Thomas J. Shelley has added to his already substantial oeuvre of New York Catholic history with the publication of Upper West Side Catholics: Liberal Catholicism in a Conservative Archdiocese: The Church of the Ascension, New York City, 1895-2020 (New York: Empire State Editions, 2020).[1] His deep and broad understanding of New York’s Catholic institutions provides the context for his study of the Church of the Ascension, which was founded in 1895 on the Upper West Side. While his history of Ascension starts from its founding, Shelley’s book offers an extended view of the neighborhood during the 1960s and 1970s, a period when demographic transition overlapped with economic decline and produced immense political conflicts that destabilized New York’s institutions, including the Catholic Church.
Monuments of Colonial New York: George III and Liberty Poles
Wendy Bellion and Shira Lurie
For the last installment in our six-part series on monuments in / about colonial Gotham, Wendy Bellion and Shira Lurie discuss NYC’s rebellion against British rule during the volatile decade before the War for Independence. Bellion begins with a story of destruction — the tearing down of the statue of George III in Bowling Green. Lurie tells of construction — the raising of five liberty poles on the Common (present day City Hall Park).
Monuments of Colonial New York: Stuyvesant and Hudson
Douglas Hunter and Nicole Maskiell
Today’s installments in Gotham’s ongoing series on monuments in / about colonial NYC, takes us back to Nieuw Amsterdam. Douglas Hunter and Nicole Maskiell ask us to reconsider the memorials of two dominant figures of the Dutch period: Henry Hudson and Petrus Stuyvesant. Uniting their pieces is a call to think more about the men — and in Maskiell’s case, the women, too — who toiled under these leaders.
Monuments of Colonial New York: The Tulip Tree and 'Signal'
Lisa Blee and John C. Winters
This week Gotham presents a six-part series on monuments, statues, and commemorations in / about colonial New York City. Recognizing that one of the more recent debates over public memory has been the conflict over Columbus / Indigenous People’s Day, we begin with Lisa Blee and John C. Winters, who examine monuments of and by Native peoples in Manhattan.
“Traitors In Our Midst”: Race, Corrections, and the 1970 Tombs Uprising
By Willie Mack
In 1966, newly elected New York City Republican Mayor John V. Lindsay appointed George F. McGrath as Commissioner of Correction. McGrath was previously the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Correction and was widely known as a respected and progressive liberal penologist. But by 1969, the New York City jails were in worse condition than ever before.
Few individuals are more closely associated with the development of 20th century American music than lyricist and songwriter Irving Berlin. From the early 1910s, when he was first launched into the stratosphere by era-defining pieces like “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” until the late 1950s, when his success finally dried up, Berlin remained at the forefront of the nation’s burgeoning music industry.
A Long and Complex Legacy: An Interview with Thai Jones on the Columbia University and Slavery Project
Interviewed by Robb K. Haberman
Today on the blog, editor Robb Haberman speaks with Thai Jones, who co-taught the Columbia University and Slavery Seminar in 2020, about the history of slavery and its continuing legacy at King’s College and Columbia University.
Erich Goode’s Taming of New York’s Washington Square: A Wild Civility
Reviewed By Stephen Petrus
Even during COVID-19, New York’s Washington Square Park maintains its quirky identity. Chances are on a visit you’ll still encounter locals, tourists, buskers, sunbathers, NYU students, dog walkers, chess players, homeless people, petty drug dealers, and maybe even Fartman, Pigeon Man, and the Squirrel Whisperer.
Biotechnology, Race, and Memory in Washington Heights
By Robin Wolfe Scheffler
Amidst the economic and human toll inflicted by the COVID-19 pandemic on the City of New York, one industry still thrives: the city’s Economic Development Corporation trumpeted the news in June that biotechnology companies were still “gobbling” up space in an otherwise sagging real estate market.
Last Subway: The Long Wait for the Next Train in New York City
Philip Mark Plotch Interviewed by Robert W. Snyder
Ever since New York City built one of the world’s great subway systems, no promise has been more tantalizing than the proposal to build a new subway line under Second Avenue in Manhattan. Yet the Second Avenue subway — although first envisioned in the 1920s, did not open until 2017 — and even then in a truncated form.
