History of New York City
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2008-07-16T00:12:21Z
WadeSimMiser
170099
Reverted edits by [[Special:Contributions/72.89.212.249|72.89.212.249]] to last version by 76.244.0.21 (using [[WP:HG|Huggle]])
{{intro-toolong|date=June 2008}}
{{History of NYC}}
[[Image:New York City Midtown from Rockefeller Center NIH.jpg|thumb|250px|[[Midtown Manhattan]], New York City, from [[Rockefeller Center]], 1932.]]
[[Image:Manhattan from helicopter.jpg|thumb|250px|The iconic view of New York City showing many of its major landmarks, including the [[Statue of Liberty]], [[Ellis Island]], [[Empire State Building]], and [[World Trade Center]], July 2001.]]
The region was inhabited by about 5,000<ref>[http://www.gothamcenter.org "Gotham Center for New York City History"] Timeline 1500 - 1700</ref> [[Lenape]] [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]] at the time of its European discovery in 1524 by [[Giovanni da Verrazzano]], an Italian explorer in the service of the French crown, who called it "Nouvelle Angoulême" ([[New Angoulême]]).<ref name="rodgers">{{cite book |title=New York: the World's Capital City, Its Development and Contributions to Progress |author=Rankin, Rebecca B., Cleveland Rodgers |publisher=Harper |year=1948}}</ref> European settlement began with the founding of a [[Netherlands|Dutch]] [[fur trade|fur trading]] settlement, later called "[[New Amsterdam]]," on the southern tip of Manhattan in 1625.[http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=7712] [[Dutch (ethnic group)|Dutch]] colonial Director-General [[Peter Minuit]] purchased the island of Manhattan from the Lenape in 1626. Legend, now disproved, gives the price as $24 worth of glass beads.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Miller, Christopher L., George R. Hamell |date=September 1986 |title=A New Perspective on Indian-White Contact: Cultural Symbols and Colonial Trade |journal=The Journal of American History |volume=73 |issue=2 |url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8723%28198609%2973%3A2%3C311%3AANPOIC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A |accessdate=2007-03-21 |month=Sep |year=1986 |pages=311 |doi=10.2307/1908224}}</ref><ref>The message of the purchase, which was sent to Amsterdam, is present in the National Archive in The Hague.</ref> It is very likely that, unlike their European counterparts, the Lenape saw the deal as combination of a protective alliance and a land sharing pact, with a few actual goods exchanged to formalize the agreement.<ref>
{{cite book |title=The Island at the Center of the World |author=[[Russell_Shorto|Shorto, Russell]] |publisher=Vintage |year=2005 | pages=51,52}}</ref> In 1664, the English conquered the city and renamed it "New York" after the [[James II of England|English Duke of York and Albany]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Historical Atlas of New York City: A Visual Celebration of 400 Years of New York City's History |author=Homberger, Eric |year=2005 |pages=p. 34 |publisher=Owl Books |isbn=0805078428}}</ref> At the end of the [[Second Anglo-Dutch War]] the Dutch let the British keep New Amsterdam (New York) in exchange for the more valuable [[Run (island)|Run]] in the [[East Indies]]. By 1700, the Lenape population was diminished to 200.<ref>[http://www.gothamcenter.org "Gotham Center for New York City History"] Timeline 1700-1800</ref>
New York City grew in importance as a trading port while under [[British Empire|British rule]]. In 1754, [[Columbia University]] was founded under charter by [[George II of Great Britain|King George II]] as King's College.<ref>{{cite book |title=An Historical Sketch of Columbia College, in the City of New York, 1754-1876 |author=Moore, Nathaniel Fish |year=1876 |pages=p. 8 |publisher=Columbia College}}</ref> The city emerged as the theater for a series of major battles known as the [[New York and New Jersey campaign|New York Campaign]] during the [[American Revolutionary War]], serving for more than seven years as the main base of British operations in North America (1776-1783). The [[Continental Congress]] met in New York City and in 1789 the first [[President of the United States]], [[George Washington]], was inaugurated at [[Federal Hall]] on Wall Street.<ref>{{cite web | title = The People's Vote: President George Washington's First Inaugural Speech (1789) | publisher = U.S. News and World Report | url = http://www.usnews.com/usnews/documents/docpages/document_page11.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-28 }}</ref> New York City was the capital of the United States until 1790.
