Tag: New York City

John Greer and Julia Mary Hopkins family of New York City

John Greer and Julia Mary Hopkins family of New York City

Posted on by Jack

Lately I’ve been filling in some details on close but not direct ancestors in hopes I’ll find something that gives me some insight or additional direction on my more direct line. So that’s what this is about. One of my great grandmothers was Elizabeth Greer born in Ireland to Ruth Allingham and Matthew Greer.

Elizabeth had an older brother named John Greer who was born in Ireland about 1860. I believe he came to the US in the 1870s and married Julia Mary Hopkins in 1888 in New York City (NYC). Continue reading “John Greer and Julia Mary Hopkins family of New York City”

The Christmas Kid: And Other Brooklyn Stories By Pete Hamill

The Christmas Kid: And Other Brooklyn Stories By Pete Hamill

Posted on by Jack

I was born in the Bronx in 1950 and moved to the suburbs a few years later. I mention this little bit of personal history because I have read several of Hamill’s books as an adult and it always make me nostalgic for the New York that existed before I did.


In the introduction to The Christmas Kid: And Other Brooklyn Stories, Pete Hamill does identify nostalgia as New York City’s most enduring emotion and I understand that entirely. The city is a very special place but it seems it was always a bit better when our parents or perhaps just a decade or so before we were born.

A New Yorker or even a near New Yorker like me definitely feels the nostalgia. But anyone from anywhere could relate to these stories. Such is the magic of his storytelling. Although the stories are specifically about working-class people in a certain neighborhood, they are really universal.

Pete Hamill is one of my favorite authors so I was pretty sure I was going to like this book. And I liked it even more than I expected. This book is a collection of 36 short stories. Pete Hamill was raised in the tenements of a working-class area of Brooklyn and these stories are set in the Brooklyn of his youth which spanned the Depression and the Korean War. The author is gifted at telling us about the time, place, and characters.

Most of these stories were published in the Sunday Daily News in the early 1980s. The stories vary in length; several are 5 pages or so; some are about 15 pages. Some have happy endings; some don’t; but that’s the way it is.

The nice thing about a collection of short stories like this is that you can enjoy without much commitment. With a longer book, I often find myself in a situation where after reading 50 or even 100 pages that are just OK, I wonder if I really want to spend the time reading hundreds of pages than might be the same or might get better. With short stories the commitment is only a few more pages. By the way, there were no stories in this book that I even considered not finishing.

Definitely add this to your reading list if you like Pete Hamill’s other books. Give it a try if you are not a fan or maybe even never heard of Pete Hamill. Reading a few short stories is not a big investment of time and you may find a new author worth following.

New York City Stories

New York City Stories

Posted on by Jack

If you are interested in New York, you might enjoy the new website http://narrative.ly That is narrative.ly

The dot is important since if you leave it out, you will end up at another website. This website publishes original, true and in-depth stories about New York City.

I found the site and became interested because one of my favorite authors Gabriel Cohen published a non-fiction short story about his Brooklyn apartment there. (See http://www.jackreidy.com/blog/2012/09/27/a-splash-of-red-by-gabriel-cohen/ for a more complete story about my discovery.

Enjoy!

A Splash of Red By Gabriel Cohen

A Splash of Red By Gabriel Cohen

Posted on by Jack

I signed up for Gabriel Cohen’s email list and I’m glad I did.  For those not familiar with the author, Gabriel Cohen is a writer living in Brooklyn who has written several books about a Brooklyn-based homicide detective.

I have reviewed all 4 to date here.

I have enjoyed them all and I’ve been waiting for the next in the series. So what does this have to do with the list? The author has his own website at http://www.gabrielcohenbooks.com.

And you can sign up for emails there. You don’t get many. This is the first I’ve gotten in a while and it was so good I decided to blog about it.

I was hoping for a notice that a new book was coming and maybe an invitation to be an advanced reader. I think what I got was almost as good, but some might actually say better. Mr. Cohen has written a nonfiction piece for a new website.

I totally enjoyed “A Splash of Red” which is a free read at http://narrative.ly/2012/09/a-splash-of-red/. It starts with the writer looking for an affordable apartment, and quickly progresses to a crime writer living at a crime scene. I say quickly because it is not a very long piece. It is a great story and certainly worth a few minutes of your time.

While there be sure to check out the rest of the Narratively website. It is an interesting web publication of true stories. Did I mention it is free? If you are so inclined you may support the project but the site is free and open to all.

