History of New York City
This article traces the history of New York City. For the history of the State of New York, see the article History of New York.Prehistory in the area began with the geological formation of the peculiar territory of what is today New York City. The area was long inhabited by the
Lenape; Lenape in canoes met
Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to enter
New York Harbor, in 1524. European settlement began with the founding of the
Dutch fur trading settlement in
Lower Manhattan in 1613 later called
New Amsterdam (
Nieuw Amsterdam) in the southern tip of Manhattan in 1624. Later in 1626,
Peter Minuit established a long tradition of shrewd real estate investing when he purchased Manhattan Island and Staten Island from native people in exchange for trade goods. (Legend, now long disproved, has it that the island was purchased for $24 worth of glass beads.) Minuit's settlement was also a haven for
Huguenots seeking religious liberty.
In 1640,
Peter Stuyvesant was appointed governor, and ruled as a member of the
Dutch Reformed Church. He curtailed the city's religious freedoms and closed all of the city's taverns. The colony was granted self-government in 1652. In
1664, the British conquered the area and
renamed it
New York. The Dutch regained it in August
1673, renaming the city "New Orange", before ceding New Netherland permanently to the English for what is now
Surinam in November
1674.
This period began with the establishment of British rule over formerly Dutch
New Amsterdam and
New Netherland. As the newly renamed City of New York and surrounding areas developed, there was a growing independent feeling among some, but the area was decidedly split in its loyalties. The site of modern New York City was the theatre of the
New York Campaign, a series of major battles in the early
American Revolutionary War. New York was greatly damaged twice by fires of dubious origin during the
British occupation that followed the
Battle of Brooklyn at the start of the
American Revolutionary War and which lasted until
November 25,
1783.
George Washington returned to the city that same November 25th as the last British forces left the United States. For about a century afterward the day was widely celebrated locally as "Evacuation Day". The
Continental Congress met in New York City under the
Articles of Confederation.
City of New York
Population by year [1] | | 1790 | 33,131 |
| 1800 | 60,515 |
| 1810 | 96,373 |
| 1820 | 123,706 |
| 1830 | 202,589 |
| 1840 | 312,710 |
| 1850 | 515,547 |
| 1860 | 813,669 |
| 1870 | 942,292 |
| 1880 | 1,206,299 |
| 1890 | 1,515,301 |
| 1900 | 3,437,202 |
| 1910 | 4,766,883 |
| 1920 | 5,620,048 |
| 1930 | 6,930,446 |
| 1940 | 7,454,995 |
| 1950 | 7,891,957 |
| 1960 | 7,781,984 |
| 1970 | 7,894,862 |
| 1980 | 7,071,639 |
| 1990 | 7,322,564 |
| 2000 | 8,008,278 |
Including the "outer
boroughs" before the
1898 consolidation |
| 1790 | 49,000 |
| 1800 | 79,200 |
| 1830 | 242,300 |
| 1850 | 696,100 |
| 1880 | 1,912,000 |
New York City became the temporary
capital of the newly formed
United States on
September 13,
1788 under the U.S.
Constitutional Convention. On
April 30,
1789 the first
President of the United States, George Washington, was inaugurated at
Federal Hall on
Wall Street. New York City remained the capital of the U.S. until
1790, when the honor was transferred to
Philadelphia. New York grew as an economic center with the opening of the
Erie Canal in
1825, and
Tammany Hall began to grow in influence with the support of many of the immigrant Irish, culminated in the election of the first Tammany mayor, Fernando Wood, in
1854.
This period started with the inauguration in
1855 of
Fernando Wood as the first mayor from
Tammany Hall, an institution that would dominate the city throughout this period. During the 19th century, the city was transformed by immigration, a visionary development proposal called the
Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which expanded the city street grid to encompass all of Manhattan, and the opening of the
Erie Canal, which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the
Mid-western United States and
Canada in 1819. By 1835, New York City had surpassed
Philadelphia as the largest city in the United States. Local politics became dominated by
Tammany Hall, a
Democratic Party political machine. Public-minded members of the old merchant aristocracy pressed for a
Central Park, which was opened to a design competition in 1857: it was the first landscape park in an American city.
