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Urban History

Lethal Chambers: The Curse of Anglo-American Eugenics

November 8, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp 3 Comments

eugenicsThe relationship between politics and science has always been complicated, and at times, disastrous.

The term eugenics was coined in 1883 by the British scientist Francis Galton who advocated that society should promote the marriage of the “fittest” individuals by providing monetary incentives.

Numerous intellectuals and political leaders (Winston Churchill and John Maynard Keynes in Britain; Woodrow Wilson and Alexander Graham Bell in the United States) came to accept the idea that society should strive for the improvement of the human race through governmental intervention. [Read more…] about Lethal Chambers: The Curse of Anglo-American Eugenics

Filed Under: Arts, History, New York City Tagged With: Art History, Cold Spring Harbor, Crime and Justice, Disability History, dogs, Immigration, Medical History, poverty, Rockefeller Foundation, Science, Science History, Urban History, World War Two

Tammany’s McManus Club: The Final Decades

November 7, 2021 by James S. Kaplan 1 Comment

James McManus shortly before his death in 2019(1)In 1984, longtime Tammany politician and leader of McManus Democratic Club James R. McManus was challenged for his position as Hell’s Kitchen’s District Leader by a reform politician named Hamed Houssain. Houssain argued that it was time for the district’s voters to retire the last vestige of Tammany Hall and throw out the organization affiliated with the corrupt disgraced Camine DeSapio.

McManus however, was overwhelmingly reelected and Mayor Ed Koch attended his victory party. For the next 33 years, until his retirement in 2017, there would be no other challenges to Jimmy McManus for the position of District Leader in Hell’s Kitchen. [Read more…] about Tammany’s McManus Club: The Final Decades

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Jimmy McManus, NYC, Political History, Tammany Hall, Urban History

Native Americans in Early American Cities

November 3, 2021 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

ben_franklins_worldHave you ever considered early American cities as places where Native Americans lived, worked, and visited?

Native Americans often visited early American cities and port towns, especially the towns and cities that dotted the Atlantic seaboard of British North America.

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World: A Podcast About Early American History, Colin Calloway, an award-winning historian and a Professor History and Native American Studies at Dartmouth College, joins us to investigate Native American experiences in early American cities with details from his book, The Chiefs Now In This City: Indians and the Urban Frontier in Early America (Oxford University Press, 2021). [Read more…] about Native Americans in Early American Cities

Filed Under: Books, History, New York City Tagged With: Indigenous History, Native American History, Podcasts, Urban History

The Theatre District & Hell’s Kitchen Revival

October 31, 2021 by James S. Kaplan Leave a Comment

42nd Street Burlesque theaterWith the recent reopening of Broadway and the Theatre District in the city of New York, which is claimed to be a $1.8 billion industry, it’s appropriate to remember James R. McManus’s role in the efforts to bring Broadway and the adjacent Hell’s Kitchen district to what it is today.

Around 1972 economic and social conditions in Hell’s Kitchen and the rest of the city of New York were beginning to deteriorate. At the time that Jim’s father and great grand uncle had been the District Leaders, living conditions in the once notorious slum had improved for most residents.

This was partially because of improvements in the city’s manufacturing economy during the two world wars, and because of the New Deal social welfare policies pioneered by Al Smith and Frances Perkins. [Read more…] about The Theatre District & Hell’s Kitchen Revival

Filed Under: Arts, New York City Tagged With: Abraham Beame, Housing, Jimmy McManus, John Lindsay, NYC, Political History, Theatre, Urban History, Vice

Tammany’s Last Stand: The McManus Club & The McGovern Campaign

October 28, 2021 by James S. Kaplan 1 Comment

Jimmy McManus in 1972James R. McManus was born in Hell’s Kitchen in 1936 and recently died in 2019. For 54 years (from 1962 to 2016) he was the Democratic Party District Leader from the Hell’s Kitchen area. This was a position that his father Eugene E. McManus had held for 20 years before him.

