Welcome to the second day of previewing the Guides Association of New York City Awards Ceremony! Yesterday we learned a little bit about the guides who lead tours across the city. They are holding this ceremony to honor the people and organizations who constantly discovers new things to love about New York City. GANYC is…
By the early 1640s, New Amsterdam had found its identity as a cosmopolitan trade capital, but it was almost wiped out after launching a foolhardy war against neighboring Algonquin tribes. On February 25, 1643, Governor-Director Willem Kieft led a raiding party against helpless Lenape Algonquins seeking refuge from rival Iroquois invaders. The mass killing was called the “Pavonia massacre,” and…
As we explored two weeks ago, the battle for Times Square was long and messy. On February 24, 1998, the Giuliani administration won a major legal battle when the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the City had legally re-zoned Times Square, a seeming death knell for the local adult entertainment industry. One of…
Ever listened to the Brian Lehrer Show, read Gothamist, walked the High Line or eaten at Katz’s Deli? On March 2nd, these New York institutions and many more will be honored at the first ever Guides Association of New York City Award Show. The festivities, which go down at Symphony Space on the Upper West…
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? For Dr. King, it was the 100th Birthday of W.E.B. Du Bois, a pioneer in the African-American community. The event, held on February 23, 1968, was King’s final major public address, and his last appearance in New York City. W.E.B. Du Bois was a titan of his time, a…
The great Hunter S. Thompson died ten years ago. At the time, I was just out of college. My buddy Clint Hendler ran the Dartmouth Free Press, the now-defunct liberal campus rag where I posted my rambles during college, and he let me submit this tribute piece. It’s heavy on Dartmouth references and sweeping generalizations,…
Gotham’s most historic murder was the shooting of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, formerly known as Malcolm X. Malcolm X’s career was inextricably bound to New York City, the place that brought him fame and saw his demise on February 21, 1965. Born in Detroit in 1925, Malcolm Little converted to the Nation of Islam while in prison, and upon…
Abe Lincoln and New York City will always be linked by Lincoln’s legendary speech at Cooper Union in 1860 (which we will cover on February 27), but on February 19, 1861, Lincoln set foot in New York City for the first time as President-elect. In doing so, he entered the lion’s den, one of the most…
Between 1959 and 1989, New York City blacks and Latinos went from having almost no political power to building a coalition that elevated David Dinkins to mayor. In his new book, Upsetting the Applecart: Black-Latino Coalitions in New York from Protest to Public, Frederick Douglass Opie chronicles this often unrecognized story of grassroots activism and organized…
Not a lot has happened in New York City on this date, but fortunately for “separation of powers” fans, on February 18, 1975, the Supreme Court ruled in New York’s favor in the sewage treatment financial allocation battle, Train v. City of New York. I practiced law for a while, and this is actually more interesting than…
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