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.
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.
The Jewel of Eastern Long Island: Precarity and the Peconic Bay Scallop Industry
By Erin Becker
Peconic Bay scallops, argopecten irradians, are the jewel of the Eastern Long Island recreational and commercial fishery; their market rate can be as high as $30 for a single pound. The shellfish are a fall and winter delicacy throughout the Northeastern United States. Peconic Bay scallops have enormous cultural and economic significance.
“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.
“The Colored People Have Dispersed”: Race, Space, and Schooling in Late 19th-Century Brooklyn
By Judith Kafka and Cici Matheny
“The doing away with the distinctively colored schools and … bringing about mixed classes,” wrote the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in September of 1899, “has done more toward the education of the race than any other individual effort.” Brooklyn’s Board of Education had officially ended racial segregation in schooling in 1883, by requiring all district schools to admit any student living within their enrollment boundaries.
“Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty”: Resistance to Segregated Seating in New York City’s Theaters
By Alyssa Lopez
In 1924, Walter White, the assistant secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), sent a letter of warning to several New York City-based black newspapers. “There have been... numerous complaints regarding the denial to colored people,” he explained, “of service in various places of public accommodations,” especially theaters on 125th Street, Harlem’s main thoroughfare.
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.
