New York Play Streets at the Turn of the Century

May 5, 2026.Reading time 17 minutes.

This post is the first entry in our May theme month, Cities at Play. By Alexandra Miller The bullet ripped through Max Kaufman. It was a Thursday morning in August 1919, and the twelve-year-old boy was playing in front of his Brooklyn home in the rapidly developing stretch of Snediker Avenue between Dumont and Livonia […]

Playing with Fire: Pyrotechnic New York Youth at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

September 30, 2025.Reading time 19 minutes.

This post is an entry in our ninth annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest. This year’s theme is “Light.” By Alexandra Miller BOOM! The sound of the explosion “Shook the houses broke Window panes and caused a great excitement among the respectable portion of the tenants” of the midtown Manhattan neighborhood around the corner of 56th […]

The Metropole Bookshelf: Boston University’s Paula Austin Discusses How African American Washingtonians Navigated the City in Her New Book, Coming of Age in Jim Crow DC

February 4, 2020.Reading time 7 minutes.

The Metropole Bookshelf is an opportunity for authors of forthcoming or recently published books to let the UHA community know about their new work in the field. Austin, Paula. Coming of Age in Jim Crow D.C. Navigating the Politics of Everyday Life. New York: New York University Press, 2019. By Paula Austin Coming of Age […]