In the spring of 1947, police trying to enter a brownstone at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 128th Street in Harlem could not open the front door. Behind it were the lifetime acquisitions of two brothers, Homer and Langley Collyer, who for decades had carried things in and almost nothing back out. When the … Read more
On March 4, 1933, a man who could not walk to the podium without help stood in front of a country that had largely stopped believing in itself. A quarter of the workforce was idle, banks were failing by the hundreds, and people were hoarding cash in mattresses and gold in coffee cans. That’s when … Read more
August 4, 1936. The Olympiastadion in Berlin, long jump qualifying round. Jesse Owens, already the fastest man in the world, had fouled his first two attempts. One more foul and he would be out — no medal, or no final — in front of 100,000 spectators and one particularly invested Führer. The story goes that … Read more
The morning after Johnny Kelley won the 1935 Boston Marathon, he went to work, showing up at 7:30 a.m. at a greenhouse in Arlington, Massachusetts. After winning one of the most grueling footraces in the country, he had every reason in the world to sleep in. And yet. I’ve spent a good chunk of the … Read more