No. 700
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
April 30, 2025

A Hot Day in New York.

While New York is by no means the hottest city in the country, there have been a few days during the present season when the temperature reached a height altogether incompatible with human comfort.
July 20, 2015
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James Fisk Jr. was a robber baron, stock manipulator, and financial fraudster. In spite of this, he was a popular, much-loved public figure. On January 6, 1872, he was assassinated on the staircase of the Grand Central Hotel in New York City by his friend and sometime business partner, Edward “Ned”
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 4/26/2025
A scrubby hill, a dollhouse-like chapel, a little boy leaning against a pole, a shack advertising five-cent Coca-Cola ice cream sodas. Are we really in New York City here? Despite the country-ish surroundings in the photo, we sure are in New York—in 1914, at least. Take a look at the street sign showing the cross […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 4/28/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 19 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith begins an empire in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884.This is page 19, the continuation of page 18, and dated April 14 - May 5, 1884, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 4/3/2025
Pastor Johann Gottfried Schupart (1677-1729) was one of the leading German Lutherans of his day, becoming Professor of Theology and eventually Rector at Giesing University.  However, the part of his career that has earned him a place in this blog deals with his lengthy battles with a supernatural force that he naturally described as “the devil,” but what we today would call an unusually
More...
Strange Company - 4/28/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 19 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith begins an empire in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884.This is page 19, the continuation of page 18, and dated April 14 - May 5, 1884, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 4/3/2025
Included in yesterday’s trip to Fall River was a stop at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee shop and a visit to the cellar to see the scene of the tragic demise of the second Mrs. Lawdwick Borden and two of the three little children in 1848. I have been writing about this sad tale since 2010 and had made a previous trip to the cellar some years ago but was unable to get to the spot where the incident occured to get a clear photograph.  The tale of Eliza Borden is a very sad, but not uncommon story of post partum depression with a heartrending end. You feel this as you stand in the dark space behind the chimney where Eliza ended her life with a straight razor after dropping 6 month old Holder and his 3 year old sister Eliza Ann into the cellar cistern. Over the years I have found other similar cases, often involving wells and cisterns, and drownings of children followed by suicides of the mothers. These photos show the chimney, cistern pipe, back wall, dirt and brick floor, original floorboards forming the cellar ceiling and what appears to be an original door. To be in the place where this happened is a sobering experience. My thanks to Joe Pereira for allowing us to see and record the place where this sad occurrence unfolded in 1848. R.I.P. Holder, Eliza and Eliza Ann Borden. Visit our Articles section above for more on this story. The coffee shop has won its suit to retain its name and has plans to expand into the shop next door and extend its menu in the near future.
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
James Fisk Jr. was a robber baron, stock manipulator, and financial fraudster. In spite of this, he was a popular, much-loved public figure. On January 6, 1872, he was assassinated on the staircase of the Grand Central Hotel in New York City by his friend and sometime business partner, Edward “Ned”
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 4/26/2025
Pastor Johann Gottfried Schupart (1677-1729) was one of the leading German Lutherans of his day, becoming Professor of Theology and eventually Rector at Giesing University.  However, the part of his career that has earned him a place in this blog deals with his lengthy battles with a supernatural force that he naturally described as “the devil,” but what we today would call an unusually
More...
Strange Company - 4/28/2025
A scrubby hill, a dollhouse-like chapel, a little boy leaning against a pole, a shack advertising five-cent Coca-Cola ice cream sodas. Are we really in New York City here? Despite the country-ish surroundings in the photo, we sure are in New York—in 1914, at least. Take a look at the street sign showing the cross […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 4/28/2025
They Are a Bad Lot. | A Duel with Whips.

A Hot Day in New York.

Hot day in New York

While New York is by no means the hottest city in the country, there have been a few days during the present season when the temperature reached a height altogether incompatible with human comfort. There were two such days last week, when the temperature reached ninety-four degrees in the shade, and the sufferings of those exposed to the torrid rays of the sun were intense. On the 23d, especially the heat was most oppressive and man and beast alike succumbed to its influences. The air was moist, no breeze was stirring, and when the noonday sun looked down upon Broadway it saw not one but many thousands of wilted men and women. Among the tenement houses the suffering was great, perhaps than at any time during the summer. The streets were deserted in the middle of the day, and the sweltering thousands labored and drudged in their hot and dismal rooms with no chance of relief. In the evening they swarmed about doorsteps and hallways and filled the streets.

Our illustration strikingly depicts the incidents of one of these hot days—the feverish consultation of the thermometer, the eager quest for comfort on the shady side of the street, the prostration of man and beast by the pitiless heat. Happy are they who in such “torrid times” as these are able to find cool retreats on mountain tops or by the sea or in fragrant forest depths where no ray of sun can ever penetrate.


Reprinted from the National Police Gazette, September 1, 1883