New York’s water problem has been on my mind because in the evening after I arrived in the city on September 1, 2021 to start a fellowship at the New-York Historical Society, Hurricane Ida barreled through the region. The water was devastating. Dozens died in basement apartments or when they unwittingly drove their cars into flooded streets and got swept away by the rushing water. Media filled with video of torrents of water pouring into the subway and dramatic water rescues in New Jersey.
Wasted City: A History of Waste and Water Pollution in New York City
Reviewed by Erik Wallenberg
Coastal cities face a dizzying array of environmental problems, from rising seas due to climate change chaos, to polluted waters endangering fish, wildlife, and drinking water. New York City, rocked by Superstorm Sandy and struggling to rebuild a harbor ecosystem that can sustain edible fish and shellfish populations, is ripe for historical examination as environmental crises increase. Throughout its modern lifetime, New York harbor has experienced waste dumping, toxic pollution, a changing coastline, and growth as an international shipping port with attendant dredging issues, all of which we might look to for current context, historical lessons, and to help us better understand our relationship within this ecosystem.
The Doctors Blackwell: An Interview with Janice Nimura
Interviewed by Katie Uva
Today on the blog, Gotham editor Katie Uva speaks to Janice Nimura, author of The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine. The book is a joint biography of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, and her sister Emily Blackwell, the third woman to do so. The book examines the Blackwells’ struggle to obtain training and credentials in the increasingly professionalized field of medicine in the 19th century, and also provides insights into 19th century New York as a place of opportunity and obstacles for these groundbreaking women.
Dispatches from “Anthropoid Ellis Island”: New York City’s More-Than-Human History
By Barrie Blatchford
New York City’s status as entrepot for millions of new Americans is one of the most well-known aspects of American history. But much less understood is that the city has long been the epicenter of the American (nonhuman) animal trade, a shadowy and little-studied subject that was nevertheless of enormous importance and pecuniary value.[1] Indeed, as New York City welcomed millions of new human immigrants in the decades after the Civil War, the increased mobility of the era also facilitated a rapidly expanding trade in animals. The creatures swept up in this trade were destined for often-dismal fates in zoos, circuses, travelling road shows, medical research laboratories, and as exotic pets — provided they survived the arduous trip to America in the first place.
The Sustainability Myth: An Interview with Melissa Checker
Interviewed by Katie Uva
Today on the blog, Gotham editor Katie Uva speaks to Melissa Checker about her recent book, The Sustainability Myth: Environmental Gentrification and the Politics of Justice. In it, Checker examines and critiques current frameworks of sustainability in New York, where sustainability and economic development are often seen as goals that are mutually supporting. Checker argues that this belief leads to gentrification, deepens economic inequality, and even winds up worsening environmental conditions in some parts of the city.
Forbs, Fungi, and Fading Memories: What Can Preserving a Disappearing Staten Island a Century Ago Teach Us Today?
By Melissa Zavala
Staten Island’s rich history of conservation is overshadowed by its reputation as a “dump,” most often associated with Fresh Kills, the notorious landfill which at its peak point of operations in the 1980s was considered the largest landfill in the world. A look through the Staten Island Museum’s archival collections, however — its founder’s letters, journals, publications, photographs, and a wide array of other objects including herbariums, assorted wet and dry collections of specimens, and more — reveals an island that has transformed radically.
The Great Epizootic of 1872: Pandemics, Animals, and Modernity in 19th-Century New York City
By Oliver Lazarus
Monday, October 21st, 1872, began like many mid-fall days in New York — overcast and muggy with spitting rain, and a high of sixty-six degrees. Fall was supposed to mark the height of business in the city, when commerce and trade peaked. But as the week of October 21st dragged on, this seemingly unstoppable progress came to a halt. The cause of this stoppage was an attack on what is often dismissed as a vestige of that pre-modern city, but what was arguably New York’s most important energy supply: horsepower.
From 1899 to 1914, people around the world gave over 12,000 animals to the New York Zoological Park in the Bronx (almost 5,000 of them were snakes). Donations to the zoo fulfilled two purposes: they supplied the zoological park with more animals, and, perhaps more importantly, helped the zoo form a relationship with certain communities around them. This project is a focused look at a section of these animal donors, the people of New York City.
In the summer of 1795, New Yorkers were protesting in the streets over the ratification of the controversial treaty John Jay had signed with Great Britain the previous fall.[1] Suddenly, the city’s soaring political fevers collided with the real thing. Around July 19, the British ship Zephyr arrived at New York from Port-au-Prince and unloaded most of its cargo at the foot of William Street before sailing out into the East River to dump 22 barrels of spoiled coffee.
