Burning Gotham

New York 1835: A City at its tipping point. It’s ten years since the completion of the Erie Canal. New York City’s population is now over 270,000. Most of these people live below Fourteenth Street in wooden or brick buildings no taller than five stories. The gap between rich and poor is rapidly expanding as each week thousands of new men and women pour onto New York’s dangerously overcrowded streets. Many come to earn an honest living. Others for more nefarious reasons. Several historical lives converge in this scripted audio fiction series about the fastest growing city in the world, and the opportunists who shaped it.

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Burning Gotham

Burning Gotham 001: Moving Day

November 27, 2022 • The WallBreakers • Season 1 • Episode 1

BURNING GOTHAM 001: MOVING DAY

May 1st, 1835 — It’s a cold and rainy Moving Day. Every renter in New York is out on the street looking for lodging. Most of the city’s quarter-million live below Houston Street in buildings four stories or smaller, but construction is booming.

New people are pouring onto New York’s dangerously overcrowded streets by the thousands. Rich and poor, many come to earn an honest living. Others for more nefarious reasons. It’s the perfect place to begin.

Aaron Columbus is an illegitimate son, desperate to make his fortune. Together with Aaron’s brother Wyndham Bowen—an African man born in Europe—they involve themselves in backroom deals, Abolitionism, potential war with France, and City politics.

Aaron has struck an illegal import deal with John Jacob Astor, America’s richest man. The import? Two exiled Russian Countesses; Sorina and Raisa Zubov, and their inheritance—eleven pounds of diamonds.

The two women have just arrived in New York.

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Download Episode Transcript

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Written By:
Olga Lysenko & James Scully

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Cast:
Eirik Gislason
Kacie Laforest
Roland Lane
Mary Murphy
Anna Pirogov
Nancy Pop
Matt Roper
James Scully

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Music:
The Hesperus Early Music Ensemble
The Itinerant Band

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Engineer:
Josh Wilcox of Brooklyn Podcasting Studio

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Director & Post-Producer:
James Scully

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