History, Natural History & the Arts
Donald Trump’s recent impeachment trial in which the President was accused of incitement of insurrection against the United States recalls to mind a case from more than 200 years ago.
In that case another New York politician, former Vice President Aaron Burr, whose personality was arguably not dissimilar from Donald Trump, was tried and acquitted of treason in 1807. [Read more…] about Trump Impeachment Recalls Aaron Burr’s Treason
On January 5th, 2021, the City of New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission held a virtual public hearing at which more than a hundred people testified about Howard Hughes Corporation’s proposal to build a 47-story residential building at 250 Water Street in Lower Manhattan, at the heart of the South Street Seaport Historic District.
Fights over the appropriateness of tall buildings in Historic Districts are not unusual in the City of New York, but this one is uniquely centered on the purposes of historic preservation and the role cultural institutions play in helping to build and sustain communities, and themselves. [Read more…] about Controversy Over Development At New York’s Seaport Historic District
Bruce Wasserstein, the financier and corporate takeover adviser, and his sister Wendy Wasserstein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author, were among the most accomplished and famous New Yorkers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Both died suddenly and somewhat prematurely — Bruce in October 2009 at the age of 61 of a reported aneurism and Wendy at the age of 55 in January 2006 reportedly of lymphoma, but not before they had reached the pinnacle of their chosen professions — Bruce in finance and Wendy in the theater.
Their success was achieved through a combination of shrewd insight and highly effective self-promotion, and the good fortune to live through a period of economic and social revival in New York City, in which they were active participants. [Read more…] about Profile: Bruce & Wendy Wasserstein and NYC’s Revival
Frances Perkins, who served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor in all four terms of his administration, is often credited with designing many of the New Deal’s social welfare programs, including Social Security. As such, she ranks among the most influential women of the 20th Century.
Few however, know that Perkins began her career in the Hell’s Kitchen area of the city of New York, work that as inspired inn part by a chance meeting an Irish Tammany Hall District Leader Tom McManus. [Read more…] about Frances Perkins, One of America’s Most Influential Women, Remains Unrecognized
Marcus Garvey was a Jamaican-born printer who as a young man became keenly aware of the severe discrimination against Black people, particularly dark skinned people, internationally.
He later moved to London where he met several Black Nationalists seeking to end white European colonialism in Africa.
At a library in London he read Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery in which Washington, the founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, urged that African-Americans pull themselves up and establish black institutions, over seeking equal rights through integration. [Read more…] about Marcus Garvey In Harlem: Roots of African Independence
The Underground Railroad Coalition recently announced a major effort to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the New York State constitutional provision that ended slavery in the State on July 4, 1827.
The emancipation provision in the New York State Constitution of 1799 provided for the gradual elimination of slavery in New York, but it did not end the widespread legal race discrimination in the state. The most glaring example of this was the New York State Constitution of 1821, which eliminated property qualifications to vote for white men, but denied black men owning less than $250 worth of property the right to vote. [Read more…] about Real Estate, Philip Payton And The Rise of Black Harlem
On May 19th 2020, the Waterfront, Parks and Cultural Committee of Manhattan Community Planning Board No. 1, at a virtual meeting, rejected a proposal by the New York City Department of Transportation to move Arturo DiModica’s Charging Bull statue from its current location at Bowling Green to Broad Street in front of the New York Stock Exchange.
Although the matter of moving a sculpture from one City street to another a block away might not seem to be a matter of particular importance or great controversy, this issue did generate significant concern among residents of Lower Manhattan because of the nature of the work, the importance of the location and the people involved. [Read more…] about Charging Bull, Fearless Girl & Cultural Tourism In Lower Manhattan
Shortly before the City of New Rochelle recently became nationally famous (or infamous ) as an epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, a controversy was developing over the threatened destruction of the Thomas Paine Museum Memorial Building on North Avenue. [Read more…] about A Last Chance To Save The Thomas Paine Museum
The City of New Rochelle, the last home of Thomas Paine, is beginning to undergo something of an economic renaissance. A number of the City’s tremendous historical resources however, remain neglected.
The Thomas Paine Museum on North Avenue — once the centerpiece of an international effort to recognize and promote the importance of Thomas Paine – has been vacant for years and is headed for sale and destruction. [Read more…] about Crisis: Forgetting Thomas Paine in New Rochelle
On November 26, 1883, a large statue of George Washington by the American Sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward was erected in front of New York City’s Federal Hall at 26 Wall Street, which statue remains there to this day.
This more than life size statute of George Washington was erected as part of a huge celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Evacuation Day, the day that the British finally left New York City on November 25, 1783 and Washington entered the City to claim it for the new American government. [Read more…] about Hoisting the Flag: An Evacuation Day Tradition