About Nancy Davidson

Get Your Goose

1 comment | November 5, 2012 | By Nancy Davidson | Photographs by Moya McAllister

Rediscovering the most succulent feathered beast.

Cuban Rum Runners

Comment | September 3, 2012 | By Nancy Davidson | Photographs by Courtesy of The Bacardi Archives

For Prohibition-era New Yorkers, Cuba was a place to bask in the rum.

At 80 St. Mark’s Place, which housed a Prohibition-era speakeasy, Lorcan Otway operates the Museum of the American Gangster and the recently restored William Barnacle bar. The museum displays such artifacts as a moonshine still, archival news articles and song sheets about illicit drink. Back in the day, customers entered through a butcher shop; wiring was connected to explosives in case the Feds came knocking. Modern visitors can don hard hats and visit the smuggling tunnel, or just have a drink—offerings include Rheingold beer (empty bottles from the twenties were found in the basement) and cocktails made with absinthe, another liquor that is forbidden no more.

Liquor, Liquor Everywhere— But Not Allowed to Drink.

Comment | January 1, 2012 | By Nancy Davidson | Photographs by Vicky Wasik

How New Yorkers stayed “wet” throughout Prohibition.

Get a Peek at Patti Paige’s Giant Gingerbread Typewriter

Comment | December 5, 2011 | By Nancy Davidson | Photographs by Susanna Blavarg

Patti Paige of Baked Ideas (I profiled her and her cookie company in the current issue of this magazine) and some of her artist friends created this oversized gingerbread typewriter completely from sugar, flour, icing and candy, as part of a display to benefit City Harvest, currently at the Parker Meridian hotel on 57th Street.