History remembers bold moves. Mayor Michael Bloomberg called his 2002 restaurant and bar smoking ban one of the most important things he had done in his life. It took effect 12 years ago, on March 30, 2003. Cigarettes and second-hand smoke had long been known to be unhealthy. In 1990, Governor Mario Cuomo pass the…
No band embodied the fun and grit of New York City better than the Ramones. On March 30, 1974, the Ramones put on their very first show, for 30 friends in a small studio on East 20th Street. “It was not an auspicious debut,” writes Tony Fletcher in All Hopped Up And Ready To Go, “the…
There has been a lot of upsetting news the last couple of days. New Yorkers have shown resilience in the face of adversity before, one example being their defiant rally against Nazism on March 27, 1933, following the elevation of Adolf Hitler to Reich Chancellor on January 30, 1933. In the weeks following the Nazi Party’s…
(UPDATE: I was recently contacted by a young dude who was digitizing old VHS tapes for a New York-based filmmaker named Nik Puspurica. He came across this video, which features incredible, colorful footage from the Central Park “Be In”, complete with Monkees soundtrack.)Enjoy, because the video really takes you there.) The hippies may have been a small subsection…
The Today in NYC series often covers obscure corners of New York City political history, but one of the most important and most tragic events in city history took place on March 25, 1911: the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. On that afternoon, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist (women’s blouses) factory in the…
Most protests don’t achieve very much, especially student protests. Yet on March 24, 1976, at the height of the New York City financial crisis, a group largely comprised of Puerto Ricans from one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city began an occupation to save their community college. Today, Hostos is still standing. The very…
If you’ve ever seen Koch, the movie, you’ll recall the scenes were Ed Koch delightfully waves at drivers crossing “my new bridge!” The scene was filmed shortly after the 59th Street/Queensboro Bridge was renamed the Edward I. Koch Bridge on March 23, 2011. Mayor Bloomberg had announced the idea at Ed Koch’s 86th birthday party,…
New York City politics might seem convoluted now, but for nearly a century the city was governed by the Board of Estimate, an eight-member body as opaque and sinister as it sounds. On March 22, 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Board of Estimate unconstitutional. The subsequent revision to the City Charter created the political…
Readers, enjoy this super interesting topic. Unfortunately, my first day of PT meant some trying some aggressive new exercises, and the resulting pain makes focusing difficult, so this post had to be done in one take. Apologies for typos and a less than the best narrative. On the evening of March 13, a young woman…
Before you get too excited about spring being just around the corner, remember that from March 11 to March 14, 1888, one of the most intense blizzards in American history buried New York City under mounds of snow and brought the city to a standstill. When the head of the national Weather Bureau, Elias Dunn, closed…
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