During the 19th century, when the city was transformed by immigration, by a visionary development proposal called the [[Commissioners' Plan of 1811]] that expanded the city street grid to encompass all of Manhattan, and by the 1825 opening of the [[Erie Canal]], which connected the Atlantic port to the vast agricultural markets of the North American interior.<ref>{{cite book
|author = Bridges, William | title = Map Of The City Of New York And Island Of Manhattan With Explanatory Remarks And References | date= 1811}}</ref><ref name="lankevich-p67">Lankevich (1998), pp. 67–68.</ref> In 1831, as the city continued to expand, the University of the City of New York, now New York University, was founded at Washington Square in Greenwich Village.
Local politics fell under the domination of [[Tammany Hall]], a [[political machine]] supported by Irish immigrants.<ref>{{cite book |title=Fernando Wood: A Political Biography |author=Mushkat, Jerome Mushkat |publisher=Kent State University Press |year=1990 |pages=p. 36 |isbn=087338413X}}</ref> Public-minded members of the old merchant aristocracy pressed for [[Central Park]], which became the first landscaped park in an American city in 1857.
Anger at military conscription during the [[American Civil War]] (1861–1865) led to the [[New York Draft Riots|Draft Riots of 1863]], one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Armies of the Streets: The New York City Draft Riots of 1863 |author=Cook, Adrian |year=1974 |pages=pp. 193-195}}</ref> In 1898, the modern [[City of Greater New York|City of New York]] was formed with the consolidation of [[History of Brooklyn|Brooklyn]] (until then an independent city), Manhattan and outlying areas.<ref>[http://www.nyc.gov/html/nyc100/html/classroom/hist_info/100aniv.html The 100 Year Anniversary of the Consolidation of the 5 Boroughs into New York City], New York City. Accessed [[June 29]], [[2007]].</ref> The opening of the [[New York City Subway]] in 1904 helped bind the new city together. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication.
In the 1920s, New York City was a major destination for [[African American]]s during the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] from the American South. By 1916, New York City was home to the largest urban African diaspora in North America. The [[Harlem Renaissance]] flourished during the era of [[Prohibition in the United States|Prohibition]], coincident with a larger economic boom that saw the skyline develop with the construction of competing [[skyscraper]]s. For a while, New York City became the most populous city in the world, starting in 1925 and overtaking [[London]], which had reigned for a century (its current position is between 11th and 17th, depending on source<ref>{{cite web |title=The World's Largest Cities |author=City Mayors|url=http://www.citymayors.com/features/largest_cities1.html| accessdate=2007-11-29 |date=2007-06-28}}</ref>). The difficult years of the [[Great Depression]] saw the election of reformer [[Fiorello H. La Guardia|Fiorello La Guardia]] as mayor and the fall of [[Tammany Hall]] after eighty years of political dominance.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Tiger – The Rise and Fall of Tammany Hall |author=Allen, Oliver E. |publisher=Addison-Wesley Publishing Company |accessdate=2007-05-25 |chapter=Chapter 9: The Decline |date=1993}}</ref>
Returning [[World War II]] veterans and [[Immigration|immigrants]] from Europe created a postwar economic boom and the development of huge housing tracts in eastern Queens. New York emerged from the war as the leading city of the world, with Wall Street leading America's ascendance as the world's dominant economic power, the United Nations headquarters (built in 1952) emphasizing New York's political influence, and the rise of [[abstract expressionism]] in the city precipitating New York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Center of the World - New York: A Documentary Film (Transcript) |author=Burns, Ric |publisher=PBS |url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/newyork/filmmore/pt.html| accessdate=2006-07-20 |date=2003-08-22}}</ref> Yet like many large American cities, New York suffered a decline in manufacturing and rising crime rates, race riots, and white flight in the 1960s. By the 1970s, the city had gained a reputation as a crime-ridden relic of history.
