This year marks the 100th anniversary of Alain Locke's classic essay "The New Negro" and the literary anthology featuring the work of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen and other significant black writers of the day.

The rising artistic scene would soon be known as the Harlem Renaissance, one of the most important cultural movements in American history. And it would be centered within America's largest black neighborhood -- Harlem, the "great black city," as described by Wallace Thurman, with a rising population and growing political and cultural influence.

During the 1920s, Harlem became even more. Along "Swing Street" and Lenox Avenue, nightclubs and speakeasies gave birth to American music and fostered great musical talents like Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington. Ballrooms like the Savoy and the Alhambra helped turn Harlem into a destination for adventure and romance.

What were these two worlds like -- the literary salons and the nightclubs? How removed were these spheres from the everyday lives of regular Harlem residents? How did the neighborhood develop both an energetic and raucous music scene and a diverse number of churches -- many (like the Abyssinian Baptist Church) still around today?

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Get tickets to our March 31 City Vineyard event Bowery Boys HISTORY LIVE! here

And join us for our Gilded Age Weekend in New York, May 29-June 1, 2025. More info here.

This episode was edited by Kieran Gannon

One of America's first great Italian neighborhoods was once in East Harlem, once filled with more southern Italians than Sicily itself, a neighborhood almost entirely gone today except for a couple restaurants, a church and a long-standing religious festival.

This is, of course, not New York's' famous "Little Italy," the festive tourist area in lower Manhattan built from another 19th-century Italian neighborhood on Mulberry Street. The bustling street life of old Italian Harlem exists mostly in memory now.

If you wander around any modern American neighborhood with a strong Italian presence, you'll find yourself around people who can trace their lineage back through the streets of Italian Harlem. Perhaps that includes yourself.

But it's not all warm nostalgia and fond recollections. Life could be quite hard in Italian Harlem, thanks to the nearby industrial environment, the deteriorating living conditions and the street crime, the early years of New York organized crime.

So who were these first Italian settlers who left their homes for what would become a hard urban life in upper Manhattan? What drew them to the city? What traditions did they bring? And in the end, what did they leave behind, when so many moved out to the four corners of the United States?

Visit the Bowery Boys website for more adventures into New York City history

This show was produced by Kieran Gannon.

FURTHER LISTENING: Past Bowery Boys episodes with links to this show
-- The Story of Little Italy
-- Nuyorican: The Great Puerto Rican Migration
-- Columbus Circle

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Share your love of the city’s history with a Bowery Boys Walks gift certificate! Our digital gift cards let your loved ones choose their perfect tour and date.

Grab a Bowery Boys tee-shirt, mug or water bottle at our merchandise store.

A star of the New York City skyline is reborn -- the Waldorf Astoria is reopening in 2025! And so we thought we'd again raise a toast to one of the world's most famous hotels, an Art Deco classic attached to the Gilded Age's most prestigious name in luxury and refinement.

Now, you might think you know this story -- the famous lobby clock, Peacock Alley, cocktail bars! -- but do we have some surprises for you.

The Waldorf Astoria — once the Waldorf-Astoria and even the Waldorf=Astoria — has been a premier name in hotel accommodations since the opening of the very first edition on 34th Street and Fifth Avenue (the location of today’s Empire State Building).

But the history of the current incarnation on Park Avenue contains the twists and turns of world events, from World War II to recent diplomatic dramas. In essence, the Waldorf Astoria has become the world’s convention center.

Step past the extraordinary Art Deco trappings, and you’ll find rooms which have hosted a plethora of important gatherings, not to mention the frequent homes to Hollywood movie stars.

To celebrate the renovated hotel's reopening this spring, the Bowery Boys present a newly re-edited and re-mastered version of their original show from 2016.

This show was re-edited and remastered by Kieran Gannon.

Join us on Patreon for extra podcasts and lots of other goodies

Share your love of the city’s history with a Bowery Boys Walks gift certificate! Our digital gift cards let your loved ones choose their perfect tour and date.

Grab a Bowery Boys tee-shirt, mug or water bottle at our merchandise store.