New York City History

by Bob Swacker

Overview

New York City History is essential reading not only for fans of regional history, but for readers who wish to understand the American experience through the heartbeat of one of our greatest cities.

With a focus on the stories that built the city, historian Bob Swacker explores the growth and development of the metropolis from its Dutch and English colonial past, beginning in 1625, to today’s modern Gotham.

In 125 chapters the author weaves a narrative that presents the unique historical developments of New York City including: architecture, infrastructure, industry, consumer businesses, public spaces, pestilence, cemeteries, housing, religion, education, literature, immigration, and harbor and river activities.

The book features six chapters focused on the Civil War covering a wide range of topics such as slave revolts, abolitionists and reformers, raising battalions, and the Draft Riot of 1863.

Immigration has been fundamental to the development of New York City and is a key topic, with discussions of the first European settlers on Governors Island, the Irish Potato Famine, orphanages and orphan trains, Kleindeutschland, Abraham Cahan and the Jewish Daily Forward, kosher and halal ritual slaughtering, Chinatown, and refugee settlement after the Second World War.

Biographical chapters explore the lives of such memorable historical characters as: Peter Stuyvesant, Washington Irving, John Jacob Astor, Peter Cooper, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, P.T. Barnum, Archbishop John Hughes, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Blackwell, Samuel Gompers, Dorothy Day, Paul Robeson, Robert Moses, Jane Jacobs, and Jackie Robinson.

New York City History brings to life the boroughs, people, and events that founded and continue to influence this great American city.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633310247
Publisher:	Disruption Books
Publication date:	03/01/2017
Edition description:	None
Pages:	747
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Bob Swacker has led tours through the neighborhoods of New York City for five decades. His tours combine decades of historical research in libraries, cemeteries, and historical societies; interviews with borough residents; and many miles traveled on foot in the field. He has taught at Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn since 1970 and for many years he has taught courses on New York City at Saint Ann’s and at New York University. Dr. Swacker is the author of New York City History, Out From Midtown, and the co-author, with Leslie Jenkins, of Irish New York. He lives in Stuyvesant Town.

Table of Contents

DUTCH COLONIAL PERIOD 1625-1664
Chapter 1: Henry Hudson 15
Chapter 2: Original Inhabitants: Sorting Out the Lenape, Munsee, Delaware, Algonquian 19
Chapter 3: Dutch West India Company 25
Chapter 4: First European Settlers on Governors Island 28
Chapter 5: Buying Manhattan: Two Concepts of Property 32
Chapter 6: Fur Trade 37
Chapter 7: Fate of the Indians: The Effect of Disease Pools 40
Chapter 8: Forest Products & City Trees 43
Chapter 9: Climate & Weather 47
Chapter 10: New Amsterdam’s Defenses: Wall, Fort, & Battery 51
Chapter 11: Schools 55
Chapter 12: Children’s Games 64
Chapter 13: Public Spaces in New Amsterdam: Town Common & Bowling Green 68
Chapter 14: Rivers: East & West 71
Chapter 15: Canals & Docking Facilities 76
Chapter 16: Peter Stuyvesant & the Earlier Dutch Governors 80
Chapter 17: Flushing Remonstrance 90
Chapter 18: Colonel Richard Nicolls Takes New Amsterdam for England 93
Chapter 19: New Orange Interregnum 96
Chapter 20: Architecture of the Dutch Period 99

ENGLISH COLONIAL PERIOD (1664-1783)
Chapter 21: Fraunces Tavern 103
Chapter 22: Trans-Atlantic Shipping and the Slave Trade 107
Chapter 23: Farming 117
Chapter 24: Slavery in New York & Slave Revolts 122
Chapter 25: Fish Market 130
Chapter 26: Pushcart Peddlers 133
Chapter 27: Governor Cornbury: A Case of Political Dirty Tricks? 138
Chapter 28: Naming Streets 140
Chapter 29: Market Squares 150
Chapter 30: Cemeteries, Tombstone Designs, & Potter’s Fields 157
Chapter 31: Buttonwood Agreement & the Stock Exchange 163
Chapter 32: John Peter Zenger’s Trial 168
Chapter 33: Surfacing the Streets 171
Chapter 34: Brickmaking 174
Chapter 35: Theater & Music 177
Chapter 36:Early Immigration & Religious Pluralism 183
Chapter 37: Staten Island’s Conference House & the American Revolution 187
Chapter 38: Battle of Long Island (in Brooklyn) 192
Chapter 39: American Revolution in New York City 196
Chapter 40: Nathan Hale 205
Chapter 41: Architecture of the English Period 207