Previously Eugene McManus’s great grand uncle, Thomas J. McManus, had held the position, since the formation of the McManus Democratic Club in 1892, when he defeated the prior District Leader George Washington Plunkitt, author of Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics (1905). [Read more…] about Tammany’s Last Stand: The McManus Club & The McGovern Campaign

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Al Smith, FDR, Frances Perkins, Greenwich Village, Jimmy McManus, Labor History, Manhattan, New York City, Political History, Tammany Hall, Urban History, womens history

The Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age

October 7, 2021 by Robert Chiles Leave a Comment

Saving Americas CitiesThe most recent episode of Empire State Engagements features a conversation with Dr. Lizabeth Cohen Professor in the Department of History at Harvard, who discussed her Bancroft Prize-winning book Saving America’s Cities: Ed Logue and the Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019). [Read more…] about The Struggle to Renew Urban America in the Suburban Age

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Architecture, development, Historic Preservation, Nelson Rockefeller, New York City, Podcasts, Roosevelt Island, The Bronx, Urban History

The Poestenkill: Mountains, Waterfalls and Waterworks

September 26, 2021 by John Warren 7 Comments

Mills at Lower Poestenkill GorgeOn the Hudson River along upstate New York’s eastern border, within the natural boundaries of river and mountains, lies the rough rectangle of Rensselaer County. It is bisected by the Poesten Kill,* a powerful stream that scours its way from the mountains to the sea level flats of the Hudson River at Troy.

The Poesten Kill splits the county across the middle into two pieces of roughly equal size, north and south. From its source at about 1,600 feet in the Petersburg Mountains, to the village which bears its name, it’s a smaller steam tumbling over forested rocks and ledges, and forming pools and small waterfalls.  At the village of Poestenkill it begins to meander across a 10-mile wide plateau of farmlands before falling abruptly through a series of steep gorges at Troy to settle into the Hudson. [Read more…] about The Poestenkill: Mountains, Waterfalls and Waterworks

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Brunswick, Cultural History, Eagle Mills, Environmental History, Grafton, Hudson River, Industrial History, paddling, Poestenkill, Quacken Kill, Rensselaer County, Rensselaerswijck, Social History, Troy, Urban History, Wynantskill

Urban Renewal History Project Seeks Local Records

August 23, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Broadway East Project proposed Land Use PlanUrban renewal was one of the most important — and controversial — domestic policies in our nation’s history. Between 1949 and 1974, the federal government spent over $7 billion to revitalize more than 1,200 cities struggling with economic and population decline.

The program’s goal was to provide local leaders with funds to demolish “blighted” areas and thereby to clear large tracts of land for redevelopment. Among the casualties were over 330,000 households, at least 90 square miles of urban cores, countless communities, and much of the nation’s architectural heritage. [Read more…] about Urban Renewal History Project Seeks Local Records

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Capital-Saratoga, History, Hudson Valley - Catskills, Mohawk Valley, New York City, Western NY Tagged With: Albany, development, Urban History

New 2020 Census Numbers: An Adirondacks, NY State Analysis

August 12, 2021 by Peter Bauer 6 Comments

The US Census released its first cut at its 2020 decennial count today. This data is limited, delivered for the purpose of redistricting for statewide and federal representation. Much more detailed data will be released to the public at the end of September with population data at the county, town and state level. In 2022, we’ll get more data on age and race as well as economic data.

The limited data tells us a few things that are important for the Adirondack Park and New York. [Read more…] about New 2020 Census Numbers: An Adirondacks, NY State Analysis

Filed Under: History Tagged With: 2020 Census, Adirondacks, Cultural History, Demographics, Urban History

How New York’s Suburbs Got So Segregated

July 6, 2021 by Alan J. Singer 2 Comments

Levittown 1948 NYT Why is the population of Massapequa in New York’s Nassau County 98% percent white? Why do almost no Black families live in suburban Levittown, New York? Are we looking at free choices by families or underlying housing patterns that reflect the impact of past and current racist practices?

Newsday exposed racial channeling by Long Island realtors in an investigation that showed how they steered potential home buyers to particular towns based on their race and ethnicity. [Read more…] about How New York’s Suburbs Got So Segregated

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Black History, development, FDR, Financial History, Housing, Long Island, New Deal, New York City, Urban History

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