In the 1980s, a resurgence in the financial industry improved the city's fiscal health. By the 1990s, racial tensions had calmed, crime rates dropped dramatically, and waves of new immigrants arrived from Asia and Latin America. Important new sectors, such as [[Silicon Alley]], emerged in the city's economy and New York's population reached an all-time high in the [[United States Census, 2000|2000 census]].
The city was one of the sites of the [[September 11, 2001 attacks]], when nearly 3,000 people died in the destruction of the [[World Trade Center]]. The [[Freedom Tower]] will be built on the site and is scheduled for completion in 2012.<ref>{{cite web | title = World Trade Center: Frequently Asked Questions | url=http://www.wtc.com/inner_page.aspx?id=14 | publisher = Silverstein Properties | accessdate = 2007-05-25 }}</ref>
==Lenape and New Netherland: prehistory - 1664==
{{main|History of New York City (prehistory-1664)}}
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]]; a sedentary people who occupied campsites seasonally, resulting in relatively easy access to the small game that inhabited the region: fish, birds, shellfish and deer. They developed sophisticated techniques of hunting and managing their resources. By the arrival of Europeans, the Lenape were cultivating fields of vegetation through the [[slash and burn]] technique, which extended the productive life of planted fields. They also harvested vast quantities of fish and shellfish from the bay.<ref>3Mark Kurlansky, The Big Oyster : History on the Half Shell, New York: Ballantine Books, 2006.</ref> The success of these methods allowed the tribe to maintain a larger population than nomadic hunter-gatherers were able to support. It has been estimated that at the time of European settlement there might have been about 15,000 Lenape total in approximately 80 settlement
sites around the region.<ref>Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham : A History of New York City to 1898, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.</ref> Lenape in canoes met [[Giovanni da Verrazzano]], the first European explorer to enter [[New York Harbour]], in 1524. Giovanni da Verrazzano named this place [[New Angoulême]] in the honour of the French king [[Francis I of France|Francis I]]. Although Verrazano sailed into the New York City Harbour, he is not thought to have travelled further than the present site of the bridge that bears his name, and instead sailed back into the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic]]. It was not until the voyage of [[Henry Hudson]], an [[England|Englishman]] who worked for the [[Dutch East India Company]], that the area was mapped.<ref>{{cite book |title=New York: the World's Capital City, Its Development and Contributions to Progress |author=Rankin, Rebecca B., Cleveland Rodgers |publisher=Harper |year=1948}}</ref> He discovered [[Manhattan Island]] on [[September 12]], [[1609]], and continued up the river that bears his name, the [[Hudson River]], until he arrived at the site where New York State's capital city, [[Albany, New York|Albany]], now stands.
European settlement began with the founding of a [[Dutch Republic|Dutch]] [[fur trade|fur trading]] settlement in [[Lower Manhattan]] in 1613 later called [[New Amsterdam]] (''Nieuw Amsterdam'') in the southern tip of Manhattan in 1625.[http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=7712] Soon thereafter, most likely in 1626, construction of [[Fort Amsterdam]] began.[http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=7712] 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 [[Huguenot]]s seeking religious liberty.
