Author Archives: Ben
A Sorry End…
In 1940 and again four decades later, New York City’s real estate tax assessment authorities photographed every single one of the more than 800,000 tax lots in the five boroughs. 86 Lefferts Place, Brooklyn, had been the last residence of Henry Knight Dyer and his wife Caroline Lavinia Price Dyer before their deaths in 1911 […]
Posted in Henry Knight Dyer biography
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By The Skin Of His Teeth…
Take a look at this smiling mug. It’s June 17, 1929, the height of the Roaring ’20s, right before it all went crash. Here’s Daddy Browning, looking far younger than his 55 years of age. Whence the gray that tousled his head when just a few years earlier he walked 15-year old Peaches Heenan down […]
Posted in Call Me Daddy: Essays
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A Tribeca Palimpsest from Days Gone By
New York’s City Hall has stood, majestic, since the start of the War of 1812, its design by Green-Wood resident John McComb, Jr., little changed save an Alabama limestone cladding added in the mid-1950s over the original buff sandstone rear facade and the front of Massachusetts marble. McComb’s name is seldom recognized today, his only other surviving creations in Manhattan being Gracie […]
FLOURISH…
FLOURISH Since my teenage years I’ve been an early and baroque music devotee, attending sacred music at New York’s many churches I’ve thrilled to organ recitals in St. John the Divine’s vast sanctuary where the pipes envelope one with overwhelming sounds, inhaled Monteverdi and Rameau and Scarlatti and Schutz with the incense at Smokey Mary’s […]
Radio appearances
Ben Feldman talks about Butchery on Bond Street, “Joey Reynolds Show,” WOR Radio 710 AM, July 19, 2007 David Rothenberg interviews Ben Feldman on “Any Saturday,” WBAI Radio, August 4, 2007 Joe Franklin interviews Ben Feldman on Bloomberg Radio, July 25, 2007 Dan Miller talks with Ben Feldman about Butchery on Bond Street, WVOX Radio, […]
Posted in Press
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William Niblo on CUNY’s Gotham History Blotter !
Take a gander at my illustrated article that CUNY’s Gotham History Blotter put up yesterday. It tells the story, in brief of my current obscure object of desire, the life and times of New York’s pre-eminent tavernkeep and pleasure garden operator of the early and mid-19th century, William Niblo: http://www.gothamcenter.org/blotter/
Posted in Press, William Niblo biography
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WILLIAM NIBLO AND CALVARY CHURCH – JOIN ME SUNDAY APRIL 21, 2013 AT 11:00 A.M.
With the kind invitation of Calvary Church, I will give an illustrated talk about the life and times of one of the many illustrious members of the Calvary parish, Wiliam Niblo. The talk will be given after 11:00 am Mass, at a luncheon in the Parish House. Niblo (c. 1790- 1878) was a warden […]
Posted in Talks & Events, William Niblo biography
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William Niblo Appears at The Hudson Chautauqua: Saturday March 16, 2013
PLEASE JOIN AUTHOR BENJAMIN FELDMAN AT THE HUDSON, NEW YORK CHAUTAUQUA ON SATURDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 16TH AT 3:00 PM FOR A FASCINATING ILLUSTRATED TALK ABOUT THE LIFE AND TIMES OF NEW YORK’S FAMOUS TAVERNKEEP AND THEATER IMPRESARIO, WILLIAM NIBLO. HALF TOOTS SHOR, THE OTHER HALF SOL HUROK, NIBLO RULED THE ENTERTAINMENT INDSUTRY OF EARLY AND […]
Posted in Talks & Events, William Niblo biography
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Dec 9, 2012: From Billy Graham to the Baal Shem Tov in Philly !
Posted in Talks & Events
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The Circus is coming to Town !!!!
Come one, Come ALL ! You musn’t miss the comprehensive exhibit at the Bard Graduate Center ! Circus and the City: New York, 1793-2010 September 21, 2012 – February 3, 2013 http://www.bgc.bard.edu/gallery/gallery-at-bgc/main-gallery.html Matt Wittman has curated a fantastic assemblage of ephemera and artifacts illustrating the role of circus in New York for over two centuries. […]
Posted in Talks & Events, Uncategorized
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