No. 30
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
June 28, 2011

Sparking in Tompkins Square

Cupid in Tompkins Square
June 28, 2011
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Tag: 1870s

Cool Break for Liberty.

Two Prisoners Handcuffed Together Jump from a Hotel Window in their Night Clothes and Escape.

4/7/2026

Sketches on the Rail.

Characters Found on a Passenger Train.

3/24/2026

Miss Eva G. Vallee

The Pretty Female Prisoner, Simulates a Fit and Attempts Suicide in the Central Police Station.

10/14/2025

A Man in a Black Mask.

Disguised as the Devil.

7/1/2025

The New City of Leadville.

A gambling saloon on one of the main streets of Leadville.

6/24/2025

Pick-pockets "Working the Crowd.''

Getting into the Cars at 4th Avenue and 27th Street, New York.

2/4/2025

A Pair of Colorado Dianas.

The Sensation They Made in Leadville Streets.

11/4/2024

Bucking the Tiger

In a Cheyenne gambling Saloon.

10/7/2024

The Scandal Which Agitates St. Louis.

Astounding Revelations of a Low Cunning and Vile Curiosity in One of the Proprietors of the Grand Opera House.

7/23/2024

A Pullman Parlor Car.

Interior of a Pulman Parlor Car on the Pennsylvania Railroad.

7/16/2024

Knocked Dead by a Meteor.

A Remarkable Casualty which Overtook a Hoosier While Asleep in His Bed.

7/1/2024

Wrestling Match on a Canadian Steamer.

On the St. Lawrence River.

4/16/2024

Rival Monarchs.

3/21/2023

Expensive Blowing in Congress.

Uncle Sam: Come, ye gas-bags, both blue and gray, - Start yourselves on you homeward way.

2/21/2023

Female Wrestling Match in Nevada.

Two female athletes at Virginia city Nevada, indulge in a wrestling match for the championship.

11/8/2022

Interior of a Pullman Parlour Car.

The Smoking Saloon.

9/20/2022

A Female Gambling House in Boston.

They call it the "retreat" because of its charming privacy and apparent obscurity.

5/31/2022

Pandemonium in a Tumult.

Raid on the Broadway concert saloons, New York.

4/26/2022

Her Striped Stockings.

Bound to be in style - The expedient of a carriage painter's daughter at Vallejo, Cal., to obtain striped stockings.

11/30/2021

Forex news live

Two female athletes at Virginia City, Nevada, indulge in a wrestling match for the championship.

11/9/2021

Disguised as the Devil.

A Man in a Black Mask, Disguised as the Devil.

10/19/2021

A Charming Female Vaccinator.

Young gentlemen of Boston submitting their arms to a charming female vaccinator.

8/30/2021

A Man's Head Blown to Atoms.

A man's head blown to atoms by the explosion of a beer barrel on Long Island.

8/30/2021

Desperate Duel.

Desperate Duel between Ladies of Rank, at Santa Cruz.

6/22/2021

The Summer Exodus.

Commencement of the Heated Term—Swells and Belles at the Mountains and on the Sea Shore.

6/15/2021

The Deathly Opium-Drug.

The Demon Work of the Chinese Poppy Poison.

4/27/2021

Vaccination from a Beauty.

Idiotic freak of some young men at Los Angeles.

3/9/2021

Homeward Bound.

Vacationers leaving Lake George, New York, 1879.

5/7/2019

Up the Hudson.

9/18/2018

The Cure for Broken Hearts.

8/27/2018

Why She Pummeled Him.

A Cincinnati woman gets up a lively street sensation by vigorously thrashing a man on the sidewalk, and explains to the crowd that he was her runaway husband, whom she had industriously sought for that sole purpose.

4/17/2017

Take a Chance?

Many a one, who otherwise would not contribute a dime, will take a chance in a lottery.

9/9/2014

Mother Mandelbaum's Secrets.

4/23/2013

The Pawn-Ticket Game.

Pawn tickets make bad collateral.

3/5/2013

Vive Le Sport!

1/15/2013

The Grand Saloon.

Of The Palace Steamer Drew.

11/27/2012

Comstockery.

Anthony Comstock was on a personal mission to protect America from vice.

5/1/2012

Allan Pinkerton.

The Eye that Never Sleeps.

3/27/2012

New York Society Classified.

11/27/2011

Belles of the Bowling Alley.

The athletic diversions of an association of dashing damsels in their club rooms in Chicago. 

6/6/2011

The Cardiff Giant

Cardiff, New York, October 16, 1869.

4/10/2011

Bank Heist

The Audacity of a Professional Thief.

4/3/2011
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Sparking in Tompkins Square

Cupid-Tompkins-Park

New York, New York, 1888 - Sparking in Tompkins Square, a place which Cupid has made his favorite stomping ground, and where the stern paterfamilias is wont to appear. 

Cupid has had great sport in Tompkins Park, this city, on pleasant evenings of a Sunday for some time past. Recently the interesting spectacle of forty couples breathing tales of love was witnessed at this charming rendezvous for "spooney" young men and women. Near the circular structure in the center of the park sat a maiden of sixteen or thereabouts, clad in a maroon dress, which just reached to the tops of her buttoned boots, a lavender jacket, and a jaunty hat matching her dress, with a raven's wing in the band.

Close beside her sat a youth of equal age, who was gazing into her eye. He held her hand in his, and in an undertone told her many pretty secrets.

Changing her hand to his other one, his arm gently stole round her waist. She seemed unconscious of it. He whispered something and she shyly looked at him, presumably the better to understand his whisper. He inclined his face to hers and "just one" he pleaded-and hastily took one, two, three. He paused a few seconds in admiration of her and then resumed talking, and she talked, too, in a bashful way.

But presently a very substantial vision intruded itself upon their happiness-a tall, ponderous Dutchman in trousers of ample volume, a jean jumper and a velveteen cap similar to those worn by the drivers of brewery wagons.

"You vas here, eh?" he queried of the girl. "You vas coom home."

She coomed.

Another young couple plumped down. The Fellow manifested his affection by pulling his sweetheart's hair and pinching her ears. She tee-hee-hee'd, slapped him playfully, and twittered, "Now, Jamesie, you stop." But just the same she didn't seem pleased when Jamesie did stop. She slapped him some more; whereat Jumesie pushed hack her head and gave her a loud kiss.

With all the couples the time was fraught with happiness and sweetness and most of them didn't leave the park until the broad-faced clock in the steeple of St. Bridget's Church nearby tolled the hour of ten.

 


The National Police Gazette, November 3, 1888