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UPCOMING APPEARANCES Sunday, October 9, 2011 at 3:30PM Christopher Columbus & Central Park Reservations taken 10/3 or earlier: $10 per person Reservations taken 10/4 or later: $15 per person RESERVATIONS TAKEN ON A FIRST-COME, FIRST-SERVED BASIS events@insidetheapple.net Join James Nevius, co-author of Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City, on Sunday, October 9, at 3:30 PM, for a walk celebrating Columbus Day and the importance of Italian-Americans in New York’s history. There’s no better place to do that than Central Park, which has some remarkable connections to Italian history. We will talk about the four (that’s right four) different Columbus memorials once slated for Central Park, visit the bust of Giuseppe Mazzini, explore the history of the Mall and Terrace, and more. (We’ll also be looking at things in Central Park that have nothing to do with Columbus.) Copies of Inside the Apple will be available for purchase at the tour. è To reserve, send an email to events@insidetheapple.net with · Your name · The number in your party · A contact cell phone number · A good email address where we can send you information about where the tour will start. PLEASE NOTE that if you reserve no later than Monday, October 3, the cost is just $10 per person. All reservations received starting Tuesday, October 4, will be $15 per person. This tour will have only a limited number of spaces, so please reserve early to avoid disappointment. Payment will be taken at the start of the tour by cash only. Directions to the tour’s starting point will be sent out after your reservation is confirmed. Hope to see you there! * * * As new walks, talks, and other events are added to our schedule, they will appear here as well as on our blog. To be sure you find out about them, you can subscribe to RSS feeds or our email newsletter. PAST APPEARANCES Friday, March 27, 2009 at 7:00PM at The National Arts Club We had a standing-room-only audience for our celebration of the release of Inside the Apple and New York City’s 400th birthday. Using period illustrations, vintage prints, and modern photographs, our illustrated lecture traced the story of the city from Henry Hudson’s arrival in 1609 to the present day. Photos of this event are now online on the Inside the Apple Facebook page. Photo courtesy of Juan David Gastolomendo Wednesday, April 15, 2009 at 6:00PM at The New York Historical Society We presented an illustrated talk at New York’s oldest museum, sharing some of our favorite stories from Inside the Apple with a particular focus on the people and places associated with the New York Historical Society and its Upper West Side neighborhood. Photos of this event are online at the Inside the Apple Facebook page. The lecture was filmed by C-SPAN2 and shown on “Book TV” on May 30 and 31. Click here to watch it online. Sunday, April 19, 2009 at 4:00PM A Walking Tour of the Flatiron District followed by a Book Signing at Idlewild Books On this tour, we examined the history and mythology of such well-known landmarks as the Flatiron Building and the Empire State Building. Was the Flatiron New York's first skyscraper? Did they really try to moor dirigibles to the Empire State Building? We also looked at lesser known figures, like politico Roscoe Conkling and General William Jenkins Worth, sharing stories unknown to many native New Yorkers. The event was sponsored by Idlewild Books, an independent travel bookstore on West 19th Street, where we ended for a signing and reception. Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 6:30PM at The Fraunces Tavern Museum The neighborhood surrounding Fraunces Tavern is steeped in New York history from the earliest traces of Dutch New Amsterdam to World Trade Center redevelopment. We presented an illustrated lecture to a full house that told the story of the city using the streets of Lower Manhattan as a backdrop. Saturday, May 16, 2009 A Walking Tour of Morningside Heights in partnership with openhousenewyork Best known for its major institutions, such as Columbia University and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Morningside Heights is full of intriguing historical architecture. In our tour, we examined remnants of its bucolic past as the site of the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum through the development and growth of Riverside and Morningside Parks and the establishment of the schools, hospitals, and churches in the late 19th century that give the neighborhood its character. Photos are now online at our Inside the Apple Facebook page. Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 5:00PM Walking Tour of Financial District architecture in conjunction with Borders bookstore at 100 Broadway. Despite the rain, an enthusiastic crowd turned out for our tour of the architecture of the Financial District. Focusing on such well-known buildings as Trinity Church and the New York Stock Exchange as well as often-overlooked gems like the Trinity Building and the old U.S. Custom House on Wall Street, the tour covered centuries of New York's history in just a few significant blocks. Photos are now online at our Inside the Apple Facebook page. Sunday, August 16, 2009 at 5:00PM Walking Tour of Revolutionary War New York in conjunction with Borders bookstore at 100 Broadway. We had a gorgeous day and a big turnout for our tour of sites associated with the American Revolution and the early Federal Period. Thanks to everyone who came! Sunday, September 13, 2009 A Knickerbocker’s Tour of New Amsterdam As part of the celebrations of Harbor Day—the official commemoration of Henry Hudson’s arrival in New York Harbor in 1609—James led tours of Dutch New Amsterdam, emphasizing his own roots as a Knickerbocker New Yorker (a descendant of the first Dutch settlers). One group even got to see the Crown Prince of the Netherlands. Monday, October 5, 2009 Lecture on Inside the Apple at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum A standing-room-only crowd gathered at the Tenement Museum’s visitor center to hear us share stories from Inside the Apple and take questions about New York’s history. A portion of the talk is now up as an audio file on the Tenment Museum’s website at http://www.tenement.org/vizcenter_events.php Sunday, October 11, 2009 Walking Tour of the Flatiron/Gramercy Park area for openousenewyork The highlight of this tour was a stop inside The National Arts Club on Gramercy Park. Originally built as two townhouses, the homes were bought by New York’s Governor (and 1876 Presidential candidate) Samuel J. Tilden and unified into one home by Calvert Vaux (half the team that built Central Park). We visited Tilden’s parlors and library. Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 6:00PM at St. Theresa’s Church, Kihei (Maui), Hawaii James addressed the Italian-American Social Club of Maui with a talk entitled: “1892: Christopher Columbus & the Making of Modern America.” built Central Park). We visited Tilden’s parlors and library. Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 4:00PM at Borders, Columbus Circle We led a 90-minute tour of the lower portion of Central Park, discussing the park’s creation in the 1850s and some of its outstanding architectural features including Tavern on the Green, Sheep Meadow, and the Mall. Sunday, May 2, 2010 at 4:00PM Walking Tour of the History & Architecture of the Upper West Side in conjunction with Borders bookstore at Columbus Circle. In May, we returned to Borders, Columbus Circle, to lead a free walking tour of the part of the Upper West Side just outside their front door. Participants learned about the history of Columbus Circle, walked up Broadway to Lincoln Center, and saw some great residential architecture, too. Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 4:00PM Walking Tour of the Historic Heart of Greenwich Village in conjunction with Shakespeare & Co. On Sunday, June 27, at 4:00 p.m., a group braved the heat to join us at Shakespeare & Co. Booksellers in Greenwich Village for a one-hour walking tour of the heart of this historic neighborhood. Sunday, May 22, 2011 at 3:00PM Talkback and Q&A following the matinee performance of One-Third of a Nation at the METROPOLITAN PLAYHOUSE As any New Yorker knows, one of the greatest challenges of living in the city is making the rent. And it probably comes as no surprise that this has been the case for a very long time. The Metropolitan Playhouse—a wonderful, small theater company in the East Village that is dedicated to exploring the forgotten nooks and crannies of the American theatrical canon—invited us to join them at a performance of the WPA-era play One-Third of a Nation, an exploration of landlords and tenants throughout New York’s history. One-Third of a Nation was written in 1938 by Arthur Arent as part of the Federal Theatre Project’s “Living Newspaper” unit. The Living Newspaper was designed to create jobs for out-of-work journalists, actors, and other theater professionals by telling stories that were “ripped from the headlines.” Though the narrator reminds the audience early on that this isn’t a specifically New York story, the action takes place exclusively in the city, beginning with a devastating tenement fire at 397 Madison Street, then taking the audience on a multimedia journey through the city’s housing history. The play was the Living Newspaper's biggest success and versions were produced around the country. *** Read the reviews in The New York Times and Backstage. ***

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