19TH CENTURY NEW YORK CITY
Chapter 42: New York City: National Capital for One Year 213
Chapter 43: Castle Clinton 218
Chapter 44: Washington Irving 220
Chapter 45: Fires 223
Chapter 46: Pestilence 230
Chapter 47: Benjamin H. Day & the Penny Press 241
Chapter 48: Department Stores & Shopping 251
Chapter 49: Street Grids in Manhattan & Queens 257
Chapter 50: John Jacob Astor 261
Chapter 51: Peter Cooper 270
Chapter 52: Santa Claus & Christmas Get Makeovers in New York and Become Americanized 275
Chapter 53: Weeksville, Brooklyn 279
Chapter 54: Robert Fulton 282
Chapter 55: Erie Canal 287
Chapter 56: Irish Famine 293
Chapter 57: Seneca Falls Reverberates in New York City: Women’s Suffrage 299
Chapter 58: Industries 307
Chapter 59: Row Houses: Brick, Brownstone, & Limestone 315
Chapter 60: Tenements & Apartments 324
Chapter 61: Abolitionists & Other Reformers 329
Chapter 62: P.T. Barnum 342
Chapter 63: Antonio Meucci & Giuseppe Garibaldi 350
Chapter 64: John Hughes, Roman Catholic Archbishop 353
Chapter 65: Raising New York Fighting Units for the Civil War 361
Chapter 66: Draft Riots 366
Chapter 67: Edgar Allan Poe 374
Chapter 68: Walt Whitman, Romantic Poet 378
Chapter 69: Parks by Olmstead and Vaux 382
Chapter 70: Cathedral of Saint John the Divine (Episcopal) 389
Chapter 71: Elizabeth Blackwell & Hospitals in New York City 395
Chapter 72: Sunday School Movement 402
Chapter 73: Orphanages & Orphan Trains 407
Chapter 74: Brooklyn Bridge 412
Chapter 75: Anthony Comstock & the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice 417
Chapter 76: How Marble Hill Joined the Mainland Geographically 422
Chapter 77: Statue of Liberty 426
Chapter 78: Prisons 431
Chapter 79: Elisha Otis & Elevators 437
Chapter 80: Flatiron Building & the Skyscraper Phenomenon 440
Chapter 81: Samuel Gompers & the Labor Movement 445
Chapter 82: Tammany Hall & Boss Tweed 452
Chapter 83: Water Tanks 458
Chapter 84: Jacob Riis & the Plight of Immigrants 461
Chapter 85: 1898 Consolidation of New York City 464
Chapter 86: Architecture of the 19th Century 470

20TH CENTURY NEW YORK CITY
Chapter 87: Subways: Trains, Tunnels, Sandhogs, & Station Designs 479
Chapter 88: Ellis Island 488
Chapter 89: Coney Island 494
Chapter 90: Drinking Water, Bathing, & Toilets 504
Chapter 91: Kleindeutschland, the General Slocum, and Yorkville 511
Chapter 92: Abraham Cahan and the Forward 525
Chapter 93: Ritual Rules for Foods and Slaughtering: Kosher and Halal 531
Chapter 94: Garment Industry and Fashion (Cultural) 540
Chapter 95: Garment Industry and the Triangle Fire (Economics) 544
Chapter 96: Chinatown 549
Chapter 97: Breweries & the Temperance Movement 555
Chapter 98: From Horses to Automobiles 559
Chapter 99: Women in the Workplace 563
Chapter 100: City Wildlife: Pigeons, Seagulls, Rodents, Insects, & Fish 567
Chapter 101: Radical Unionism 576
Chapter 102: Wall Street Crash & the Great Depression 586
Chapter 103: Radical Politics 597
Chapter 104: Tammany Hall and Al Smith 602
Chapter 105: Harlem Renaissance 610
Chapter 106: Passenger Liners 617
Chapter 107: The Bronx Zoo, New York Botanical Gardens, and the Bronx River 621
Chapter 108: Fiorello La Guardia 625
Chapter 109: Reconfiguring New York City: Robert Moses v. Jane Jacobs 633
Chapter 110: Corona Dumps becomes Flushing Meadows Park 649
Chapter 111: Airports 655
Chapter 112: Baseball in New York City 659
Chapter 113: The Cold War in New York City 666
Chapter 114: Suburbia 677
Chapter 115: Verrazano Narrows Bridge 682
Chapter 116: Houses of Worship: Religious Buildings from Colonial Days 687
Chapter 117: Fast Food 699
Chapter 118: Parades & Street Festivals 707
Chapter 119: Tourism & the City’s Museums 712
Chapter 120: Clean Drinking Water 718
Chapter 121: Electricity & the Electronic Revolution 724
Chapter 122: Shopping in the Age of Advertising and Direct Marketing 728
Chapter 123: Rise and Fall and Rise of the Harbor 733
Chapter 124: Immigration Changes Neighborhoods 740
Chapter 125: Architecture of the 20th Century 748