I haven’t explored the possibility of doing a FNY podcast, though it’s been broached before — I carry a camera and tell my stories mostly with photographs, which has nothing to do with the sort of verbal acuity and storytelling panache it takes to do an effective podcast. It’s something I think about, as well as developing an app that will allow people to take a Forgotten Tour anytime, not just when I give them during the warm weather months. Don’t expect a Bowery Boys-type podcast just yet.
In the meantime, I recently guested on a podcast run by two other people who are masters of the milieu…Kevin Fitzpatrick, shown above, a historian specializing in World War I and the history of NYC in the early 20th Century, and Joanna Leban, a historian in her own right who can be found behind the bar at the popular East Village hangout, Doc Holliday’s.
Kevin and Joanna greet guests for their podcast at The Lambs Club at #3 West 51st Street, the first professional theater organization in America, founded in 1874 by friends of Charles Lamb, who held gatherings for his friends in the theater and arts worlds in his home in London. While it’s always been first and foremost a club catering to showbiz people and folks in the arts world, membership in the Lambs Club is available for anyone wishing to fork over the annual fee.
I was fascinated with the Lambs digs, which has oil portraits of showbiz and industry bigwigs (such as that of Stanford White, above) as well as ads (featuring artistically rendered undraped models) for the Lambs’ annual gathering, the Lambs Gambol. Fascinated, not least because the Lambs is usually the sort of place I’m given the bum’s rush if spotted scuttling about with a camera, but for one day, I was a Lamb too.
Not only do the annual dues go into upkeep and charitable endeavors, members of the Lambs Club have in the past founded the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and United Artists, a couple of the rocks on which American entertainment industry is built.
Membership provides many benefits, including access to the pool room as well as access to a full library, rehearsal rooms, and discounted admission to many area hotels and other associated private clubs.
Many thanks to Joanna and Kevin for giving me a “voice” and letting me inside this inner sanctum of showbiz. A full complement of their Big Show podcasts can be found at ITunes free of charge.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”
3/25/19