Manhattan Island Chronology—Some basic dates to make it all make sense
1600’s and earlier- Manhattan Island inhabited by Lenape Indians. Used as a hunting ground-14 square miles, 62 bodies of water including streams, creeks, ponds, lakes, swamps. By modern times, the island is 22 square miles with landfill all around.
1626-Dutch West India Company establishes New Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan. Shortly afterward, Harlem and other country towns established on the island.
1664-British take over New Amsterdam, renaming in New-York. Within a few years, most of Manhattan is parceled out in land grants and the real estate booms: farms, villages and country estates cover Manhattan, north of the baby Metropolis “New-York” (still hyphenated).
1703-Bloomindale Road is built, along the lines of an old Indian trail now called Broadway.
1753-New York’s FIRST Broadway theatre is built: The Park Theatre.
1776-Revolutionary War rages all around New York…the city is burned on Sept. 4, many people flee north to the countryside and across the rivers to New-Jersey and Brooklyn.
1789-George Washington inaugurated in New York on Wall Street. New York is the nation’s first capitol.
1792-New York Stock Exchange founded on Wall Street.
1795-Yellow Fever epidemic sweeps New York City. Thousands die.
1804-Alexander Hamilton killed in duel with Aaron Burr.
1806-The Staten Island Ferry is started by 15-year old Cornelius Vanderbilt, beginning the legendary Vanderbilt fortune.
1811-Commissioner’s Plan is adopted, laying out Manhattan’s system of streets and avenues by John Randall, but it will be decades before most of these streets are anything more than lines on a map. The island’s hills are gradually graded and flattened.
1821-The Bloomingdale Insane Asylum is opened on the site of what is now Columbia University and St. John the Divine. The area in the country, near the suburbs of Harlem, Manhattanville and Bloomingdale.
1825-Erie Canal opens which connects New York’s harbor to the vast mid-west and west of the growing country.
1826-Lord & Taylor (New York’s oldest dept. store) is founded.
1827-Slavery is abolished in New York.
1837-Tiffany’s is founded
1838-The Croton Aqueduct is built, opening in 1842, giving New York City fresh clean water from the mountains upstate—just what it needs to thrive as a modern city. Public bath houses and decorative fountains open all over.
1850-Cast Iron Buildings become all the rage. Pre-fab construction.
1852-Elevator invented in New York City by Elijah Otis.
1853-Cornelius Vanderbilt consolidates 12 railroads into The New York Central Railroad, later builds Grand Central.
1856-New York City acquires the land to build Central Park.
1858-Macy’s founded.
1867-Nation’s first Elevated trains built in New York City.
1868-Broadway is opened, replacing the old Bloomingdale Road.
1872-78- Sewers and water mains are laid in most of the streets, more to follow.
1870’s-80’s-Improved city services: electricity, trash pickup and more.
1883-Brooklyn Bridge opens, connecting the two cities…a 17-year construction project.
1884-The Dakota building, kicking off luxury apartment houses on the West Side.
1886-Statue of Liberty unveiled.
1888-Great Blizzard of 1888 happens in March, killing dozens of New Yorkers and paralyzing the city. City Council decides that all electric cables, telegraph, etc. are placed UNDER-ground.
1880’s-‘90’s-Upper Westside develops into an elegant residential district for “new” money as opposed to the “old” money districts on the Upper Eastside.
1892-Ellis Island opens to process immigrants.
1898-Harlem, Brooklyn and other areas vote to become part of the new 5-borough metropolis New York City.
1900-Subway construction is begun…3 separate lines built by private enterprise, later incorporated into a city service as the MTA. Subway construction spurs a huge growth of more and bigger apartment buildings in the far-reaching parts of the city which will now be easily accessible. IRT is first to open.
1902-First skyscraper opens: The Flat-Iron Building.
1907-Pennsylvania Station
1912-Titanic sinks, taking many of New York’s wealthy and famous citizens: John Jacob Astor and many others.
1913-Income tax and other taxes along with zoning law changes cause the giant mansions of the rich to come tumbling down (or turn into tax-free buildings).
1915-Harlem begins changing from an all-white enclave to become the most famous black community in America.
1913-1920’s-Huge luxury apartment buildings go up around Central Park.
1929-1938-Rockefeller Center constructed, re-inventing a huge section of midtown.
1931-The Empire State Building opens during the Great Depression, the tallest structure in the world for 42 years. For many years it’s only 10% occupied, nicknaming it The Empty State Bldg.
1932-Eighth Avenue subway line opens along Central Park West.
1934-LaGuardia Airport opened
1940-Ninth Avenue Elevated in closed and torn down.
1945-Many latinos from the Caribbean become the newest immigrants to settle in NYC.
1950’s-City is prosperous and thriving, many people leave for the expanding suburbs.
1960’s-Vietnam War, Flower Children, much social change begun.
1969-Stonewall Riots, beginning the modern era of Gay Rights.
1970’s-City Fiscal crisis. Drugs, crime, deterioration and the abandonment of buildings besets various neighborhoods.
1973-World Trade Center constructed.
1990’s-City attracts new businesses and private investment and real estate thrives. 42nd Street is restored and the city becomes cleaner and safer than in decades.
2001-World Trade Center attacked by terrorists.
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