During the
American Civil War (1861–1865), the city's strong commercial ties to the
South, its growing immigrant population, and anger about
conscription led to divided sympathy for both the Union and
Confederacy, culminating in the
Draft Riots of 1863, one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history. After the Civil War, the rate of
immigration from
Europe grew steeply, and New York became the first stop for millions seeking a new and better life in the United States, a role acknowledged by the dedication of the
Statue of Liberty in 1886.
This period began with the formation of the consolidated city of
the five boroughs in
1898. Manhattan and the Bronx, though still one county, were established as two separate
boroughs and joined together with three other boroughs created from parts of adjacent counties to form the new municipal government originally called "Greater New York". The Borough of
Brooklyn incorporated the independent City of Brooklyn, recently joined to Manhattan by the
Brooklyn Bridge, and several municipalities in eastern
Kings County, New York; the Borough of
Queens was created from western Queens County (with the remnant established as
Nassau County in
1899); and The Borough of Staten Island contained all of
Richmond County. All municipal (county, town and city) governments contained within the boroughs were abolished. In 1914, the New York State Legislature created Bronx county, making five counties coterminous with the five boroughs.
On
June 15,
1904 over 1,000 people, mostly German Immigrants, were killed when the steamship
General Slocum caught fire and burned on
North Brother Island, in the
East River; and on
March 25,
1911 the
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in
Greenwich Village took the lives of 146 female garment workers, which would eventually lead to great advancements in the city's fire department, building codes, and workplace regulations.
A series of new transportation links, most notably the
New York City Subway, first opened
1904, helped bind the new city together. The height of European immigration brought social upheaval. Later, in the
1920s, the city saw the influx of African Americans as part of the
Great Migration from the
American South, and the
Harlem Renaissance, part of a larger boom time in the
Prohibition era that saw dueling
skyscrapers in the skyline. The city suffered during the
Great Depression, which saw the election of Republican reformer
Fiorello LaGuardia and the fall of
Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance. The city also played a significant part in
World War II.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication.
Interborough Rapid Transit (the first New York subway company) began operating in 1904, and the railroads operating out of
Grand Central Terminal thrived. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1925, overtaking
London, which had reigned for a century. Despite the effects of the
Great Depression, the 1930s saw the building of some of the world's tallest skyscrapers, including numerous
Art-Deco masterpieces that are still part of the city's skyline today. Both before and after World War II, vast areas of the city were also reshaped by the rise of the bridges, parks and parkways of coordinator
Robert Moses, the greatest proponent of automobile-centered modernist urbanism in America.
In 1938 the political designation "
ward" was abolished. New York City had used this designation for the smallest political units since 1686, when Governor
Thomas Dongan divided the city, then entirely in Manhattan, into six wards. In 1791, wards were given numerical designations. The First Ward was the tip of Manhattan, and the wards going north were given consecutive numbers with new added as the city expanded. The older wards were also subdivided as their populations swelled. Brooklyn had also composed of wards since it became a city in 1837. It originally had nine, and by the time of the 1898 consolidation it had 32.
A post-
World War II economic and residential boom was associated with returning veterans and immigration from Europe, and huge tracts of new housing were constructed in eastern Queens. In 1951, the
United Nations relocated from its first headquarters in
Flushing Meadows Park, Queens, to the East Side of Manhattan. The views of
Robert Moses began to fall out of favor in the city during the 1960s as the anti-
Urban Renewal views of
Jane Jacobs gained popularity (a plan to construct an
expressway through lower Manhattan was nixed due to a citizen rebellion.) Like many U.S. cities, New York suffered population decline, an erosion of its industrial base, and race riots in the 1960s, and by the 1970s, the city had gained a reputation for being a crime-ridden relic of history. In 1975, the city government was on the brink of financial collapse and had to restructure its debt through the Municipal Assistance Corporation, headed by
Felix Rohatyn. The city was also forced to accept increased scrutiny of its finances by an agency of
New York State called the Financial Control Board. In 1977, the city was struck by the twin catasrophes of the
New York City blackout of 1977 and the
Son of Sam serial murderer's continued slayings. These events were perhaps the impeti to the election of
Ed Koch, a man who ran promising to clean up the city.