[[Willem Kieft]] became [[Director-General of New Netherland|director general]] in 1638, but five years later was embroiled in [[Kieft's War]] against the Native Americans. The [[Pavonia Massacre]], across the Hudson River in present day [[Jersey City, New Jersey|Jersey City]] resulted in the death of eighty natives in February 1643. Following the massacre, eleven [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]] tribes joined forces{{Clarifyme}} and nearly defeated the Dutch. Holland sent additional forces to the aid of Kieft, leading to the overwhelming defeat of the Native Americans, and a peace treaty on [[August 29]], [[1645]].<ref name="ellis-p37">{{cite book |title=The Epic of New York City |author=Ellis, Edward Robb |publisher=Old Town Books |year=1966 |pages=p. 37-40}}</ref>
On [[May 27]], [[1647]], [[Peter Stuyvesant]] was inaugurated as director general upon his arrival, 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 and New Amsterdam was formally incorporated as a city [[February 2]], [[1653]].<ref name="ellis-p57">{{cite book |title=The Epic of New York City |author=Ellis, Edward Robb |publisher=Old Town Books |year=1966 |pages=p. 57}}</ref> In [[1664]], the English conquered the area and [[Geographical renaming|renamed]] it "New York" after the [[James II of England|Duke of York and Albany]]. The Dutch briefly regained it in 1673, renaming the city "New Orange", before permanently ceding the colony of [[New Netherland]] to the British for what is now [[Suriname]] in November [[1674]].
{{seealso|New Amsterdam}}
==British and revolution: 1665-1783==
{{main|History of New York City (1665-1783)}}
This period began with the establishment of English rule over formerly Dutch [[New Amsterdam]] and [[New Netherland]]. As the newly renamed City of New York and surrounding areas developed there was growing sentiment for greater independence. [[Leisler's Rebellion]], an uprising in which militia captain [[Jacob Leisler]] seized control of lower New York from [[1689]] to [[1691]], occurred in the midst of Britain's "[[Glorious Revolution]]" and reflected colonial resentment against the policies of King [[James II of England|James II]], who in the 1680s decreed the formation of New York, New Jersey and the [[Dominion of New England]] as royal colonies, with New York City designated as the capital. This unilateral union was highly unpopular among the colonists. Royal authority was restored in 1691 by British troops sent by James' successor, [[William III of England|William III]]. The event introduced the principle that the people could replace a ruler they deemed unsuitable; uprisings against royal governors sprouted throughout the colonies.
The 1735 libel trial of [[John Peter Zenger]] in the city was a seminal influence on [[freedom of the press]] in North America. In 1754, [[Columbia University]] was founded as King's College in Lower Manhattan under charter by [[George II of Great Britain]] .<ref>{{cite book |title=An Historical Sketch of Columbia College, in the City of New York, 1754-1876 |author=Moore, Nathaniel Fish |year=1876 |pages=p. 8 |publisher=Columbia College}}</ref>
The [[Stamp Act]] and other British measures fomented dissent among local residents, particularly among [[Sons of Liberty]] who maintained a long-running skirmish with locally stationed British troops over [[Liberty Pole]]s from 1766 to 1776. The site of modern Greater New York City was the theatre of the [[New York Campaign]], a series of major battles in the early [[American Revolutionary War]]. After early British success in that campaign the city became the political and military center of operations in North America for the remainder of the war. New York was greatly damaged twice by [[Great Fire of New York (1776)|fires]] of suspicious origin during [[Great Britain|British]] military rule. [[Continental Army]] officer [[Nathan Hale]] was hanged in [[Manhattan]] for [[espionage]] after the [[Battle of Long Island]] (also known as the ''Battle of Brooklyn''), the largest battle of the entire war. In addition, the British began to hold the majority of captured American [[prisoners of war]] aboard [[Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument|prison ships]] in [[Wallabout Bay]], across the [[East River]] in [[Brooklyn]]. More Americans lost their lives from neglect aboard the prison ships than died in every battle of the war, combined. British occupation lasted until [[November 25]], [[1783]]. [[George Washington]] triumphantly returned to the city that same November 25th, as [[Evacuation Day (New York)|the last British forces left the city]]. The [[Congress of the Confederation|Congress]] met in New York City under the [[Articles of Confederation]], making it the first national capital of the United States, and the [[United States Constitution]] created the current [[Congress of the United States]], first sitting at [[Federal Hall]] on Wall Street. The [[Supreme Court]] first deliberated, the [[United States Bill of Rights]] drafted, and the new United States first expanded (via the passage of the [[Northwest Ordinance]]) in the city.
