Author Archives: Ben
On the Wings of Angels
During the weeks after my mother’s passing on December 4, 2016, I was particularly comforted by the invitation of my friend Abe, the bal koreh (official Torah reader) at Park Avenue Synagogue on 87th Street and Madison Avenue, to attend Shabbes (Sabbath) services and recite the mourner’s kaddish (the Jewish prayer for the dead that […]
Posted in Yiddish Land + Jewish Themes
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A Widow’s Mite: Virginia Penny and the Struggle for Equal Employment and Pay for Women in the USA in the Late 19th Century
Well-known social reformers of many a stripe are interred in Green-Wood Cemetery. Single Taxer Henry George, anti-slavery leader Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, (known in his time as The Great Divine for his oratory and inspirational skills), and Henry Bergh, founder of the ASPCA and The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children […]
Posted in Uncategorized
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In Charles Yerkes’ Corrupt Footsteps: The Trilogy of Desire, Philadelphia Version: 2016
Walking down Broadway a few weeks ago, my cell-phone rang, and despite the caller’s number being unknown to me, and suspecting a sales call of some sort, I answered and was rewarded in spades. Visions of time-share re-purchasers and other cons jumped to mind, and I was far but not so far from wrong. An […]
Posted in The Trilogy of Desire, Uncategorized
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The Measure of a Man
The size of a funeral is the measure of a man, and in 1932, Upper West Sider Sol Brill’s departure from this earth was larger than life. An, honest, dignified, gentle soul was cut down by cancer at age 54, at the height of his career as a movie-theater builder and operator. Brill’s funeral was […]
A Review of “East in Eden: William Niblo and His Pleasure Garden of Yore”
From New York Irish History Volume 28 (2014), released November, 2015: East in Eden, William Niblo & His Pleasure Garden of Yore by Benjamin Feldman (The Green-Wood Historic Fund in association with New York Wanderer Press, 2014) William Niblo (1790–1878), an Irish immigrant who amassed an entertainment and real estate empire in New York City […]
Posted in Uncategorized, William Niblo biography
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All that remains….
Embarked on another difficult voyage, I thought I finally spied land from afar, in a quest to repatriate to its rightful heir yet another found object, in this case a trove, rescued from the trash, of family pictures and memorabilia. I’ve searched for Kathy Denton Saville for a good four years, my only clues […]
Posted in Found Objects, Uncategorized
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Errata…:-)
A minor correction must be added to my biography of William Niblo East in Eden: William Niblo and His Pleasure Garden of Yore. On page 92, third line, I mistakenly identified the location of the New York City Almshouse in 1818 as being on Blackwell’s (now Roosevelt) Island in the East River. In fact the Almshouse, […]
The Toast of the Town….
Billy Niblo is quite the man these days, despite being gone since 1878 ! Come hear this blogger speak about Niblo’s fascinating career as New York’s premier tavernkeep and then pleasure garden owner in the early and mid-19th century […]
The Trilogy of Desire…
Most of us know Theodore Dreiser as the author of An American Tragedy, Sister Carrie, and Jennie Gerhardt, but in his lifetime, Dreiser was known for much more. A master story teller and cultural historian, Dreiser’s Trilogy of Desire has fallen off the cliff of popular consciousness, relegated to the academic world. Even more obscure […]
Posted in Lost New York, Uncategorized
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The Way of All Flesh
America’s Centennnial Year: 1876 was a time of booming fortunes, and New York was bursting with post-Reconstruction fervor, the metropolis burgeoning, robber barons feeling their oats. Thriving since the Civil War’s onset as a manufacturer’s paradise, the New York region’s many tentacled rail system and giant natural harbor fostered a cornucopia for commerce of all sorts. […]
