The New York Sun Review: ‘The Roosevelts in New York City’ Is an Exhilarating Climb in a Towering Family Tree – Dean Karayanis

November 30, 2025 – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and lifelong Long Islander, Bill Bleyer, joins us in the time machine to walk the streets of Gotham past with his book, “The Roosevelts in New York City.” Among his previous books is “Sagamore Hill: Theodore Roosevelt’s Summer White House.”

The Roosevelts story in America began with Nicholas Roosevelt, a farmer who arrived four centuries ago and planted the seeds of a distinguished and impactful family ― one with ties to many places in New York City. On East 20th St. stands a recreation of the brownstone where President Theodore Roosevelt was born and developed his love of nature. The twin brownstone next door was where his uncle, Robert Roosevelt, instilled in the future president an interest in conservation, while having multiple affairs and even starting a second secret family with a mistress.

The double townhouse on East 65th Street built by Sara Delano Roosevelt still stands, built so that her son, President Franklin Roosevelt, would have a suitable place to raise his family. It also allowed her, as Bill Bleyer says, to keep him tied to her apron strings while she meddled in their lives. Her daughter-in-law — TR’s niece, Eleanor Roosevelt — was driven to tears by having to live in a home that was not her own.

Bill Bleyer details the unique places in the city where family members lived and worked and unveils the private interactions behind this famous American family.

For more interviews on the Roosevelts:

• David Pietrusza – 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents”
• David Pietrusza – Roosevelt Sweeps Nation: FDR’s 1936 Landslide and the Triumph of the Liberal Ideal
• Michael Patrick Cullinane – Remembering Theodore Roosevelt: Reminiscences of his Contemporaries
• Michael Patrick Cullinane – Theodore Roosevelt’s Ghost: The History and Memory of an American Icon
• Winston Groom – The Allies: Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill and the Unlikely Alliance That Won World War II
• David Pietrusza – TR’s Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy
• Tim Brady – His Father’s Son: The Life of General Ted Roosevelt, Jr.
• John J. Miller – The Big Scrum: How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football
• Kermit Roosevelt – Allegiance
• David Pietrusza – 1932: The Rise of Hitler and FDR

July 4, 2025 – With the 249th birthday of America on July 4, 2025, and the 250th anniversary of Independence Day looming in 2025, the nation’s eyes are cast back to the place where America was born. Paul Kahan returns to tells us how that ground was sown and how the city has grown in “Philadelphia: A Narrative History.”

Paul Kahan earned a Ph.D. from Temple University and is a commentator on U.S. political, economic, and the craft of diplomacy. His book has been described as “accessible” by critics, by which they mean it’s written for everyone to enjoy, not for other academics.

Check out our previous conversations with Paul Kahan:

• “The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant”
• “Amiable Scoundrel: Simon Cameron, Lincoln’s Scandalous Secretary of War”
• “The Bank War: Andrew Jackson, Nicholas Biddle, and the Fight for American Finance”

May 11, 2024 – What happens when a celebrated author — Muhammad Ali’s official biographer, no less — turns his talents to putting his mother’s century-long life down on paper? In this episode, our time machine welcomes aboard Thomas Hauser, author of “My Mother and Me: A Memoir.”

Eleanor Nordlinger Hauser, who passed away last year at 96, experienced a life of success and failures, meeting the march of years with resilience and grace until she made her peace with the fact that — as we all do someday— she had run out of tomorrows.

Thomas Hauser is the author of fiction and non-fiction books that are best-sellers the world over. They include “Final Warning: The Legacy of Chernobyl” and “Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times.” As you might expect for the official biographer of The Greatest, he has been inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame.

For more on Ali and boxing, check out these previous interviews:

• Todd D. Snyder – Bundini: Don’t Believe the Hype
• Todd D. Snyder – Beatboxing: How Hip-Hop Changed the Fight Game
• Jerry Izenberg — Baseball, Nazis & Nedick’s Hot Dogs: Growing up Jewish in the 1930s in Newark