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left:3px; text-size:80%; text-align:right"
!align=center colspan=2| '''City of New York <br>Population by year [http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027.html]'''
|-
| 1656 || 1,000
|-
| 1690 || 6,000
|-
|[[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
|-
|align="center" colspan="2"|'''Including the "outer<br>boroughs" before the<br>1898 consolidation'''
|-
|1790 || 49,000
|-
|1800 || 79,200
|-
|1830 || 242,300
|-
|1850 || 696,100
|-
|1880 || 1,912,000
|}
==Federal and early American: 1784-1854==
{{main|History of New York City (1784-1854)}}
New York City became the first [[capital]] of the newly formed [[United States]] on [[September 13]], [[1788]] under the U.S. [[Constitutional convention (political meeting)|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]].
{{POV|date=December 2007}}
New York grew as an economic center, first as a result of [[Alexander Hamilton]]'s policies and practices as the first [[Secretary of the Treasury]] and, later, with the opening of the [[Erie Canal]] in [[1825]]. After the Revolutionary War thousands of mostly [[New England]] [[Yankee]]s moved into the city. Their numbers were such that by 1820, the city had far outstripped its pre-War population, was largely middle class with a growing upper-class, and was fully 95% of American born heritage. Its economy was a vigorous artisan and craftsman society second to none in the United States while its banking and commercial sectors were fast becoming dominant in the country as a whole. From 1800-1840 the city grew in wealth and power and never again would the city have such a substantially stable society of American born citizens.
It was into this stable [[Protestant]] middle class American society of [[stockbrokers]], guildsmen, [[bankers]], [[artisans]], [[craftsmen]], merchants, shippers, porters, and shopkeepers, and well paid laborers, all operating in an early [[republican]] environment of [[volunteer]] firefighters, watchmen, and other civic organization that thousands of mostly illiterate unskilled Catholic Irish fleeing the rural depression of their homeland disembarked onto New York City in the 1840s. The [[Irish Potato Famine]] brought a large influx of [[Irish people|Irish]] immigrants, and by 1850, the Irish comprised one quarter of the city's population.<ref>{{cite book |title=The New York Irish |author=Bayor, Ronald H. |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=1997 |id=ISBN 0801857643 |pages=p. 91}}</ref> Government institutions, including the [[New York City Police Department]] and the [[New York City Department of Education|public schools]], were established in the 1840s and 1850s to respond to growing demands of residents.<ref name="lankevich-p84">Lankevich (1998), pp. 84–85.</ref>
The social change was an earthquake. Lacking the bureaucratic civic structure of today, the city's infrastructure built as it was a volunteer network of similar minded individuals collapsed. Partisan networks developed to protect neighborhoods of native Americans from the Irish{{Fact|date=August 2007}}, and the Irish formed gangs to protect themselves. Crime rose as competing ethnic volunteer groups vied for control of the municipal patronage and its utility networks of fire, sanitation, garbage, and police.
[[Tammany Hall]] began to grow in influence with the support of many of the [[immigrant]] [[Irish people|Irish]], culminated in the election of the first Tammany mayor, [[Fernando Wood]], in [[1854]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Fernando Wood: A Political Biography |author=Mushkat, Jerome Mushkat |publisher=Kent State University Press |year=1990 |pages=p. 36 |isbn=087338413X}}</ref>
==Tammany and consolidation: 1855-1897==
{{main|History of New York City (1855-1897)}}
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 [[Midwestern 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 [[United States Democratic Party|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.
[[Image:Longacresquarenyc1880.jpg|left|thumb|Broadway at 42nd St. in 1880.]]
During the [[American Civil War]] (1861–1865), the city's strong commercial ties to the [[American South|South]], its growing immigrant population, and anger about [[conscription]] led to divided sympathy for both the Union and [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]], culminating in the [[New York Draft Riot|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.
