Emily Brooks is a Historian and Curriculum Writer at the New York Public Library’s Center for Educators and Schools. This interview is based on her new book, Gotham’s War within a War: Policing and the Birth of Law-and-Order Liberalism in World...
New York City
Episode 122: “Springsteen, Joel, and the American Century”
In his new book Bridge & Tunnel Boys, historian Jim Cullen discusses how Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen represented what he calls “the metropolitan sound of the American century.” In this episode of the podcast, we talk with Cullen about how Joel...
The Kings College is still open
Faculty are leaving and others are getting cut, but it looks like the The Kings College is still alive. Here is Meagan Saliashvili at Religion News Service: The last remaining evangelical Christian college in New York City, The King’s College,...
Report: Alliance University (Nyack College) will close
We have posted about the financial troubles of The Kings College. The Christian college is on the brink of closing. Kings is currently located in Manhattan, but from 1955-1994 it existed in Briarcliff Manor, Westchester County, New York. Nyack College...
What should we make of Staten Island?
For one year in graduate school (1998-1999) I made a weekly commute between Stony Brook, Long Island and Philadelphia. During that year I often drove through Staten Island. My trip along Interstate 278 took me past the Fresh Kills Landfill....
In early republican New York, food was a “public good”
Over at JSTOR Daily, Matthew Wills introduces us to the work of historian Gergerly Baics. In a 2016 piece in Urban History he argued that early republican New York was “characterized by centralized, municipal food provisioning.” Baics developed these thoughts...
Two Twitter threads that reveal the current state of The Kings College, a Christian college in New York City
We have covered the financial difficulties of The Kings College here and here. Here is New York journalist Sam Thielman: And here is Alissa Wilkinson, a writer and film critic who teaches English at The Kings College:...
Nyack College becomes Alliance University
In the mid-1990s I taught Western Civilization as an adjunct professor at Nyack College, a small Christian college in Rockland County, New York with a beautiful hillside campus overlooking the Hudson River. Recently the Christian Missionary Alliance school left Nyack...
New York City mayor Eric Adams “isn’t easily placed on the traditional left-right spectrum” Â
I have long been attracted to figures–both in history and in the present–who do not fit well into the political boxes we try to create for them. Fordham University political scientist Christina Greer puts New York City mayor Eric Adams...
How Americans have remembered the July 1776 toppling of the George III statue in Bowling Green (Manhattan)
Wendy Bellion, an art historian at the University of Delaware, has an interesting piece at Smithsonian Magazine on the patriots’ toppling of this statue and a New York Historical Society exhibit on monuments. Here is a taste: A monument to...
The Author’s Corner with John Harris
John Harris is McDonald-Boswell Assistant Professor of History at Erskine College. This interview is based on his new book, The Last Slave Ships: New York and the End of the Middle Passage (Yale University Press, 2020). JF: What led you...
“Walking in Staten”
In case you missed SNL this weekend:...
The American Bible Society in the days following September 11, 2001
From The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society: One of the highpoints of the ABS engagement with its home in New York City occurred following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the towers of the World...
“I’ll See You In My Dreams”
Today at the 9-11 commemoration:...
Bruce Springsteen or Paul Simon? Which iconic artist will close the Aug. 21 Central Park concert?
Here is Nicki Goslin at Page Six: It’s The Boxer versus The Boss. An insider tells Page Six that music icons Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen are both battling to close the concert in Central Park that is slated to...
Springsteen will perform at Central Park concert
But he will not be playing an entire set or headlining. Here is the news from the Facebook page of the Springsteen magazine Backstreets: NOT SO FAST, MR. MAYOR Springsteen not a headliner for proposed Central Park concert. After weeks...
Eric Adams wins first round of New York City Democratic mayoral race; Yang concedes
Yesterday the Democrats of New York City went to the polls to choose who will represent them in November’s general election for mayor. This year the primary will be decided by the city’s new ranked choice system. After the first...
A southern evangelical in New York City
Elizabeth Passarella is a southerner who has lived in New York City for twenty-one years. I am eager to take a look at her new collection of essays, Good Apple: Tales of a Southern Evangelical in New York. On her...