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New York City

Railroads, The Spuyten Duyvil Disaster & Faustian Legend

June 9, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

Replica of the DeWitt ClintonOn September 27th, 2025, it will be two hundred years ago that the world’s first public railway, known as the Stockton & Darlington (S&DR), was opened in north-east England.

As well as carrying coal, the train offered space for six hundred passengers, most of them traveling in wagons, but some distinguished guests were allocated a seat in a specially designed carriage called The Experiment. [Read more…] about Railroads, The Spuyten Duyvil Disaster & Faustian Legend

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History, New York City Tagged With: Art History, Cultural History, Harlem, Harlem River, Hudson River, Hudson River Railroad, Literature, modernism, New York Central RR, New York City, railroads, Spuyten Duyvil, The Bronx, Transportation History

Hubert Harrison: Tribune of the People

June 7, 2022 by Sean Ahern 1 Comment

Hubert Harrison, courtesy New York Public Library.Over the past two decades there has been an upsurge of interest in the life and work of Hubert H. Harrison. As a leading socialist and subsequent proponent of what he termed the mass-based “Race First” approach to organizing, Harrison exercised a direct, seminal influence on his contemporaries including A. Philip Randolph, W. A. Domingo, Marcus Garvey, Richard B Moore, Chandler Owen, Arturo Schomburg, Cyril Briggs, Claude McKay, James Weldon Johnson, Hodge Kirnon, J. A. Rogers and William Monroe Trotter.

As W. A. Domingo, childhood friend of Garvey and first editor of the Negro World would later explain, “Garvey like the rest of us followed Hubert Harrison.” [Read more…] about Hubert Harrison: Tribune of the People

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Black History, Harlem, Harlem Renaissance, Hubert Harrison, Labor History, Manhattan, Marcus Garvey, New York City, Newspapers, Political History, Social History, Socialism

The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison

June 3, 2022 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The Women's House of DetentionThe Women’s House of Detention, a landmark that ushered in the modern era of women’s imprisonment, is now largely forgotten. But when it stood in New York City’s Greenwich Village, from 1929 to 1974, it was a nexus for the tens of thousands of women, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people who inhabited its crowded cells.

Some of these inmates — Angela Davis, Andrea Dworkin, Afeni Shakur — were famous, but the vast majority were incarcerated for the crimes of being poor and improperly feminine. Today, approximately 40 percent of the people in women’s prisons identify as queer; in earlier decades, that percentage was almost certainly higher. [Read more…] about The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison

Filed Under: Books, History, New York City Tagged With: Crime and Justice, Cultural History, Gender History, Greenwich Village, LGBTQ, New York City, Social History, womens history

The 1883 Civil Rights Cases, the 14th Amendment, and Jim Crow New York

May 31, 2022 by Alan J. Singer 1 Comment

New York Times headline, November 25, 1879, pg. 8The United States Supreme Court is now poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. In a draft opinion, Justice Samuel Alito described the 1973 7-2 Court decision as an over-extended application of the federal government’s 14th Amendment responsibility to protect the right of citizens to due process and equal protection of the law. He argued “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.”

The Supreme Court took a similar position on the 14th Amendment in the 1883 Civil Rights Cases when an earlier conservative majority declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, effectively ending the post-Civil War Reconstruction era and ushering in 100 years of state and local Jim Crow segregation laws.

In the Civil Rights Cases, the Supreme Court consolidated four challenged to the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act. One of the cases, U.S. v. Singleton, involved the refusal by a New York theater to admit an African American patron who had purchased a ticket. [Read more…] about The 1883 Civil Rights Cases, the 14th Amendment, and Jim Crow New York

Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: Black History, Civil Rights, Legal History, New York City, Political History, politics, Theatre

Under Threat: South of Union Square Historic District, Manhattan

May 31, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Proposed South of Union Square Historic DistrictThe proposed South of Union Square Historic District in Manhattan contains a remarkable concentration of sites connected to key civil rights and social justice movements, as well as influential literary, artistic, and music movements.

It offers a unique window into New York City‘s development in the late-19th and early-20th century, with an eclectic array of buildings, many designed by world-class American architects.