<!-- Image with disputed fair-use status removed: [[Image:Benton Thomas Hart The History of New York 1927 (New York To-Day), 1927.jpg|thumb|left|150px|''New York To-Day'', [[Thomas Hart Benton (painter)|Thomas Hart Benton]]'s mural at the [[New School for Social Research]], 1927]] -->
The new European immigration brought further social upheaval, and old world criminal societies rapidly exploited the already corrupt municipal machine politics of Tammany Hall, while local American barons of industry further exploited the immigrant masses with ever lower wages and crowded living conditions. In a city of tenements packed with cheap foreign labor from dozens of nations, the city was a hotbed of [[revolution]], [[syndicalism]], [[racketeering]], and [[unionization]]. In response, the upper classes used partisan hand-outs, organized crime groups, heavy handed policing and political oppression to undermine groups which refused to be coopted. Groups such as anticapitalist labor unions, native American patriot organizations such as the [[American Protective Association]], and reformers of all stripes were fiercely repressed, while crime lords that became too independent disappeared.
==Early 20th century: 1898-1945==
[[Image:Mulberry Street NYC c1900 LOC 3g04637u edit.jpg|thumb|right|Mulberry Street, on the [[Lower East Side]], circa 1900.]]
{{main|History of New York City (1898-1945)}}
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 [[borough]]s 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, New York|Nassau County]] in [[1899]]); and The Borough of Staten Island contained all of [[Richmond County, New York|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 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 in 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 (African American)|Great Migration]] from the [[U.S. Southern states|American South]], and the [[Harlem Renaissance]], part of a larger boom time in the [[Prohibition]] era that saw dueling [[skyscraper]]s in the skyline.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication. [[Interborough Rapid Transit Company|Interborough Rapid Transit]] (the first New York subway company) began operating in 1904, and the railroads operating out of [[Grand Central Terminal]] and [[Pennsylvania Station]] thrived. New York City became the most populous city in the world in 1925, overtaking [[London]], which had reigned for a century.
Crime rates also increased as the city grew in size. Newspapers made household names of sensational criminals, such as [[Harry Thaw]] and [[Josephine Terranova]]. Terranova's murder trial, pitting the seventeen year old killer against the nation's medical establishment, rivetted the city for months in 1906.
New York City's ever accelerating changes and rising crime and poverty rates ended when [[World War I]] disrupted trade routes, the Immigration Restriction Acts limited additional immigration after the war, and the [[Great Depression]] ended the need for new labor. The combination ended the rule of the Guilded Age barons. The period between the World Wars saw the election of reformist mayor [[Fiorello La Guardia]] and the fall of [[Tammany Hall]] after eighty years of political dominance. As the city's demographics stabilized, labor unionization brought new protections and affluence to the working class, the city's government and infrastructure underwent a dramatic overhaul under LaGuardia, and his controversial parks commissioner, [[Robert Moses]], ended the blight of many tenement areas, expanded new parks, remade streets, and restricted and reorganized zoning controls.
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 coordinated by Moses, the greatest proponent of automobile-centered modernist urbanism in America.
In 1938 the political designation "[[Ward (politics)|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.
==Post-World War II: 1946-1977==
{{main|History of New York City (1946-1977)}}
[[Image:RMS Queen Mary 20Jun1945 NewYork.jpeg|thumb|right|{{RMS|Queen Mary}} arriving in New York Harbor with thousands of U.S.
troops.]]
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[Image:NYC1974.jpg|thumb|left|250px|economic problems in the 1970's led to urban decay across NYC]] -->
Returning [[World War II]] veterans and immigrants from Europe created a postwar economic boom and led to the development of huge housing tracts in eastern Queens. In 1951, the [[United Nations]] relocated from its first headquarters in [[Flushing Meadows Park]], Queens, to the East Side of Manhattan. During the 1960s, the views of real estate developer and city leader [[Robert Moses]] began to fall out of favor as the anti-[[Urban Renewal]] views of [[Jane Jacobs]] gained popularity. Citizen rebellion killed a plan to construct an [[expressway]] through lower Manhattan.
