The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 was one of the most dramatic events of the 20th century. Lost for over a century, the Titanic’s wreck site was finally discovered in 1985 and in 1998 a 20-ton fragment of the hull, the “Big Piece” was raised. This year marks the 25th Anniversary of the recovery of […]
In 1868, a spirit’s guiding hand led two sisters to New York City, to a home on beautiful Washington Square--an address reserved for the elite of the Gilded Age. Behind its doors lived the richest man in America, Cornelius Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt sized up the ladies, Victoria Woodhull and Tennie Claflin, as sophisticated and savvy and, […]
Old photographs have captured many stages of the city’s growth that would otherwise have been lost, and the best images from New York’s past can do more than just highlight what has changed—they can reveal stories about times that were different than our own and the people who lived, worked, and died here. You’ll be […]
A decade before Agatha Christie entered the scene, another female writer was already queen of the country house murder. Churning out multiple thrillers a year from her Upper West Side apartment home, Carolyn Wells was dubbed “about the biggest thing in mystery novels in the U.S." in the 1920s. Wells' output was a seemingly endless […]
The Great Blizzard of 1888 was among the first photographed natural disasters in the city’s history. Weather historian Rob Frydlewicz of the NYC Weather Archive blog uses some of the most indelible images to take us back to the days of a storm without parallel. A time before subways and snowplows, when 24 million cubic […]
Over the course of history, countless vehicles have moved across our city. But it is the bicycle that has had the longest running claim to New York’s streets: 200 years and counting. This is the story of how that happened. Of how bicycles came and went and came back againPedal back with LW! and history […]
Historian Kevin Baker (a real major leaguer) returns to LW! with a look at America’s national pastime in the country’s largest city. Visionaries and fixers, heroes and gangsters—both the game and the city had them all. Baker introduces us to the motley/larger-than-life crew of New York hustlers, scalawags, and dreamers who made baseball such a popular and compelling game.
n 1975, architectural educator, researcher, and writer Christopher Gray founded the Office of Metropolitan History as a repository and resource on the architectural history of New York City buildings. Today, that legacy is overseen by Sam Hightower, building detective, blueprint wrangler, and the Director of the OMH. Hightower gifts all fans of NYC architectural history this special evening, beginning […]
West End Avenue was an elegant residential thoroughfare in the 19th century, lined with brick and brownstone mansions. In the early 20th century, however, fashion switched from private homes to upscale apartment living. The rows of residences were replaced by soaring modern multi-family buildings. For the most part. Certain homeowners stubbornly resisted the trend. As […]
LIVE EVENT! Wednesday, April 23rd, 6-7:30pm Special Guest Speaker: David Leopold Landmark West! is honored to have David Leopold, creative director of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation and highly esteemed archivist, curator, and author, for a live evening brimming with the history and creativity of one of the greatest caricaturists of the twentieth century—Al Hirschfeld. Hirschfeld’s […]
