The Official Blog of the Urban History Association
When South Americans first laid eyes on British immigrants playing the game that they called football (and residents of the United States came to call soccer), they were, historian David Goldblatt writes, “genuinely bemused.” A Brazilian observer described a scrum of English men hoofing “something that looks like a bull’s bladder” about as “a bunch […]
Read MoreNathaniel Holly PhD Candidate Lyon G. Tyler Department of History College of William & Mary Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? At the moment I am neck deep in my dissertation, which examines the urban experiences of Cherokees in the long eighteenth century. While early American historians have long noted the […]
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By Kevin D. Seal This is a picture of an authentic Sacramento Kings jersey that I bought in middle school. I walked to the NBA Store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue during a free period, pulled Chris Webber’s jersey off the rack, and handed over a silly amount of cash for the right to have it […]
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In recent years, the American public has been treated to a number of films about the 2008 housing crisis: the insightful documentary “The Queen of Versailles”, the dark, simmering “99 Homes”, and the Oscar nominated “The Big Short” to name a few. For all the critical acclaim bestowed upon each, with the exception of a […]
Read MoreClaire Poitras Professor of Urban Studies and Scientific Director of the Villes Régions Monde Network INRS-Urbanisation Culture Société Montréal, Quebec, Canada Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? My areas of research include urban, suburban and metropolitan history. I am particularly interested in the built environment and urban technical networks and the […]
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By William Burg Jane Jacobs Walks are a continent-wide series of walks and bike rides based on the principles of Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Written in an era when American cities promoted the suburb and the automobile, turning their backs on downtowns and older neighborhoods, Jacobs’ seminal […]
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Like many collaborative digital projects, The Metropole is entirely assembled via remote correspondence; as co-editors, Ryan and I send daily emails between Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh. In between editing submissions, we brainstorm future blog posts and trade banter about music, books, and movies. Ryan approaches pop culture with a typically Gen X cynicism, while I […]
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On the song “All the Wine” from the 2005 album Alligator by The National, lead singer Matt Berninger croons, “I’m put together beautifully, big wet bottle in my fist, big wet rose in my teeth, I’m a perfect piece of ass like every Californian … I’m a festival, I’m a parade.” Hailing from Brooklyn and […]
Read MoreAlan Lessoff University Professor of History Illinois State University Describe your current research. What about it drew your interest? I’m in the middle of two projects. The first is an exhibition and book project undertaken with the McLean County Museum of History, an exemplary regional museum in this part of Illinois. The theme is unbuilt […]
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By Sonia Gollance and Joel Berkowitz The history of Yiddish theatre is embedded – quite literally – in urban space. If you walk past the Chase Bank on the site of the former Second Avenue Deli in New York City’s East Village neighborhood, the sidewalk is emblazoned with the “Yiddish Theatre Walk of Fame” – […]
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The Metropole 