Every spot in the city has experienced hundreds, if not thousands, of years of history \u2014 including 215 West 78th Street.<\/p>\n
Tom Miller spotted the taller building sandwiched between smaller row houses when he was checking out another building across the street. That\u2019s all it took to get the \u201cDaytonian in Manhattan\u201d to start digging.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Tom Miller is known to his legions of history fans as the “Daytonian in Manhattan”
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His popular blog digs into the stories of buildings in Manhattan, including who lived and worked there
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Miller often speaks to sold out crowds about different parts of Manhattan’s history<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018These stories are just fascinating,\u201d Miller said. \u201cThey shouldn\u2019t be lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller\u2019s popular blog details historic spaces in Manhattan, including everything from who designed them to who lived there.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the most riveting stories aren\u2019t about people like Rockefellers and Fricks and these people that are so famous,\u201d Miller said. \u201cThey\u2019re people who are the servants, the middle-class people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller\u2019s fascination with the past started at a young age. He was visiting condemned houses in his native Dayton, Ohio, when he made a connection.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized that these houses had lives. That people had lived here, had Christmas trees and funerals and things.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2009, the history buff was showing an architect around Midtown and was told in no uncertain terms that he should be sharing his knowledge with others.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know what a blog was, but he kept harassing me long-distance,\u201d Miller said. \u201cI finally started it. I didn\u2019t think anyone would ever read it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
That was more than 5,000 posts ago.<\/p>\n
Miller has since become something of a local history rock star. His lectures and webinars are described as \u201cstanding room only.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone says this is Tom Miller, the Daytonian in Manhattan, then people will light up, because that\u2019s how they know me. They don\u2019t know me. They know the blog.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for 215 West 78th Street, after pouring through historical construction bulletins and old news articles, Miller made some interesting finds.<\/p>\n
Johnny Mathis owned the building for a little while. It cost $300,000 to build a century ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn 1935, a bookie lived there,\u201d Miller added. \u201cHis body was found in the trunk of a car.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal of the blog is to document some of these stories that might be lost if someone doesn\u2019t write them down.\u201d<\/p>\n
For keeping the history of Manhattan alive, Tom Miller is our New Yorker of the Week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every spot in the city has experienced hundreds, if not thousands, of years of history \u2014 including 215…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7914,25,7913,9,24,7911,12,56,63,65,64,7912,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-195245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-app-new-yorker-of-the-week","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-chelsea-katz","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-new-yorker-of-the-week","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-nyc-headlines","18":"tag-nyc-news","19":"tag-pat-kiernan","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}