Despite its historic importance, this neighborhood is severely lacking in landmark and zoning protections. [Read more…] about Under Threat: South of Union Square Historic District, Manhattan

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Architecture, Civil Rights, Historic Preservation, Landmarks Preservation Commission, Manhattan, New York City, Preservation League of NYS, Village Preservation

Photographing the Civil War: Mathew Brady at 200

May 26, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Transport between decks on steamer by Matthew Brady Mathew Brady was one of the most prolific photographers of the nineteenth century, creating visual documentation of the Civil War period. While Mathew Brady’s exact birth-date in Warren County, NY is unknown (circa 1822 – 1824), this year marks the beginning of the commemoration of Brady’s 200th birthday. [Read more…] about Photographing the Civil War: Mathew Brady at 200

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Arts, History Tagged With: Civil War, Documentary, Johnsburg, National Archives, New York City, Photography, Warren County

Mayken van Angola’s Life Under New Netherland Slavery

May 24, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Request of Mayken van Angola, LucretiaOn December 28th, 1662, a woman named Mayken van Angola pursued freedom in New Amsterdam. She did not stand alone. Two other women — Susanna and Lucretia — stood with her and together, they petitioned the colonial government for their freedom. It was granted with the caveat that they must clean the Director General Petrus Stuyvesant’s house once a week as a condition of that freedom. [Read more…] about Mayken van Angola’s Life Under New Netherland Slavery

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Black History, Dutch History, Dutch-American History Series, Labor History, Material Culture, New Amsterdam, New Netherland, New York City, Slavery, womens history

Jack Niflot: Olympic Gold Medal Wrestler

May 11, 2022 by John Conway Leave a Comment

Isidor “Jack” NiflotNew York State’s connection to Olympic wrestling goes all the way back to 1904, the very first year freestyle wrestling was included in the summer games, when Isidor “Jack” Niflot, then of New York City, but later a longtime Sullivan County resident, won a gold medal in the bantamweight division. [Read more…] about Jack Niflot: Olympic Gold Medal Wrestler

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, History Tagged With: Manhattan, New York City, Olympic History, Queens, Sports History, Sullivan County

Four Nymphs, a Satyr and Manhattan’s Ladies’ Mile

May 8, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

Portrait of John David WolfeUntil the mid-1860s the Fifth Avenue area around Madison Square was Manhattan’s “aristocratic” heart. Its brownstone mansions were occupied by the city’s elite. The gradual incursion of commerce into this residential haven started with high-class hotels.

In 1864 Hoffmann House was one of the first to open its doors. Owned by Cassius H. Read, it was located on the corner of 25th Street & Broadway and contained tree hundred rooms with all the latest conveniences. The establishment proudly advertised its lavish furnishings, carefully chosen artworks, and refined French (Parisian) cuisine. At a time that hotel living was becoming a fashionable alternative to owning a family mansion for wealthy New Yorkers, Hoffmann House was recommended as the most comfortable and homelike residence in the metropolis.

During the 1880s the hotel’s “grand salon” became one of New York’s “secretive” attractions for a very specific reason. [Read more…] about Four Nymphs, a Satyr and Manhattan’s Ladies’ Mile

Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: American Museum of Natural History, Anthony Comstock, Art History, Crime and Justice, Cultural History, French History, Hudson River Railroad, James Fisk, Manhattan, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, painting, Pop Culture History, Vice

Dutch-American Stories: The “Patron Saint of New York”

May 3, 2022 by Jaap Jacobs Leave a Comment

treaty of friendship and trade between the United States and the Dutch RepublicThe bonds that connect the American and Dutch peoples have been commemorated in various ways and at various levels. Dutch-American Friendship Day is a well-established annual event at the governmental level. In New York City, the historical memory of Petrus Stuyvesant has recently become controversial, but in the twentieth century his image was iconic.

On April 19th, 1782, the Dutch States General decided to recognize John Adams as the envoy of the United States of America. It was the culmination of a contentious political process in which the Dutch Republic’s constituent provinces (Friesland being the first) instructed their delegates to vote in favor of accepting Adams’s nomination. With Adams in place as America’s minister plenipotentiary, the Dutch Republic reciprocated by naming Pieter Johan van Berckel as its first ambassador. [Read more…] about Dutch-American Stories: The “Patron Saint of New York”

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Dutch History, Dutch-American History Series, Manhattan, New Amsterdam, New Netherland, New York City, Peter Stuyvesant, sculpture

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