The 1980s saw a rebirth of
Wall Street, and the city reclaimed its role at the center of the world-wide financial industry. In the 1990s, crime rates dropped drastically and the outflow of population turned around, as the city once again became the destination not only of immigrants from around the world, but of many U.S. citizens seeking to live a cosmopolitan lifestyle that only New York City can offer. In the late 1990s, the city benefited disproportionately from the success of the financial services industry during the
dot com boom, one of the factors in a decade of booming residential and commercial real estate value increases
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at:1658 text:"1658 Nieuw Haarlem settled" shift:($dx,-8)
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at:1735 text:"1735 Zenger trial"
at:1756 text:"1756 First St Patrick's Day"
at:1776 text:"1776-83 British occupation"
mark:(line,gray)
at:1789 text:"1789 Washington inauguration" shift:($dx,-8)
at:1795 text:"1792 Stock Exchange founded"
at:1811 text:"1811 Commissioners' grid plan"
at:1825 text:"1825 Erie Canal"
at:1835 text:"1835 Great Fire"
at:1863 text:"1863 Draft riots"
at:1883 text:"1883 Brooklyn Bridge" shift:($dx,-2)
at:1898 text:"1898 Unification of the boroughs" shift:($dx,-9)
mark:(line,white)
at:1904 text:"1904 IRT Subway"
at:1929 text:"1929 Stock market crash"
at:1939 text:"1939 World's Fair"
at:1964 text:"1964 New York World's Fair"
at:1975 text:"1975 Near-bankruptcy"
at:2001 text:"2001 WTC disaster "
New York City was the site of a
terrorist attack on
September 11,
2001, when nearly 3,000 people were killed by a terrorist strike on the
World Trade Center, including those employed in the buildings, passengers and crew on two commercial
jetliners, and hundreds of
firemen, policemen, and rescue workers who came to the aid of the disaster. Thick, acrid smoke continued to pour out of its ruins for months following the Twin Towers' fiery collapse. The city has since rebounded and the physical cleanup of the
World Trade Center site was completed ahead of schedule. The
Freedom Tower, intended to be exactly 1,776 feet tall (a number symbolic of the year the
Declaration of Independence was written), is to be built on the site and is slated for construction between 2006 and 2010.
Histories of New York City neighborhoods, such as
Harlem,
San Juan Hill,
Upper West Side,
Lower East Side,
Chinatown, the
Financial District (which includes the
South Street Seaport) and others. New York has many famous thoroughfares, including
Fifth Avenue,
Madison Avenue,
Broadway and others. The city also has numerous smaller streets with rich histories, including
Wall Street.
Some of the islands of the city have surprisingly rich local histories:
Liberty Island,
Governors Island,
City Island,
Roosevelt Island and others.
The history of
New York City's Water Supply System.
There is also a
Timeline of New York City crimes and disasters.
Compare history of
Brooklyn, New York.
Kenneth T. Jackson, a preeminent authority on the history of
New York City.
*
The Encyclopedia of New York City, ed. by
Kenneth T. Jackson, 1350 pages, Yale University Press 1995
*
Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, Edwin G. Burrows and
Mike Wallace, Oxford University Press, 1998, hardcover, 1416 pages, ISBN 0195116348, trade paperback, 2000, 1424 pages, ISBN 0195140494
*
A history of NYC by cosmopolis.ch
