Category: New York City History

In 1933, journalist Helen Worden of the World-Telegram decided to take a jaunt. With her friend Ruth Steinway in tow, she circumnavigated the waterfront of Manhattan island, and wrote it all up in a pithy little number called Round Manhattan’s Rim. This Depression-era travelogue is a wonderful curio that opens up a vintage Pandora’s-hatbox of questions, from “What is a B.E.F.?” to “Where on earth was Spanish-town,” and “When did the Seaport stop being painted in bright colors of blue and white?”

Today is the 111th anniversary of one of New York’s biggest disasters in terms of loss of life. In fact, before September 11th, it was the biggest disaster for New York City but it seems few people have heard of it.

This May brings three exciting specialty tours to Boroughs of the Dead, from a gorgeous stroll through the natural beauty of Central Park just in time for Mother’s Day, to a wedding anniversary edition of our celebrated Edgar Allan Poe tour, and an all-new historical walking tour through New York’s medical past.

Sometimes at Boroughs of the Dead, we happen upon fellow New Yorkers whose interests are so in-tune with our own, we just have to get to know them. Will Ellis, founder of the blog Abandoned NYC and author of the book by the same name, was one such as these. We chatted recently about all things abandoned, forgotten, and eldritch in the city of New York.

If you were mystically inclined in 19th century America, the best place for you to be was New York state. While the runner up might have been New England, with its Transcendentalism, for pure religious and spiritual fervor, there was nowhere quite like New York.

My discovery of the Brooklyn Enigma was a mistake. On one of my recent research trips to Green-Wood Cemetery, I was scouting graves and stories for my upcoming tour, Murder and Mayhem, Scandal and Spiritualism. I was using one of the cemetery-issued tourist maps, the kind you might be familiar with if you’ve ever visited […]

In the mid 1800s, it was unthinkable to visit New York City without a visit to Barnum’s American Museum. P.T. Barnum’s stunning building occupied a prominent corner on Lower Broadway at the corner of Ann Street from 1841 to 1865. Its massive size and impressive appearance was rivaled only by the wonders within, where you […]

“He lived on Wall Street, a Turkish carpet on his parlor floor, casks of Madeira in his cellar. His tall house had scrolled dormers and fluted chimneys, which ships seeking New York moorage sought out as landmarks. A family man with two daughters, he owned a pew at Trinity Church.” – William J. Board, New […]

Check out the May issue of Rue Morgue Magazine, which features Boroughs of the Dead in a thrilling round up of NYC’s darkest tourism destinations. Peter Gutierrez‘s “Dark Empire” lists Boroughs of the Dead alongside Green-Wood Cemetery, Atlas Obscura, Morbid Anatomy, and others — some pretty amazing and impressive company. Appropriately enough, the tour Gutierrez […]