“A Highway is Crumbling. New York Can’t Agree on How to Fix It.”

That was a headline in the New York Times back in November about the highly problematic section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway located beneath the Brooklyn Promenade, the romantic walkway that offers sumptuous views of lower Manhattan.

Everybody loves the Promenade. Nobody loves the BQE, especially in its present state. So how did we get here? You have to go all the way back to the origins of the neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights for the answers.

A stroll through Brooklyn Heights presents you with a unique collection of 19th-century homes — all preserved thanks to the efforts of community activists in the 20th century. Each street sign traces back to an original landholder from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

When Robert Moses began planning his Brooklyn Queens Expressway in the 1940s, he planned a route that would sever Brooklyn Heights and obliterate many of its most spectacular homes. It would take a devoted community and some very clever ideas to re-route that highway and cover it with something extraordinary — a Promenade, allowing all New Yorkers to enjoy views of New York Harbor.

To tell the whole story, we’ve put together two previous Bowery Boys episodes into one epic, newly remastered, newly re-edited show, which recounts the glorious history of Brooklyn Heights.

This episode was edited and remasterd by Kieran Gannon.

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On Lexington Avenue sits a special food store named Kalustyan's with a second floor stocked with international spices, syrups, and bitters. In 1881, this was the home of Chester A. Arthur, and it was here in the early morning hours of September 20, that he became the 21st President of the United States.

He is one of only two men inaugurated as president in New York City -- the other was George Washington. And Arthur was certainly no Washington!

Fans of the Netflix series Death By Lightning have already been introduced to Arthur's rugged, street-toughened personality, an efficient operator of Republican politics in a city governed by Democrats and Tammany Hall. He was quite famous, in fact, for converting Tammany men to Republican voters by using similar bare-knuckle tactics.

He eventually became the Collector of the Port of New York, one of the most lucrative jobs in American government. And then, through a strange series of events, he was catapulted onto the national ticket for president as the running mate of James Garfield.

But nobody really wanted the New Yorker for president, did they?

This is a story not only of a man out of his depth, but of the two very different individuals who helped hone his reputation -- the New York power broker Roscoe Conkling, and the Upper East Side recluse Julia Sand, who may have helped guide Arthur through the most challenging moments of his 'accidental' presidency.

PLUS: How Madison Square Park has become one of the only true monuments to his legacy.

Visit the website for images and more information about this story.

This episode was produced and edited by Kieran Gannon.

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Bowery Boys History Live is a live-show series at City Winery hosted by Greg Young featuring a variety of historians and tour guides. The last installment this summer featured author Liz Block and tour guide Keith Taillon. As live performances, they're a bit more loose and irreverent than the regular podcast and sometimes feature references to images being projected on stage.

As a special holiday bonus, step into the season with this festive dose of “Hot Victorian” history, naughty-list edition.

Join Greg Young of the Bowery Boys Podcast as he hosts this special holiday edition of Bowery Boys History Live!, recorded before a live audience at New York’s City Winery on Dec 12, 2025.

Featuring an all-star lineup: Carl Raymond of The Gilded Gentleman Podcast, Aaron Radford-Wattley—creator and author of Hot Victorians: Meet Your Dream Man from the Past—and historian and tour guide Kyle Supley — aka the clock whisperer.

So pour yourself some eggnog, cozy up by the fire, and enjoy live shenanigans full of holiday history and vintage comedy.

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