https://www.cityofsmoke.com New York in History and Anecdote Sat, 26 Dec 2015 02:30:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 https://www.cityofsmoke.com/archives/1585 https://www.cityofsmoke.com/archives/1585#respond Sat, 14 Feb 2015 03:43:33 +0000 http://www.cityofsmoke.com/?p=1585 Some years ago, while researching William Cowper Brann, editor of The Iconoclast, a turn-of-the-century Waco, Texas monthly, I encountered the multi-talented New York–born George Graham Rice, one of America's most successful and unscrupulous promoter-swindlers. This resulted from a natural confusion: one of Rice's stock market tout sheets was also named The Iconoclast.]]> https://www.cityofsmoke.com/archives/1585/feed 0 https://www.cityofsmoke.com/archives/1118 Sat, 07 Feb 2015 16:34:07 +0000 http://www.cityofsmoke.com/?p=1118 The luxury apartment building at 1155 Park Ave. was brand new in 1915. Among its first tenants was Maude King, a boozy, scatterbrained wealthy widow from Chicago. She rented three neighboring apartments on the tenth floor for $9,000 a year. Mrs. King lived in one, her sister lived]]> https://www.cityofsmoke.com/archives/547 Sat, 31 Jan 2015 06:17:17 +0000 http://www.cityofsmoke.com/?p=547 Continue reading "Wilson Mizner, Champion Wiseacre"]]> https://www.cityofsmoke.com/archives/5464 https://www.cityofsmoke.com/archives/5464#respond Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:27:37 +0000 http://www.cityofsmoke.com/?p=5464 Continue reading "Diploma Mill Redux"]]> https://www.cityofsmoke.com/archives/5464/feed 0 https://www.cityofsmoke.com/archives/1565 Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:48:57 +0000 http://www.cityofsmoke.com/?p=1565 I first heard of John Bear in 1990, when a man from Michigan named Bob Adams told me about the Ethiopian ear-pickers. In 1966, Southern Methodist University gave Bob Hope an honorary doctorate after the entertainer gave it a substantial donation. Up at Michigan State University, John Bear, earning his doctorate the hard way, resented this. He founded the Millard Fillmore Institute to honor ]]> https://www.cityofsmoke.com/archives/1590 Wed, 28 May 2003 15:03:01 +0000 http://www.cityofsmoke.com/?p=1590 Continue reading "The Unsubtle Knife"]]>