"Charles DICKENS at 200" exhibit

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http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/my_new_york_charles_dickens_DdwOgpmtG2DkMORbIjFZGK?photo_num=1

My New York: Charles Dickens

Like a literary Kim Kardashian, Charles Dickens was mobbed by fans when he visited New York for the first time in 1842. At 30, Dickens was already renowned for stories that focused on the plight of the poor, and he and his wife, Kate, spent a good chunk of their trip on guided tours of prisons and madhouses, which he found fascinating. He compiled his observations into the travelogue, “American Notes for General Circulation.” The author’s work and life are being celebrated in the exhibit “Charles Dickens at 200,” now at the Morgan Library & Museum. This is Dickens’ New York.--REED TUCKER


Courtesy Everett Collection
The Olympic Theatre, formerly Broadway between Howard and Grand streets
“The Olympic is a tiny show-box for vaudeville and burlesque. It is singularly well conducted by Mr. Mitchell, a comic actor of great quiet humour and originality, who is well remembered and esteemed by London playgoers. I am happy to report of this deserving gentleman, that his benches are usually well filled, and that his theatre rings with merriment.”

Getty Images/Comstock Images
New York City Lunatic Asylum, formerly on Roosevelt Island (then called Blackwell’s Island)
“The building is handsome; and is remarkable for a spacious and elegant staircase. Everything had a lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very painful. The moping idiot, cowering down with long dishevelled hair; the gibbering maniac, with his hideous laugh and pointed finger; the vacant eye, the fierce wild face, the gloomy picking of the hands and lips, and munching of the nails: there they were all, without disguise, in naked ugliness and horror.”

Library of Congress
The Bowery
“The stores are poorer here; the passengers less gay. Clothes ready-made, and meat ready-cooked, are to be bought in these parts; and the lively whirl of carriages is exchanged for the deep rumble of carts and wagons. These signs, which are so plentiful, in shape like river buoys, or small balloons, hoisted by cords to poles, and dangling there, announce, as you may see by looking up, ‘OYSTERS IN EVERY STYLE.’ They tempt the hungry most at night, for then dull candles glimmering inside, illuminate these dainty words, and make the mouths of idlers water, as they read and linger.”

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