The Queen City

Year:   1789
Location:   Buffalo

Mew York's Second City, Buffalo, was originally named Buffalo Creek. The name has nothing to do with bison; rather, it is derived from the French "beau fleuve" meaning "beautiful river." The city lies on the Niagara River.

 

Miracle on 34th Street

Location:   34th Street
Year:   1947

The perennial Thanksgiving/Christmas favorite, Miracle on 34th Street, was born on Christmas Eve 1944, when screenwriter Valentine Davies was caught in the last minute holiday shopping rush at Macy*s Herald Square, trying to buy a few last minute stocking stuffers for Mrs. Davies. 

Davies' friend George Seaton loved the story so much that Seaton covered the studio's expenses in live filming during the 1946 Macy*s Thanksgiving Day Parade. All the New York shooting was done in one take because of the frigid temperatures that November, and because the parade did not allow for re-shoots. Edmund Gwenn, who plays Santa Claus in the film was Macy*s Santa that year, and the people in the crowd are actual paradegoers. 

In a high-risk move, Macy*s and Gimbel's were given a "kill option" on the film to be exercised by either store at the time the final film was first privately screened. The use of either "kill option" would have required almost total re-scripting and re-shooting; fortunately, both stores embraced the film enthusiastically.  

Darryl F. Zanuck loved Miracle on 34th Street so much that he had the film released in June of 1947. 

Maureen O'Hara, who plays the skeptical Doris Walker, said that the cast and crew had a wonderful time working on the film, and it shows; the film was an instant hit and remains a nostalgic favorite. 

Ms. O'Hara, who is known as "The Lady Who Knows Santa Claus"  has said that by the time production wrapped everyone was convinced that Edmund Gwenn really was Santa Claus.  The beard is genuine. 

What's that smell?

Location:   Manhattan
Year:   Present-Day

The Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan is the only school in the world offering a Bachelor of Science Degree with a Major in Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing. 

Dance The Night Away

Location:   The Big Apple
Year:   Now

Sanitation workers in New York City refer to  maggots as “disco rice.”

Yellow Cabs

Location:   Manhattan and Chicago
Year:   Early 1900s

Ever wonder why New York taxis are all yellow?  It's because John D. Hertz, an enterprising immigrant from Hungary, discovered through his own researches that bright yellow is the color most quickly identified against a busy background. Beginning in 1915, Hertz founded the Fifth Avenue Cab Company in New York, the Yellow Cab Company in Chicago, and the nationwide Hertz Auto and Truck Rental businesses. Until he sold his interests in these companies in the 1940s, he maintained a virtual monopoly on the "pay-to-ride" / "pay-to-drive" industry in the Northeast and Midwest. Yellow became, and remains, the traditional color for taxis.

The Dutch skyscraper

Location:   New York, New York
Year:   1660s

The New York City skyline is world famous for its skyscrapers, which have been the tallest buildings in the world and the Western Hemisphere. In 1660, however, the New Amsterdam skyline was dominated by a two-story-high windmill.

 

Paying The Beer Tax

Location:   New York City
Year:   1931

Ah, Prohibition!  The Eighteenth Amendment was easily the most violated law in American history. Everybody violated the Volstead Act, even Volstead. Besides mountain moonshiners and urban bathtub gin distillers, numberless speakeasies and blind pigs dotted the American map ("blind pigs" got their name because they exhibited odd animals --- one-armed monkeys, tailless raccoons, and blind pigs --- for a small fee.  Visitors were entitled to a free snort with their admission price. Since the hooch wasn't being sold, technically it wasn't illegal). 

Gentleman Jim. "Would you care for some tea with that tea, sir?"

Bob Hope as "Beau James"

When it came right down to it, there was nothing New York City's "Night Mayor" Jimmy Walker loved more than a good brouhaha unless it was a chorus girl. "Beau James" was a fierce opponent of Prohibition, and made no secret of it, taking on the stodgy Federal government and its ardent (and not so ardent) drys at every opportunity. Populist that he was, he supported the citizenry's right to knock a few back.  In 1932,  he organized a "We Want Beer" parade down Fifth Avenue in lieu of a dry Oktoberfest. And he made sure, quietly, that the people got what they wanted.

Here's a toast to raising taxes!  ;)

Walker maintained several secret stashes of expensive liquor  for his own use all around the city. Walker might not have known it, but he had a friend in FDR, who kept his own secret stashes in the White House, the Presidential retreat at Shangri-La (Camp David), and at his home, "Springwood" in New Hyde Park, New York.

Bottoms up!