Few areas of the United States have as endured as long as Flushing, Queens, a neighborhood with almost over 375 years of history and an evolving cultural landscape that includes Quakers, trees, Hollywood films, world fairs, and new Asian immigration.

In this special on-location episode of the Bowery Boys, Greg and special guest Kieran Gannon explore the epic history of Flushing through five specific locations -- the Bowne House, Kingsland Homestead (home of the Queens Historical Society), the Lewis Latimer House Museum, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and a downtown dumpling restaurant named Old Captain's Dumplings.

Built on the marshy banks of Flushing Creek, the original Dutch village of Flushing (or Vlissingen) was populated by English settlers, Quakers like John and Hannah Bownewhose home became one of America's first Quaker meeting places -- and the site of a religious struggle critical to the formation of the future United States.

By the early 19th century, Flushing was better known for its tree and shrub nurseries which would introduce dozens of new plant species to North America. After the Civil War, Flushing became a weekend getaway and commuter town for the residents of western Long Island. The former civic center of town -- the 1862 Flushing Town Hall -- is still a vibrant performance venue today.

The creation of the borough of Queens in 1898 brought surprising changes to Flushing -- from the arrival of the early silent-film industry to the development of new parks and highways (thanks to our old friend Robert Moses).

But the most stunning transformation of all came after 1965 when American immigration quotas were eliminated and Flushing gained thousands of new residents from China, Taiwan, Korea, India, and other South Asian countries.

Visit the website for more images and information about visiting the places featured on this show

In today’s episode, Tom visits the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side to walk through the reconstructed two-room apartment of an African-American couple, Joseph and Rachel Moore, who lived in 1870 on Laurens Street in today’s Soho neighborhood.

Both Joseph and Rachel moved to New York when they were about 20 years old, in the late 1840s and 1850s. They married, worked, raised a family – and they shared their small apartment with another family to help cover costs.

Their home has been recreated in the Tenement Museum’s newest exhibit, “A Union of Hope: 1869.” The exhibit reimagines what their apartment may have looked like – and it also explores life in the Eighth Ward of Manhattan, and, specifically, within the black community of the turbulent and dangerous decades of the 1850s and 60s.

This is the first time the museum has recreated the apartment of a black family – although, as you’ll hear, the museum’s founders had long planned for it. And the exhibit is also the first time the museum has recreated an apartment that wasn’t housed in one of their buildings on the Lower East Side, but in another neighborhood.

So, just who were Joseph and Rachel Moore? And how and why did the Tenement Museum choose to put them at the center of their new exhibit?

FURTHER LISTENING:
Tales from a Tenement: Three Families Under One Roof (episode #246)
Nuyorican: The Great Puerto Rican Migration to New York (episode #384)
The Deadly Draft Riots of 1863
Seneca Village and New York's Forgotten Black Communities

Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence is a perfect novel to read in the spring — maybe its all the flowers — so I finally picked it up to re-read, in part due to this excellent episode from the Gilded Gentleman which we are presenting to you this week.

The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s most famous novel, an enduring classic of Old New York that has been rediscovered by a new generation. What is it about this story of Newland Archer, May Welland and Countess Olenska that readers respond to today?

Noted Wharton scholar Dr. Emily Orlando joins Carl Raymond on The Gilded Gentleman podcast to delve into the background of this novel, take a deep dive into the personalities of the major characters and discuss what Wharton wanted to say in her masterpiece.

Edith Wharton published The Age of Innocence at a very important moment in her life.

When the novel came out in 1920, she had been living in France full-time for nearly 10 years and had seen the devastating effects of World War I up close. Her response was to look back with a sense of nostalgia to the time of her childhood to recreate that staid, restrictive world of New York in the 1870s. A world that, despite its elite social cruelty, seemed to have some kind of moral center (at least to her).

Baseball, as American as apple pie, really is “the New York game.” While its precursors come from many places – from Jamestown to Prague – the rules of American baseball and the modern ways of enjoying it were born from the urban experience and, in particular, the 19th-century New York region.

The sport (in the form that we know it today) developed in the early 1800s, played in Manhattan’s many open lots or New Jersey public parklands and soon organized into regular teams and eventually leagues. The way that New Yorkers played baseball was soon the way most Americans played by the late 19th century.

But it wasn’t until the invention of regular ball fields – catering to paying customers – that baseball became truly an urban recreational experience. And that too was revolutionized in New York.

Just in time for spring and the new Major League baseball season, Tom and Greg are joined by the acclaimed Kevin Baker, author of The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of a New City to discuss the early history of the sport and its unique connections to New York City.

This show is truly the ultimate origin story of New York baseball, featuring tales of the city’s oldest and most legendary sports teams – the Yankees, the Dodgers, and the Giants. AND the New York Metropolitans – a different team than today’s Mets located in Queens.

Where was baseball played? Kevin shares the secrets of New York baseball’s earliest venues – from the many Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn

This is a true five-borough origin story! With stops at Hilltop Park (Manhattan), Yankee Stadium (Bronx), Fashion Race Course (Queens), Washington Park (Brooklyn), and St. George Cricket Grounds (Staten Island) among many other sites.

