society, on King Manor, in Jamaica, Queens, the home of Alexander Hamilton's "right hand man," the influential Federalist and early antislavery leader Rufus King.
Simon Baatz, John Jay College historian of crime and science in the 19th and early 20th century, on Jefferson Market Library, the Victorian Gothic courthouse in Greenwich Village.
Marjorie Feld, author of "Lillian Wald: A Biography," on the famous Progressive reformer’s Henry Street Settlement, celebrating its 125th year of offering social services, art, and health care to the immigrant families of the Lower East Side.
May Joseph, professor of social science and cultural studies at Pratt Institute, and the author of "Fluid New York: Cosmopolitan Urbanism and the Green Imagination," on Governors Island.
Don Hawkins, "dean of Washington, DC architectural history," on the early city hall remodeled by Pierre Charles L'Enfant for the seat of America's first government, on Wall Street.
Richard Kopley, distinguished professor of literature at Penn State DuBois, author of "Edgar Allan Poe and the Dupin Mysteries," on the writer's cottage in Fordham, the Bronx
Barbara Christen, author of "Cass Gilbert, Life and Work, on Brooklyn Army Terminal," the military-site-turned-manufacturing-complex in Sunset Park, designed by the famous architect.
Andrea Frohne, author of "The African Burial Ground in New York City," on the site containing the remains of 20,000 slaves in lower Manhattan
Kathleen Murphy Skolnik, co-author of The Art Deco Murals of Hildreth Meière, on the lobby of the AT&T Long Distance Building in Tribeca
Benjamin Flowers, author of "Skyscraper: The Politics and Power of Building New York City in the Twentieth Century," on the Skyscraper Museum in Battery Park City.
Eric Dregni, author of "Vikings in the Attic: In Search of Nordic America," on Scandinavia House in Murray Hill.
Francis Morrone, the noted architectural historian, author of eleven books, on the Institute of Classical Art and Architecture in Midtown.
Angela Kane, professor of dance at the University of Michigan and the forthcoming author of the first critical study of Paul Taylor, on the famous choreographer’s studio in the Lower East Side.
Martin Melosi, author of the forthcoming Fresh Kills: A History of Consuming and Discarding in New York City, on the infamous landfill-turned-park in Staten Island
David E. Kaufman and Yitzchak Schwartz, architectural historians of Jewish New York, on Central Synagogue in Midtown.
Amy Starecheski, author of Ours to Lose: When Squatters Became Homeowners in New York City, on Bullet Space in the Lower East Side
Mark R. Wilson, author of Destructive Creation: American Business and the Winning of World War II and The Business of Civil War, on the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Lindsay K. Campbell, author of City of Forests, City of Farms: Sustainability Planning for New York City’s Nature, on the Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm at the Navy Yard
Bonnie Yochelson, author of a forthcoming study of Alice Austen, on the pioneering Gilded Age photographer’s home in Staten Island
Joseph Alexiou, author of Gowanus: Brooklyn’s Curious Canal, on the notoriously polluted creek, and the Conservancy working to restore it.
Sergey Kadinsky, NYC Parks Department analyst and the author of "Hidden Waters of New York City," on the Ridgewood Reservoir in Highland Park, on the Queens-Brooklyn border.