KEY DATES
1524 Giovanni
da Verrazano sails into New York
harbour
1609 Henry
Hudson navigates river and claims land
for Dutch West Indies Company
1624 Settlement
of ‘New Amsterdam’ by the DWIC
1626 Peter
Minuit buys Manhattan from native tribes
1647 Peter
Stuyvesant appointed governor of New
Amsterdam.
1653 Defensive
wall constructed. Now Wall Street.
1656 New
Amsterdam has 120 houses and 1,000
residents
1664 Dutch
surrender to the British. Renamed New
York
1676 Great
Dock built
1683 First
City Charter
1711 Slave
market opened on Wall Street
1765
‘Sons of Liberty’ formed.
1770
Battle of Golden Hill.
1776-1783 War of American Independence
1785
New York named capital of USA
1790
Capital moved to Philadelphia
1804
Alexander Hamilton shot in duel with Vice
President Aaron Burr.
1835
Fire destroyed 600 buildings in old New York
1851
New York Times first published
1853
First World’s Fair
1858
Macy’s opened ; Central
Park designed
1868
First elevated railroad constructed
1869
First apartment building constructed
1872
Bloomingdale’s opened
1880
Electric street lighting introduced
1883
Metropolitan Opera built ; Brooklyn
Bridge opened
1886
Statue of Liberty Unveiled
1895
First Broadway theatre opened
1896
First bagel served in Clinton Street
1897
Waldorf Astor Hotel opened
1898
Greater New York created by merger with Brooklyn, Bronx, Haarlem &
Queens.
1900
70% of American companies based in New York; Two thirds of imports came
through NY
1900
Construction of Subway system started
1907
Ziegfield Follies opened
1913
Woolworth Building completed; new Grand Central Station opened
1913
Apollo Theatre in Harlem opened
1925
New Yorker magazine started
1929
Wall Street Crash
1930
Chrysler Building completed
1931
Empire State Building completed
1936
New parks created
1939
Rockerfeller Center completed
1954
Ellis Island closes
1959
Guggenheim Museum opened
1971
Andy Warhol exhibition at Whitney Museum
1973
World Trade Center completed
1975
Financial Crisis
1983
Trump Tower completed
1988
25% of New Yorkers recorded living below the poverty line
1990
Ellis Island reopens as a museum
2001 Terrorist attacks destroy the World Trade Center
| 1664 |
1,500
|
| 1698 |
4,937
|
| 1713 |
7,282
|
| 1737 |
10,564
|
| 1749 |
13,290
|
| 1771 |
21,863
|
| 1840 |
300,000
|
| 1860 |
813,609
|
| 1900 |
3,400,000
|
| 1940 |
7,400,000
|
| 1990 |
7,300,000
|
| 2000 |
8,008,278 |
| 1820-1830 |
4,000
|
| 1830 |
14,000
|
| 1835 |
32,715
|
| 1840 |
60,609
|
| 1845 |
76,514
|
| 1850 |
212,796
|
| 1886 |
c300,000
|
| 1890 |
c500,000
|
| 1903 |
c800,000
|
| 1905 |
c1,000,000
|
| 1907 |
1,285,349
|
Sources of Immigration
Before 1830 British, Dutch, French & German. Often religious dissenters.
1830 - 1880 Irish, German,
Polish
· Catholics
· Many illiterate and untrained
1890 - 1910 Southern and Eastern
Europeans
· Italians
· E European Jews
1980s Caribbean and
Asia
The Political History of New York
Early 1800s · Considerable opposition to Irish immigration· Anti-Irish ‘Native American Party’ influential· Widespread discrimination against Irish· St Patricks Day parades start as demonstration of resistance
Mid 1800s · Immigrants became dominant force in electorate· Many Irish voters ‘organised’ by Tammany Hall, which became the most powerful organisation in New York· Tammany Hall represented a web of corruption & patronage in Irish community.· Height of power in 1860s under Mayor Boss Tweed.
Late 1800s & Early 1900s ·
Influence of Tammany Hall persisted.· New York politics remained
corrupt.· Power of Irish and Italian Mobs strengthened during Prohibition
(1919-1933)
"The Mob slipped into the regular
life of the city, selling not just vice and booze and gambling, but concrete,
garbage collection, children’s frocks, justice and politics, taxing what
was built, trucked or carted away as though it was a second government.
The Mob threatened, and then protected; in this way, it came to license
quite ordinary activities. It was officially invisible, a melodrama of
an idea, and yet it was real enough to elect one mayor in the 1950s and
make possible the career of another."
Michael Pye (1991) Maximum City.
Fiorello LaGuardia
· Mayor 1933 - 1945
· Son of an Italian immigrant
· Elected as a Republican,
challenging the Tammany Hall Democrats represented by ex-mayor Jimmy Walker
· Attempted to tidy up New
York politics
· LaGuardia’s term co-incided
with the Depression
· Prioritised social housing
· Also encouraged expansion
of subway and of skyscrapers
· Lost the battle against
the Mob and corruption.
Financial Crisis
· Growing welfare bill
· 1975 New York nearly declared
bankrupt and saved by a loan from the Federal government
· Regained solvency in 1981
· Economic boom of the 1980s
The Last 4 Mayors
Ed Koch (1978-1990)
· Took credit for steering
New York out of financial crisis
· Product of ‘clubhouse’
system of patronage
· Rocked by corruption scandals
in 1986
· Between 1978 and 1986,
1,629 city employees charged with corruption.
David Dinkins (1990-1993)
· First Black mayor of New
York
· Seen as ineffectual
Rudolph Giuliani (1993 - 2002 )
· First Republican mayor
since LaGuardia
· Zero-tolerance approach
to crime and social order helped to produce falling crime and murder rate
· Forced to pull out of race to
fight Hillary Clinton for New York senate seat due to ill health
- Gained massive popularity for statesman like response to September 11
Michael Bloomberg (2002 - )
- Unexpected Republican winner in 2001 election, boosted by post-Sept 11 effect
- Now faced with a growing economic problem
- Initiative to ban smoking in all public
places has helped to make him unpopular