Like many major U.S. cities, New York suffered race riots,gang wars and population and industrial decline in the 1960s.Street activists and minority groups like the Black Panthers and Young Lords took matters into their own hands and organized rent strikes and garbage offensives, demanding city services for poor areas.They also set up free health clinics and other programs, as a guide for organizing and gaining "Power to the People." By the 1970s the city had also gained a reputation as a crime-ridden relic of history. In 1975, the city government avoided bankruptcy only through a federal loan and debt restructuring by the Municipal Assistance Corporation, headed by [[Felix Rohatyn]]. The city was also forced to accept increased financial scrutiny by an agency of [[New York State]]. In 1977, the city was struck by the twin catastrophes of the [[New York City blackout of 1977]] and the [[Son of Sam]] serial murderer's continued slayings. These events were perhaps the impetus to the election of Mayor [[Ed Koch]], who promised to revive the city.
==Modern period: 1978-2001==
{{main|History of New York City (1978-present)}}
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 few places like 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:1524 text:"1524 Giovanni de Verrazano finds New York"
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==Post 9/11: 2001-present==
New York City was a site of the [[September 11, 2001 attacks]] , 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 [[New York City Fire Department|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 [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]] was written), is to be built on the site and is slated for construction between 2006 and 2010.
On [[July 18]], [[2007]], a [[2007 New York City steam explosion|steam pipe exploded]] in [[Midtown Manhattan]], causing chaos, evacuations, several injures, and one death.
==See also==
Histories of New York City neighborhoods, such as [[Harlem, Manhattan|Harlem]], [[San Juan Hill]], [[Upper West Side]], [[Lower East Side]], [[Chinatown, Manhattan|Chinatown]], the [[Financial District (Manhattan)|Financial District]] (which includes the [[South Street Seaport]]) and others. New York has many famous thoroughfares, including [[Fifth Avenue]], [[Madison Avenue]], [[Broadway (New York City)|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, New York|City Island]], [[Roosevelt Island, New York|Roosevelt Island]] and others.
History of the [[New York City 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]].
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
==References==
* ''[[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 (historian)|Mike Wallace]], Oxford University Press, 1998, hardcover, 1416 pages, ISBN 0-19-511634-8, trade paperback, 2000, 1424 pages, ISBN 0-19-514049-4
* Greene, Evarts Boutelle et all, ''American Population before the Federal Census of 1790'', 1993, ISBN 0806313773
==External links==
*[http://www.mcny.org/ Museum of the City of New York]
*[http://www.nyhistory.org/ New York Historical Society]
*[http://users.skynet.be/newyorkfoundation/US/the_birth_of_new_york.html Origins of New York]
*[http://nycsnapshot.blogspot.com/ NYC Snapshot]: Historic NYC
*[http://www.cosmopolis.ch/travel/newyorkcity_e.htm A history of NYC by cosmopolis.ch]
*[http://www.wcs.org/mannahatta The Mannahatta Project, seeking to map the Manhattan of 1609]
*[http://www.yesterdays.sk/kategorie.php?id=46 Historical photos of New York]
*[http://users.skynet.be/newyorkfoundation/US/the_birth_of_new_york.html New York and its origins]
*[http://nycsnapshot.blogspot.com/ NYC Snapshots blog]
*[http://www.nationalyounglords.com/ Young Lords origins]
*[http://www.timespacemap.com/search/eventsearch.htm?_what=%22wiki%2F%2Fnew_york_city%22+History_of_New_York_City&_zoom=11&_ll=40.744136%2C%2D74.003220&_maptype=0 A Map and Timeline] of many of the historical events mentioned in this article
{{New York City}}
[[Category:History of New York City| ]]
[[es:Algonquinos (Nueva York)]]
[[fr:Histoire de New York]]
[[gl:Historia urbana de Nova York]]
[[he:היסטוריה של העיר ניו יורק]]
[[nl:Geschiedenis van New York City]]
[[ja:ニューヨーク市の歴史]]
[[uk:Історія Нью-Йорка]]
[[zh:紐約市歷史]]