#163 South Street Seaport

The Bowery Boys: New York City History

Tom Meyers

Places & Travel, History, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.7 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2014

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The glory of early New York City came from its role as one of the world's great ports. Today the South Street Seaport is a lasting tribute to that seafaring heritage, a historical district beneath the Brooklyn Bridge that contains some of the city's oldest buildings. But there are many secrets here along the cobblestone streets. Schermerhorn Row, the grand avenue of counting houses more than two centuries old, is built atop of landfill. Historic Water Street once held a seedy concentration of brothels and saloons. Not to mention a very vibrant rat pit! And the Fulton Fish Market, the neighborhood's oldest customer tradition, once fell into the river. The modern South Street Seaport, a preservation construct of concerned citizens, become popular with tourists during the 1980s but saw severe damage during Hurricane Sandy. It's now the subject of some potentially dramatic changes. How much of an adherence to the traditions of the past will determine the Seaport's future? ALSO: The FDR Drive -- How it almost went below the Seaport! Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/boweryboys

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Episode 163 of The Bowery Boys, The South Street Seaport.
0:04.6	Hey, it's The Bowery Boys.
0:06.2	Hey.
0:07.2	The Bowery Boys is brought to you by EuroChipo.com.
0:12.4	EuroChipo's editors inspect and recommend the best budget hotels in Europe.
0:18.0	On the web at EuroChipo.com.
0:21.8	Hi there, welcome to The Bowery Boys. This is Greg Young.
0:24.4	And this is Tom Myers.
0:25.8	We are thrilled to finally be tackling this topic
0:29.2	which we've had a lot of requests for, The South Street Seaport.
0:32.4	We've heard from listeners who visit New York.
0:35.0	We've heard from people who live in the seaport area.
0:37.8	And we most recently heard from a group of listeners
0:41.2	who are 11th grade students at Baruch College Campus High School here in Manhattan.
0:46.6	The students of Miss Catherine Terso,
0:48.4	so they helped us select this subject from one of three ideas that they came up with.
0:53.2	So thank you guys.
0:54.8	This is going to be a very old story and a very new story.
0:59.0	We're going to literally be uncovering the foundation of what made New York
1:04.0	one of the greatest cities in the world in the early 19th century.
1:07.8	The shipping tray that was located along the waterfront of the East River.
1:12.2	Today's South Street Seaport is really a remnant of what used to stretch
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tom Meyers, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Tom Meyers and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.