This season, we explore a series of crimes that only could have happened in New York.
Above: Thomas Benecke, Sleighing in New York. (1855) [New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession # 54.90.1061]
TRANSCRIPT
New York has been called “a city of superlatives, a place where the best, the brightest, the biggest is the norm.” From Broadway to the Guggenheim to the Metropolitan Opera, New York lays claim to several of the most important cultural institutions on the planet, where the best, brightest, and biggest artists have exhibited their work. But not all of its superlative are something to be proud of. A case in point: New York has witnessed some of the most heinous, ingenious, and even ridiculous crimes in history.
Welcome to The Art of Crime, a history podcast about the unlikely collisions between true crime and the arts. This season is titled Crimes of Old New York, and it explores crimes that only could have happened in the Big Apple.
We’ll cover a variety of both art forms and crimes. We’ll hear about the portraitist who painted an insulting picture of his patron and wound up accused of criminal libel, the bank robber who drew on his architectural training to mastermind some of the most intricate heists of the 1800s, and the trust-fund playboy who shot and killed an architect in the middle of a play at Madison Square Garden.
In episode 1, we kick off in 1799 and look at a murder that led to the first fully recorded homicide trial in U.S. history. Because of intense public interest in the trial, book publishers raced to see who could print the first—and fullest—account of the proceedings. For this episode, we’re doing something we’ve never done before. I’m presenting the story as something of a puzzle mystery in the style of Agatha Christie, with a whole lot of characters and plenty of suspects.
Episode 1 will be available to the public next Wednesday, October 23. Patrons of The Art of Crime can listen right now. So if you can’t wait and would like to support the show, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/artofcrimepodcast. Again, that’s www.patreon.com/artofcrimepodcast.
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