About Us
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Welcome.
The history of Manhattan Island, from 1609 to 1909 is our lost American history.
Our audio podcast ISLAND brings this remarkable story to life as a dramatic series, available wherever you listen to podcasts.
And our YouTube channel includes engaging interviews with authors and scholars who play a critical role in this storytelling. We also enjoy bringing you compelling interviews with public figures from all walks of life, who have a special relationship to this incredible place.
Climb aboard. History is cool 😎
About Island Voices
Island Voices examines the incredible history of Manhattan island and TALKS to some of the people who have helped to make it incredible.
We welcome guests from all walks of life including singer/songwriters, actors/actresses, professional athletes, elected officials, authors, historians, and anyone who has helped to make this place what it is.
Island Voices is a companion podcast to ISLAND the chronological history of Manhattan Island from 1609 to 1909
History is cool™
About Island
The history of the Island of Manhattan is in truth, our lost American history.
ISLAND™ is the remarkable voyage of discovery that begins with Henry Hudson’s momentous & tragic quest to find the shortcut to China in 1609 to 1909 when transplanted New York publisher William Randolph Hearst is conceiving what would become what we now call “modern media.”
Our world, our America, was not born at Plymouth Rock nor in Jamestown, VA. It didn’t start in “New France” or what we now call Quebec, Canada, let alone at the Spanish colonies at St. Augustine, FL or at Santa Fe, NM. But rather, the America that we know today was born in the first half of the 17th century on the southern tip of Manhattan Island.
Created and hosted by actor, writer and New Yorker Chance Kelly, the series illustrates how this place is an island unto itself, not just geographically, but idealistically, philosophically and spiritually. Island uncovers our true lost American history. It examines the city’s effect on religious and personal freedoms throughout the world.
Chance’s own heritage is central to much of this story directly as his great, great, great Uncle Honest John Kelly himself emerged from the slums of Five Points to become one of the first Irish-Catholic Congressmen in 1855, and would later reform the reeling Tammany Hall in the wake of the Boss Tweed era. John Kelly was a fiercely courageous advocate for oppressed immigrants from everywhere.
ISLAND™ is the character-driven portrait of the inimitable souls responsible for a place founded on capitalism but perpetuated by infectious and unapologetic measure of tolerance.
Climb aboard this voyage of discovery as we tell this epic story, over three centuries, of the forging of the epicenter of the universe. Researched, written and produced by Chance Kelly and Dr. Jaap Jacobs.
History is cool™
Podcast Stars
Meet the Creatives Behind The Mic
Get to know the passionate and dynamic hosts who bring the ISLAND podcast to life. With their unique perspectives and deep expertise, our creatives behind the mic are dedicated to delivering engaging and thought-provoking content that resonates with our listeners.
Chance Kelly
Host
Writer/actor, Chance Kelly has enjoyed three decades in the entertainment industry portraying compelling characters in film and television. He has degrees from NYU and Columbia University and is a lifelong New Yorker.
Movies & Shows
Jaap Jacobs
Co Host
Jaap Jacobs (Ph.D. Leiden, 1999) is affiliated with the university of St Andrews.
He has specialized in the early American history, specifically the Dutch in the Americas in the modern period. He has taught at Leiden university, the university of Amsterdam, Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University.
"Honest" John Kelly
1822-1886
What We Discuss
With deep roots in Manhattan Island, writer/actor Chance Kelly’s own personal New York history dates back over two centuries to the Five Points District from where his great, great, great uncle Honest John Kelly would emerge to become one of the first Irish Catholics elected to U.S. Congress in the dark days of I.N.N.A. ("Irish Need Not Apply"), and would later be selected as the necessary reformer of Tammany Hall in the tumultuous wake of the Boss Tweed era.
But Chance’s exploration into this incredible Island goes back much further than that.
Because in association with renowned Dutch author, scholar and historian Dr. Jaap Jacobs, ISLAND™ chronicles the first incredible 300 years of settlement on Manhattan Island, from the schizophrenic voyage of Henry Hudson in 1609, through the resounding impact of interloper William Randolph Hearst who by 1909 has waded into the fistfight that is New York politics while in the process inventing modern media.
ISLAND™ is researched, written and produced by Chance Kelly and Dr. Jaap Jacobs.
