Gouverneur Morris was no ordinary Founding Father. His story seems tailor-made for an action-packed, bodice-ripping Netflix series.

Morris, whose family estate, Morrisania, lay in what is now the South Bronx, wrote the final draft of the U.S. Constitution and delivered some of the founding era’s most forceful denunciations of slavery.

On the Bowery Boys podcast, his name comes up again and again, whether we’re exploring the history of the Bronx or the creation of the Erie Canal. New Yorkers may know him best for his late-in-life involvement in the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, which established the visionary grid of streets and avenues that defines much of Manhattan today.

But you may also know Morris as the Founding Father with the wooden leg—or the one who was very popular with the ladies. He not only braved the American Revolution but also survived the French Revolution without losing his head.

Greg is joined on this week's show by Scott S. Greenberger, author of The Forsaken Founder: Gouverneur Morris, the Unsung Patriot who Wrote the Constitution, Stood Up To Slavery and Survived the Reign of Terror, to reintroduce this fascinating figure and explore his distinctive contributions to American history and New York City.

This episode was produced and edited by Kieran Gannon.

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The roots of modern American corruption traces themselves back to a handsome -- but not necessarily revolutionary -- historic structure sitting behind New York City Hall.

The Tweed Courthouse is more than a mere landmark. Once called the New York County Courthouse, the Courthouse better known for many traits that the concepts of law and order normally detest -- greed, bribery, kickbacks and graft.

Tammany Hall, the oft-maligned Democratic political machine, served a unique purpose in New York City in the 1850s and 60s, tending to the needs of newly arrived Irish immigrants who were being ignored by inadequate city services. But they required certain favors like the support of political candidates.

And that is how William 'Boss' Tweed rose through the ranks of city politics to become the most powerful man in New York City.

It was Tweed, through various government organizations and his trusty Tweed Ring, who transformed this new courthouse project into a cash cow for the greediest of the Gilded Age.

How did the graft function during the construction of the Tweed Courthouse? What led to Tweed's downfall? And how did this literal temple to corruption become a beloved landmark in the 1980s?

We're pleased to re-introduce this classic Bowery Boys episode, remastered and reedited by Kieran Gannon, and first released in 2019. Visit the website for more images from this show and other episodes relating to it.

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Live from Joe's Pub at the Public Theater -- it's the Bowery Boys! In a live recording of their 2025 show, a Halloween cabaret spectacle featuring Andrew Austin and Lisa Karlin, Greg and Tom explore five mysterious stories from the pages of New York City history, including...

-- A tormented actress in Hell's Kitchen fights off a colonial-era spirit, thanks to a world-renowned paranormal investigator

-- The haunting last days of an ancient Upper West Side mansion with a padlocked room that nobody had dared to open

-- The terrifying story of a haunted tenement in today's Two Bridges neighborhood and the gangster who attempted to enter it

-- A mysterious sighting of three dancing ghosts within the old Flushing Meeting Housecauses a stir in an old Dutch village

And the return of Edgar Allan Poe! Also -- what happened to Cheryl Crow (the much-beloved stage prop, not the singer)?

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