FEATURING the surprising link between baseball and Boss Tweed and his notorious political machine Tammany Hall

PLUS How did segregation distort the game and where did Black ballplayers play the sport? What was baseball like before Jackie Robinson?

Visit our website for more information

The Chrysler Building remains one of America's most beautiful skyscrapers and a grand evocation of Jazz Age New York. But this architectural tribute to the automobile is also the greatest reminder of a furious construction surge that transformed the city in the 1920s.

After World War I, New York became newly prosperous, one of the undisputed business capitals of the world. The tallest building was the Woolworth Building, but the city's rise in prominence demanded new, taller towers, taking advantage of improvements in steel-frame construction and a clever 'wedding cake' zoning law that allowed for ever-higher buildings.

Into this world came William Van Alen and H. Craig Severance, two former architectural partners who had unamicably separated and were now designing rival skyscrapers. Each man wanted to make the tallest building in the world.

But Van Alan had the upper hand, backed by one of America's most famous businessmen -- Walter Chrysler. His automobiles were the coolest, sleekest vehicles in the marketplace. His brand required a skyscraper of radical design and surprising height.

In 1930, the Chrysler became the tallest building in the world, a title it held until the Empire State Building.

Just ten years ago, the Chrysler Building was the fourth tallest in New York City. Today, however, it's the thirteenth tallest building in the city. And that's because of a new skyscraper surge shaping the city's skyline, with supertalls making the skyscrapers of old feel very small in comparison.

It can be bewildering to see the skyline change so rapidly. But that's exactly how New Yorkers felt exactly one century ago.

Visit our website for pictures and other episodes

The Brooklyn waterfront was once decorated with a yellow Domino Sugar sign, affixed to an aging refinery along a row of deteriorating industrial structures facing the East River.

The Domino Sugar Refinery, completed in 1883 (replacing an older refinery after a devastating fire), was more than a factory. During the Gilded Age and into the 20th century, this Brooklyn landmark was the center of America's sugar manufacturing, helping to fuel the country's hunger for sweet delights.

But the story goes further back in time -- back hundreds of years in New York City history. The sugar trade was one of the most important industries in New York, and for many decades, if you used sugar to make anything, you were probably using sugar that had been refined in New York.

Sugar helped to build New York. Thousands and thousands of New Yorkers were employed in sugarhouses and refineries. And of all the sugar makers, there was one name that stood above the rest -- Havemeyer!

The Havemeyers were America’s leading sugar titans and by the 1850s they had moved their empire to the Brooklyn waterfront – and the neighborhood of Williamsburg. Their massive refinery helped establish the industrial nature of Williamsburg and led a rush of sugar manufacturers to Brooklyn, most of which would then be absorbed into the Havemeyer’s operation.

But this story is even larger than New York, of course. It encompasses the transatlantic slave trade, political influence in the Caribbean, Cuba-United States relations, and the sorry working conditions faced by Hayemeyer's underpaid employees.

PLUS: It's Dumbo vs Williamsburg in the Coffee and Sugar War of the 1890s!

Visit the website for more information and images of places from this week's show

So much has happened in and around Madison Square Park -- the leafy retreat at the intersections of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street -- that telling its entire story requires an extra-sized episode, in honor of our 425th episode.

Madison Square Park was the epicenter of New York culture from the years following the Civil War to the early 20th century. The park was really at the heart of Gilded Age New York, whether you were rushing to an upscale restaurant like Delmonico’s or a night at the theater or maybe just an evening at one of New York’s most luxurious hotels like the Fifth Avenue Hotel or the Hoffman House.

The park is surrounded by some of New York’s most renowned architecture, from the famous Flatiron Building to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower, once the tallest building in the world.

The square also lends its name, of course, to one of the most famous sports and performing venues in the world – Madison Square Garden. Its origins begin at the northeast corner of the park on the spot of a former railroad depot and near the spot of the birthplace of an American institution -- baseball.

The park introduced New Yorkers to the Statue of Liberty ... or at least her forearm and torch. It stood silently over the bustling park while prize-winning dogs were championed at the very first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show nearby, held at Gilmore's Gardens, the precursor to Madison Square Garden.

Today the region north of the park is referred to as NoMad, which recalls life around Madison Square during the Gilded Age with its high-end restaurant and hotel scene.

Tom and Greg invite you on this time-traveling escapade covering over 200 years of history. From the days of rustic creeks and cottages to the long lines at the Shake Shake. From Franconi's Hippodrome to the dazzling cologne fountains of Leonard Jerome (Winston Churcill's grandfather).

Visit the website for more information.

This episode was edited by Kieran Gannon

FURTHER LISTENING RELATED TO THIS SHOW

-- The Delmonico Way with the Gilded Gentleman and current Delmonico's proprietor Max Tucci 
-- The Murder of Stanford White
-- The Flatiron Building