On January 23, 1917, poet Gertrude Drick, painters John Sloan and Marcel Duchamp, and actors Russell Mann, Betty Turner, and Charles Ellis climbed to the top of Washington Square Arch. Drick read a declaration of independence for the “Free and Independent Republic of Washington Square” with the intent of having a neighborhood free from mainstream convention.
Let’s talk about…gentrification. Did your heart just start racing? The term gentrification and its many implications is such a hot button issue, so complex and layered, that just reading the word may strike dread in your heart. The term was first coined by British sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964, and she defined it as a […]
Dive bars and dead prostitutes! While these could be plot points in any Hollywood movie, back in the late 19th century these unwholesome characteristics gave the infamous McGurk’s Suicide Hall its name. Originally located at 295 Bowery (between Houston and East 1st Street) and opened in 1893, McGurk’s was the latest in a string of […]