My visit to the National Archives at New York City

My visit to the National Archives at New York City

Posted on by Jack

Earlier this week I visited the National Archives at New York City (NYC) twice. I was very pleased with my visits. I was looking for naturalization records of 2 people in my family tree. Both were naturalized in NY courts in the late 1800s. I had located the relevant index record on ancestry.com that I had all the information I needed. I was almost 100% certain that the 2 index entires I found were my guys.

I simply registered, requested the records, examined them a few minutes later, and then bought copies for 75 cents per page. Unfortunately, the courts of the 1800s did not seem to require very much information so there were only 4 pages of records available and I bought them all. Therefore, the total bill came to $3.00 and I had copies of the whole court record for both. I learned only a few things I had not known from the index so that was disappointing but still well worth 3 bucks.

By the way, you are under no obligation to buy the copies if you don’t want them. But who would not want them if they were the people you are looked for. Still, nice to know in the event that the record turns out not to be the person sought.

The National Archives at New York City is in the process of moving so all records are not there but the naturalization records are there. Here is the National Archives press release.

So for now they are still at Varick and Houston streets in Manhattan but the big move is expected in a few months. Here is a link to the National Archives at New York City so you can get the latest info and you can easily get from there to the main national archives page in case you are interested in another location.

The people there were so helpful and recommended an external site (the German Genealogy Group ) with a naturalization index. Two evenings later, I was checking on that site and found a potential match for John Tracey and decided to revisit the NYC National Archives to be sure.

Since the index record did not have all the info they needed to find the original court record, they checked the record on Fold3. With the info I had found on the German Genealogy Group website, they easily found the index in Fold3 which had additional information. It had both the information they needed to find the court record but also enough info that I knew this was not the John Tracey I has looking for. So I did not get the record I hoped to find. But it was not a wasted trip as there plenty of other things to do.

I had initially thought I’d title this post “Not my John Tracey” but it is really about the NYC archives and how nice and helpful the staff and volunteers are so I decided on “My visit to the National Archives at New York City”.

Certainly worth a visit if you are interested in genealogy and visiting NYC.

The Irish Americans: A History by Jay P. Dolan

The Irish Americans: A History by Jay P. Dolan

Posted on by Jack

The Irish Americans is one of those books that although written for the general reader is detailed enough and sufficiently referenced to be useful to those seeking more depth. I think over the years I have read quite a bit of Irish history and the history of Irish Americans because of my interest in Irish-American genealogy to be somewhat knowledgeable on the subjects. Yet I was not bored at all and found the book very interesting and informative.

My family came from Ireland to New York. So I was particularly interested in the discussion of New York Irish. There was much I had read before but here is was put in the context of the larger Irish American experience. That is, I was more interested in the discussion of Irish American politics and so forth in New York but reading about the similarities and differences in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities was valuable in putting it all in perspective.

Dr. Dolan is a scholar in the fields of Irish Americans and American Catholicism. He is a Professor Emeritus of History at Notre Dame. This book clearly benefits from his years of scholarship on immigration and ethnic studies (including 18 years teaching Irish American history).

This is a complicated story and Jay P. Dolan tells it well. The big Irish migration came with The Famine in Ireland and after. Most of these were Catholic and so the author’s background studying American Catholicism is extremely helpful in explaining how these immigrants fit into American society. The authors does not ignore non-Catholics or those who came before the great influx but discusses similarities and differences and the uneasy relationships among various groups. In a few generations the Irish have moved from one of the lowest rungs of the social ladder to move upward considerably.

New York: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd

New York: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd

Posted on by Jack

New York: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd.


I read this one awhile back and just noticed it while browsing in Borders. It is a wonderful historical fiction about New York City. Follows several families across multiple generations to tell the story of NY City from Dutch days to the present.

I’ve read several novels by Edward Rutherfurd and generally they are long but quite enjoyable and are well worth the time it takes to read a longer book.

You might want to have a look at Edward Rutherfurd’s page at Amazon

Tabloid City by Pete Hamill, a thriller of New York City

Tabloid City by Pete Hamill, a thriller of New York City

Posted on by Jack

Tabloid City has a double murder, a terrorist, a dying newspaper, financial fraud, New York, the Lipstick building, the Chelsea hotel, and more stuff. Well, it’s a thiller and it’s complicated and Pete Hamill tells the stories well and moves among them with apparent ease and ties them together into a bigger story about New York City. And nobody is better than Pete Hamill in writing about New York.


