The Bowry Boys Episode 114, welcome to Nibblo's Garden.

Hey, it's the Bowry Boys.

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Hello there, welcome to the Bowry Boys.

This is Greg Young with this solo show this week.

And I have to apologize right now.

I have a bad cold, which is definitely affecting my voice, so it's probably a little lower than normal.

It's been raining in New York for like the past two weeks, so it's been totally dreary here.

But I'm planning to bring a little sunshine into the show with a dive back into the cultural life of New Yorkers in the early of 19th century.

It's always a fun subject.

And specifically, I'm very happy to introduce the concept of the pleasure garden.

Now that may sound a little taudry, some of you, but in fact, the pleasure garden was one of the most popular entertainment of the 19th century.

Especially in the years before the idea of public parks would really take root in the city.

Today's equivalent of this would be more akin maybe to like an amusement park with a variety of different activities that would be dazzled and engaged in New Yorkers of the day.

And none of these gardens were more important to our cultural existence today than the oddly named Nibblow's Garden.

The project of a coffee house owner who took over some acreage on the northern edge of town in the 1820s and launched nightly spectacles, including theatrical performances and fireworks shows.

But what makes Nibblow's Garden an extremely notable destination for us today is something that debuted here on September 12th, 1866.

The debut of what many people consider today to be the very first Broadway musical.

Now this particular podcast will require a great deal of your imagination as the area of New York that hosted Nibblow's Garden for decades is radically different today.

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