Nanette Varian

During my admittedly erratic meander through ancestral time and cyberspace, I’ve come across several mentions of the ship USS Varian (DE 798), a 1,400-ton Buckley-class destroyer escort that accompanied Atlantic convoys during WWII and helped sink two German submarines. Varian is not a very common name. Could there be a connection? USS Varian, while operating out of Miami, summer 1945; Battle of Midway hero Bertram S. Varian, Jr.; my brother George Varian, who joined the N

The hidden history of New York's City Hall, how to find portals to centuries past in Lower Manhattan, and a salute to an unsung hero of today's skyline. My previous post, Why George Washington Stopped at Mrs. Varian’s Tavern, was about a bar (obviously). This post began as a tip-of-the-helmet tribute to those who’ve built our city—notably City Hall and its environs. Yet here we are again at a drinking establishment. Top: City Hall, which my Devoe relatives of yore helped bu

Revolutionary War-era tavern scene; the Bull's Head Tavern, which my family once operated; my niece Jenny Varian, carrying on the ancestral bartending tradition in the hospitality trade My birthday, November 25, blends into the Thanksgiving holiday each year, and that’s always been fine with me; it’s far enough from Christmas that I never felt cheated of gifts or attention. But I was excited to learn that this date is also significant in New York City history. November 25, 1

A history of family and the city. He was my fifth great-grandfather, my father’s father plus five. A man of mystery whose origin story many of us have tried to puzzle out over the centuries. Let’s call him Original Isaac, a butcher by trade whose first mention in the records, as far as anyone can tell, comes in 1720, when he was listed as having a stall in New York's Old Slip Market. A dozen years pass before we see him again, on the occasion of his wedding to Elizabeth Devea