During the 1970s and 1980s, the South Bronx was the epicenter of American “ruin.” In the popular imagination, flames engulfed acres of developed cityscape; poverty and violence mingled with the remains of abandoned buildings; and a crack epidemic degenerated entire neighborhoods.
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.
"Sorry Junior, Recess is Over": Integration, White Backlash and the Origins of Police in New York City Schools
By Rachel Lissy
On the morning of September 19, 1957, 17 year old Maurice Kessler walked into an American History class at Thomas Jefferson High School in East New York, Brooklyn and tossed a bottle of lye. The bottle exploded, splattering 18 pupils and the teacher with corrosive liquid. The attack was aimed at 16 year-old David Ozersky, whose face was described by other students as "melting off," and who was reported to be partially blinded in the attack.
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.
A History of New York in 27 Buildings: The 400-Year Untold Story of an American Metropolis
Sam Roberts Interviewed by David O. Monda
David O. Monda, guest host of CUNY's Gotham Center for New York City History, speaks with longtime New York Times reporter Sam Roberts, host of CUNY-TV's The New York Times Close Up, about his new book— A History of New York in 27 Buildings: The 400-Year Untold Story of an American Metropolis.
Whose City? Fueling the Gentrification Machine through BID Urbanism
By Susanna Schaller
On September 16, 2016 Crains’ New York Business ran an article titled, “Shaping a Neighborhood's Destiny from the Shadows.” The article highlighted the work of business improvement districts (BIDs) in New York City. In the context of federal policies that had systematically drawn the life out of central cities followed by federal retrenchment, urban visionaries and the downtown BIDs they led were framed by bipartisan consensus as savior organizations.
The Remarkable Life of Teuntje Straetmans, a Woman in New Amsterdam
By Annette M. Cramer van den Bogaart
Today, when you look at the impressive facade of the neoclassical building at 55 Wall Street in Manhattan, known as the National City Bank Building, you would never guess that somewhere buried deep below its foundation lie the remnants of a house owned by a woman with a storied past in the Dutch Atlantic world. On a map of Manhattan in 1660, we find at the intersection of Wall Street and Williams Street the entry, “two small houses under one roof” listed as owned by “Teuntje Straetmans and her fourth husband.”
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.
On a summer evening in June 1945, 200 performers took to the aquatic stage at the former New York State Pavilion at Flushing Meadow Park. Spread throughout the 8,500 seats at the northern tip of Meadow Lake, spectators watched swimmers and a choreographed “water ballet” fill the pool, while divers sprung from the diving towers at each end.
A Loyalist and His Newspaper in Revolutionary New York
By Joseph M. Adelman
New York in the 1760s was a divided town, riven by local factions as well as imperial politics. Local elections were fiercely contested, as they had been for decades. The imperial crisis didn’t help.
