Prohibition-era New York’s favorite madam

Polly Adler was born in Russia in 1900 and immigrated to New York City when she was a teenager. But hers is no typical Ellis Island kind of story.

After toiling away in a Brooklyn corset factory, 24-year-old Adler found a more lucrative gig: supplying prostitutes, liquor, and an all-night party to top entertainers, politicians, and gangsters.

Adler created clubhouse-like brothels at different locations through the 1920s and 1930s. She ran a house of ill repute in the Majestic Apartments on Central Park West, as well as at other luxe addresses on the Upper East and Upper West Sides.

The famous and important of both sexes (Dorothy Parker was a regular) hung out and mingled. Mayor Jimmy Walker, Joe DiMaggio, and Dutch Schultz reportedly enjoyed the sexual services.

Adler was arrested more than a dozen times, exiting the madam business in the mid-1940s. She attended college, wrote her memoirs, and died in 1962 in Los Angeles.

Brooklyn’s champion ice hockey team

Meet the men of the Crescents, also known as the New Mooners, an ice hockey team affiliated with Brooklyn’s Crescent Athletic Club.

They bagged several New York Amateur Hockey League championship titles between 1896 and 1918, when the team (and the league) disbanded in the wake of America’s involvement in World War I.

This is the 1911 crew. No helmets or padding for these guys. They played at an ice rink on Claremont Avenue in Brooklyn as well as at the St. Nicholas Rink on the Upper West Side, where they battled their chief rival, the wonderfully named New York Wanderers.

Madison Square Garden on the move

Ever wonder why it’s called Madison Square Garden—when it’s not near Madison Square? 

The current Garden, on 33rd Street, is the fourth incarnation of New York’s premier sports and entertainment arena.

The first, at right, opened in 1879. Occupying an old railroad depot at Madison Avenue and 26th Street, it became a successful, 10,000-seat venue that featured boxing, bike racing, and ice hockey.

A decade later it was torn down. Famed architect Stanford White designed the second MSG in 1890, below left. This beautiful, 8,000-seat Moorish structure sported cupolas, arches, and a 32-story tower that made it the second tallest building in the city. 

 Madison Square Garden II’s rooftop restaurant became a chic place for New York’s Gilded Age elite to socialize. It’s also where White was murdered in 1906.

He was shot point-blank by Harry Thaw, the jealous husband of a teenage showgirl the 40-ish White had been having an affair with.

By 1925, White’s palace met the wrecking ball, and the third MSG was completed at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue. This arena was home to the Rangers, Knicks, and lots of boxing matches.

Outdated by the late sixties, it was replaced in 1968 by the fourth and current Garden, built on the hallowed grounds of the original Penn Station.

Listening to the World Series in Times Square

On October 12, 1920, thousands of New Yorkers crowded into Times Square to catch play-by-play updates of that afternoon’s game between the Cleveland Indians and the Brooklyn Robins—aka, the Dodgers. 

The nickname stemmed from manager Wilbert Robinson.

It was the last day of the series. The Indians won on their home turf, 3-2. Cost of a ticket to see the Dodgers at Ebbets Field? Between $1 and $6 tops.

The Bowery’s bare-knuckle boxing champ

Irish immigrant Owen “Owney” Geoghegan wasn’t a big guy—he stood just 5′ 6” and weighed less than 140 pounds. But as a teenager working in the gasworks on 21st Street and the East River, he earned a rep as one tough fighter. 

Eventually he began fighting in local sporting clubs for money. And by fighting, we’re talking bare fists, no gloves. Really rough stuff.

By the time he hit his 20s, he was a champion, holding the U.S. lightweight title from 1861 to 1863. 

Geoghegan left the ring soon after. He opened his own sporting club at 21st Street and First Avenue, which became a fighter’s hangout, and then opened another at 103 Bowery.

He also entered local politics, was arrested for a variety of crimes ranging from letting a minor frequent his Bowery club to murdering a local thug. 

After a stint in prison and bankruptcy, he died in 1885, only 45 years old. He was “permanently broken down,” as his obituary in the New York Times stated.

Paying tribute to a fallen Yankee captain

No one who tuned in to watch the Yankees on August 3, 1979 will ever forget the emotional pre-game ceremony honor of Thurman Munson. The team captain and catcher died two days earlier after the Cessna he was piloting lost altitude and crashed in his home city of Canton, Ohio.

Photo: Anthony Casale/Daily News

Only eight Yankees took the field, leaving the catcher’s box empty. Terence Cardinal Cooke, Archbishop of New York at the time, gave the invocation, and fans cheered for a full 10 minutes after Munson’s picture appeared on the scoreboard.

Women’s Day at the Fifth Street swimming baths

In the 1920s and 1930s, the city began building neighborhood swimming pools for kids (and adults) to cool off in on steamy summer days. 

But back in the 1870s, residents flocked to the pools’ precursors: “swimming baths.” One stood at Fifth Street and the East River; another at Bethune Street and the Hudson (then North) River.

This sketch, from the New York Public Library’s picture collection, depicts “women’s day” at the baths in 1876.

I couldn’t find an account of women’s day, but this June 2, 1884 New York Times article reveals what a boys’ day must have been like—and why women and girls wanted their own time to swim without the distraction of rowdy boys:

“Hundreds of young Neptunes, with grimy faces, stood in crowds at the gang-planks of the free swimming baths before five o’clock yesterday morning, when the various natatorial institutions were thrown open to remain for use until noon.

“[At the Fifth Street Baths] about 800 boys plunged into this bath yesterday morning perhaps a shade less grimy and sundry shades redder.”

Watching the races at the Brighton Beach track

Brighton Beach was developed as a swanky summer resort in the 1860s; impressive hotels were built at the water’s edge. And after Ocean Parkway was extended and the Brighton Beach Railroad completed, the crowds really started coming.

One major attraction: The Brighton Beach Race Course, opened in 1879. It featured thoroughbred horse racing and later harness racing (on sand, oddly enough), soon attracting wealthy New Yorkers who liked betting on the ponies.

But in 1908, New York State severely restricted gambling, and that put a serious dent in the horse racing business. Course owners came up with a novel idea: converting the track into a “motordrome” for auto racing. 

The crowds loved it; tens of thousands sat in the grandstand to watch races.

Manhattan’s other Washington Bridge

It predates the George Washington Bridge by 43 years and has a simple beauty all its own.

Still, the tiny Washington Bridge—connecting 181st Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights to University Avenue in the Bronx—is like a neglected kid brother to the enormous and iconic GWB.

This is the Washington Bridge circa 1907. The Harlem River looks like a country brook. The “Speedway” referred to in the postcard was the Harlem River Speedway, a three-mile road for racing horses and carriages. It eventually became today’s Harlem River Drive.

Here’s another view of the Speedway.

Stickball on the streets of Brooklyn

Like egg creams and nickel subway rides, stickball is one of those long-gone cultural touchstones that New York City old-timers often wax nostalgic about. But you know, the game sure looks like a lot of fun.

No coaches. No expensive gear. No adults. All you needed was a car-free side street (not hard to find before the 1950s, when few city residents had cars), a broom handle, and a “spaldeen”—a small pink rubber ball made by the Spalding sporting goods company—and you were good to go. Chalk to outline bases or the strike zone was optional.

This photo, by Arthur Leipzig, was taken in Brooklyn in 1950. Bed-Stuy? Brownsville? East New York? The black and white players as well as the kosher market tell us it was an ethnically mixed neighborhood.

Stickball is still played by kids in some neighborhoods; there’s also an adult league, the New York Emperors Stickball League. To commemorate the game, a Bronx street was given the moniker Stickball Boulevard.