The stories are told in brief, sometimes very brief, snippets. When he moves on to the next story, I often missed the story he just left as I wanted to know more, but usually that feeling didn’t last more than a few sentences as you were pulled into the next story. I highly recommend this book to the Pete Hamill fan. If you are not a fan but think you might be interested in his writing, this is a great way to start. The book is only 280 pages and it moves quickly so it really doesn’t seem that long. As you move about with several characters you get a lot about the city as it is now but also a flavor of the New York City of a generation or two back. So all you have to lose is spending several hours with a good book. And if you like the New York City history aspect of Hamill’s writing I suggest Forever as your next Pete Hamill book.

I like Pete Hamill’s writing. I usually don’t finish books I don’t like and so I don’t review them. And if you’ve browsed through this blog, you may have noticed several reviews of Pete Hamill’s work. I also like New York and I think the 2 things are related.

In my review I don’t like to tell too much of the story because I think it may diminish the pleasure or reading the book. On the other hand if the reviewer doesn’t say enough you may not be interested and will definitely miss the pleasures of the book. So if you like a longer review, here is a good one by the Women of Mystery. I completely agreed with the review and since they are mystery writers from the New York City area, their opinions about this New York City thriller are well worth reading.

They Are Us: A Plea for Common Sense About Immigration by Pete Hamill (Kindle Single)

They Are Us: A Plea for Common Sense About Immigration by Pete Hamill (Kindle Single)

Posted on by Jack

This was my first try at a Kindle Single. When I got the email from Amazon, I thought it was an interesting idea – short pieces of writing where the author is free to determine the length needed to present the idea without the constraints of size imposed by a newspaper or magazine.

Try a Single from Amazon

So I downloaded They Are Us: A Plea for Common Sense About Immigration by Pete Hamill. There has been a lot of talk about immigration and specifically illegal immigrants so I thought I would like to read his thoughts on the subject. His thoughts seemed especially relevant as New York has been the center for American immigrants for long time is he is a well- known New York journalist and writer. (I’ve seen him called the quintessential New Yorker in many places.) I had been hoping for a book length treatment of this but that project was cancelled and this shorter version was available. I had enjoyed a number of his books and articles before and thought it well worth the 99 cent price even though this single seemed very short. It was about 25 pages in the size font I like. I do hope that longer version eventually does come out.

This is really a personal view based on the author’s experience. (The author tells the reader that this is his view not an objective analysis). And it is a well written account of those views and how and why he came to them.

Too often in in our endless discussions on illegal immigrants and possible solutions we focus on the illegal part. People need to be punished for breaking our laws. Let’s deport all of them. But that ignores the children. They did nothing wrong. Some were born here. Other travelled with their parents. (Does a child really have many other choices?) How do we deal with that? Do we have some empathy or even compassion ? It is good to see this side of the debate passionately presented.

Forever by Pete Hamill a novel New York City history

Forever by Pete Hamill a novel New York City history

Posted on by Jack

Forever by Pete Hamill is one of my favorite books. I read it several years back and re-read it recently. I’d highly recommend it. It is a novel dealing with the old Celtic religion, 18th century Ireland, the history of New York City (colonial times to the tragedy of September 2001), and love in an unusual way. I enjoyed it when I first read it several years ago and enjoyed it again recently.

The book is a bit over 600 pages; so be aware reading this is large time commitment for all but the fastest readers. And a fair bit of magic is involved. So unless you are willing to accept that for purposes of the story, the story will seem stupid. But if you do accept the magic for the story (or at least suspend your disbelief), you will be amply rewarded with a great story.

Pete Hamill is a great writer with a long history as a New York City newspaperman and author. It is hard to imagine someone better to tell the story of The City.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire workplace disaster

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire workplace disaster

Posted on by Jack

After watching the PBS special on Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York’s Greenwich Village , I just thought I’d put a couple of books I read about that here. This fire was the largest workplace disaster in New York City until 9/11. Ironically, this industry and this factory had been picketed for unsafe working conditions. The owners fought the unions.

The will be 2 specials this month since the fire occurred one hundred years ago on March 25, 1911.

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle
is a well-written account of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City in 1911 where 146 workers lost their lives. In addition to covering this event in detail, he discusses the effects of this tragic event on the labor movement and government involvement in labor and safety standards. The author was one of many writers and historian interviewed in the PBS documentary. It has been at least 5 years since I read this but it was an excellent book.

Feel free to check out the reviews on Amazon and look around and see if more recent books look more interesting to you.

Triangle: A Novel by Katharine Weber is a novel based on the Triangle fire which came out a few years back. (See my opinion of a nonfiction account directly above here.) This novel is not just historical fiction about the event, but rather a much more complex tale of memory and human nature. The memory is that of a survivor. But it does cover the actual events, too. A thoroughly enjoyable book.