The mystery is not why Trotsky was at the reception in Brownsville, Brooklyn but who had arranged it. The staff members of Forverts, including its editor-in-chief, Abraham Cahan, were based predominantly in Manhattan. Ludwig Lore, another of his regular contacts at Forverts, was holed-up at 55th Street, some six miles west in Borough Park. Furthermore,…
Month: September 2026
American Dreamer — Listen now at Audible.co.uk. Who was the Real Jay Gatsby?
It’s 11.30am on Friday, June 23, 2023. I’ve been rifling the archives and punching in keywords for the past few hours. Suddenly I’m excited. I’ve found a report in a copy of Variety Magazine dated July 27, 1927. It’s unlikely to have been seen by another pair of eyes for close to a 100 years….
Unravelling Trotsky’s Stay in New York, Jan-March 1917 – Part I
An article written by rights activist, Henry Moskowitz, in February 1918, said that to understand Leon Trotsky’s infamous sudden visit to the Lower East Side of New York in January the previous year, you also had to understand the local landscape upon which his “powerful figure” was “silhouetted”. Its streets “were black with men, women…
Nachman Syrkin arrives in New York
After a closer look at travel records it appears that Alexei Sheftel was joined in New York by one of Chaim Weizmann’s closest allies, the Socialist Zionist, Nachman Syrkin, who immediately prior to moving to America had spent much of his time in London and Berlin. Press reports in July and August 1907 see him…
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald at the Embassy Club, London
During their stays in London in 1921 and 1925, their London host, Shane Leslie, introduced Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald to an illustrious parade of British dignitaries that included his aunt, Lady Randolph (Jennie) Churchill — the New York-born mother of Britain’s Secretary of State for the Colonies, and Leslie’s cousin, Winston Churchill — and the…
Alexis Sheftel’s Stars and Stripes Revolution
Less than 72 hours after the missing police chief’s daughter Barbara Lopukhin knocked at the door of Woburn Place and reassured everyone of her safety, Hastings compositor Alexis Sheftel boarded the RMS Lusitania in Liverpool and made the three thousand mile journey in steerage to start a new life in New York. The date was…
Hem Interview — Rabbit Songs
Violins, mandolins and deep flowing intakes of clear fresh air. Hem return to their roots and add something new to an ongoing American narrative. Forget the new Lambchop album. The future’s where you left it. The song, ’Lazy Eye’ draws attention to the hem of the dress of an old, possibly lost love: “There’s a…
69 Love Songs: L.D Beghtol talks Magnetic Fields & Three Terrors
It’s hard to believe, but this interview is now some 25 years old. It was given by Beghtol from his office in Manhattan, and published just a month before 9/11. It was after that, that the world changed forever. For the many who have probably forgotten, Beghtol provided several of the standout ‘turns’ on The…
The Barbara Lopukhin Kidnap Plot
Little more than a year after the Russian Free Library’s Alexei Teplov found himself dodging spies in Hastings, the seaside resort and its neighbour Bexhill on Sea, would feature in a more sinister tale of counter-espionage, when the daughter of the former Director of the Department of Police (Fontanka) in St Petersburg and Kishinev, Aleksey…
A Wolf in Wolf’s Clothing — The Truth About The Manchester Arena Bombing
No Alarms and No Surprises. Please May 22nd 2017, 22.31 (BST) On Monday, May 22nd 2017, Salman Abedi walked into the City Room foyer at the Manchester Arena at Hunts Bank in Central Manchester and detonated an explosive suicide device. Within seconds, the innocent giddy replay of post-concert highlights as the kids typed-in messages and…