Cahan

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Sidewalks of New York

March 7, 2011 in Film, History, Music, Neighborhood Scenes, Writing New York by Bryan | 1 comment

Earlier today, as part of his lecture on Abraham Cahan’s Yekl (1896), Cyrus showed a clip from Ric Burns’s New York that offered the history of the popular song “Sidewalks of New York.” The version featured above situates the song in a medley of other popular songs about the city and has some nice illustrations of the city from the turn of the twentieth century.

Another way of thinking about New York’s sidewalks, especially on the Lower East Side from the same moment, comes via Thomas Edison’s footage of a “ghetto” fish market:

For more clips along the same line, check out the uploads from YouTube user TigerRocket.

For a round-up of our earlier posts about Cahan’s novel, click here.

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Previously: Cahan

March 9, 2010 in Books, Teaching, Writing New York by Bryan

We’ve been a little overworked the last few weeks and so have been a little slower to post than usual.

Our students are taking a midterm tomorrow morning. The last lecture before the exam was Cyrus’s take on Abraham Cahan’s Yekl (1896).

I don’t have anything new to say about it at the moment, and indeed should be working on something else. But I thought I’d offer up some links to prior content for the sake of students who may be checking the blog tonight.

Last year Cyrus posted a general intro, including a sneak preview of Sarah Wilson’s essay on the New York novel of manners from our forthcoming Cambridge Companion. (This year our students have read her entire piece; next year we’ll actually be able to order the book!) Cyrus also gave some additional detail on one of his favorite topics — baseball — which ties nicely into the novel’s film adaptation, Joan Micklinn Silver’s Hester Street (1975).

Maybe once the exam’s out of the way — and a couple writing deadlines have been reached — we’ll be back in regular blogging form.

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