Last week I expressed my profound dissatisfaction at not being able to read in full a letter published in early 1776 in the Royal Danish American Gazette, which Chernow (p. 72) uses to…
"Paul Revere's Ride" is set on the night of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, April 1775. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote it in 1860 or 1861, just as the Civil War…
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) - poet, short-story writer, and novelist - was also a journalist and editor. When he became famous, his fellow journalists constantly badgered him. His recently rediscovered poem "The Press,"…
Have you stopped to think about the way "My Shot" builds on the opening number of Hamilton: An American Musical? It sets him up as a young hero eager to change the…
This is not a selfie by a 14-year-old: it's a portrait paid for by the boy's parents and executed by a painter renowned for his ability to render details. So…
I’m driving three miles from Long Island City to Greenpoint, and I’m terrified. In rural Pennsylvania, we were taught to drive defensively - politely. Crossing every intersection in New York…
Good copy involves digging for facts before a word is written, not whirling around to a typewriter keyboard, and starting to bang out words. —Schwab, How to Write a Good Advertisement…
If you need a dose of Hamilton after Hamilton, here's half a dozen places to visit where you can take selfies with Alexander or walk in his footsteps. But first ...…
Monet and other Impressionists who worked in France beginning in the 1860s were famous for their obsession with depicting transient effects of light. In my opinion, the Luminists obsessed over light in…
The Kosciuszko Bridge, dedicated in 1939, carries the BQE at a dizzying height across Newtown Creek. It's a notorious bottleneck on the BQE, and like much of New York City's…