Ask any discerning New Yorker, “light or dark?”, and they will know straight away you’re talking about McSorley’s Old Ale House. Tucked away in the East Village, the venerable institution has quenched the thirst of everyone from Abraham Lincoln to the lower denizens of the Bowery since 1854. There’s only […]
The setting could be any small village in France: winding lanes filled with teal shuttered cottages, a charming main square with a small school, café and boulangerie, and a church whose bells have beckoned the villagers to Mass for over seven hundred years. The only thing missing are people. We’re […]
The Sherlock Holmes pub on Northumberland Street near London’s Trafalgar Square, is much like many of the countless other pubs in the capital. That is until you venture upstairs! Where in the dining room, you’ll find yourself magically transported to 221b, Baker Street and a life sized replica of the […]
The World’s Fairs used to capture the public’s imagination. From the millions who attended such iconic Fairs as the ones held in New York in 1939-40 and 1964-65, to the nostalgia they’re viewed with today, the World’s Fairs were where people could catch glimpses of a better world; seeing such […]
As every local New Yorker knows, a visit to Times Square is about as appealing as a rush hour subway ride. But amidst the millions of visitors that throng here the year round, there is one tiny oasis where one can escape the maddening crowds. Hidden away on West 44th […]
At first, the church looks like a centuries old Gothic ruin: the stained glass windows are missing, as are the roof and spire. Left open to the elements, a fine layer of grass covers the floor where the aisle, pews and pulpit would have once been. You’d think you’d stepped […]
In the Society Archives the other day, we were looking at a map of New York City from 1909, and noticed something unusual. The familiar Avenues ran up and down the island, from 1st to 12th, including some of the most famous streets in the world – Madison, Park, Fifth. […]
In a city that has seen such tumultuous upheaval, it is always enjoyable to find an authentic taste of the old Berlin. In Charlottenburg there is just such a place: a charming, old fashioned bar & restaurant called Dicke Wirtin, that’s been serving pork knuckles, pilsner & schnapps since the […]
This week, we’re setting sail for a little known island, home to an abandoned Civil War prison, and links to the Lincoln assassination conspiracy. Far flung desert islands often capture the imagination as idyllic places to escape to. But there is an island the Gulf of Mexico that is so […]
Beneath the surface of the old Western Front lurks a lethal menace. Even though it ended over a century ago, the Great War is somehow still killing people every year. For lurking underneath the old battlefields of the Western Front, lie millions of unexploded shells. Farmers tending the still battle […]