Courtesy
1609 Hudson, an English-born sailor in the employment of
the Dutch East India Company, explores
1610-1612 Trading voyages to
1614 Founding of New Netherland Company. Charter expires 1618.
1621 Dutch West India Company chartered.
1624 Nieuw Nederlandt brings thirty Protestant families with
livestock, seeds, and farm implements, who agree to stay for six years in
Peter Minuit purchases Manhattan Island for $24 from native Indians. (ad)
1625 Construction of
1626 Peter Minuit appointed first Director-General; buys
1629 Patroonships offered to expand Dutch settlements on
1634 General Kieft slaughters the displaced Alonquin tribes - early signs of a white dominant society. (ad)
1638 Swedish South Company sends out Swedish settlers to sites on Delaware
River, founding
1640 Indian uprising.
1646 Arrival of first cargo of slaves from
1647 Petrus Stuyvesant, former governor of
1649 Popular discontent with administration of colony. Leading complainant,
Adriaen Van der Donck, arrested.
1651 Commonwealth Parliament passes Navigation Act, a direct attack on Dutch
supremacy in sea trade. Goods imported into
1653 Limited self-government granted to
1654 Twenty-three Jewish traders and merchants arrive from
The colony celebrates its first Thanksgiving Day holiday. (lg)
1656 Director-General and Council ban “Conventicles and Meeting” of
religious observance not in accordance with the doctrines of the Reformed
Church. Repression directed at Lutherans, Quakers, and Jews.
1657 Five Locations designed as general garbage dumps. Ordinances passed regulating privies, Slaughterhouses and cemeteries. (nd)
1659 February: A small hospital is opened making the transition of "barber - surgeons." (nd)
1661 First free public school opens in
1664 Cortelyou's survey lists 350 houses on
King Charles II issues letters of patent in
March granting region from
1665 Abolition of Dutch government of the city. Creation of offices of
mayor, aldermen, and sheriff.
1st Mayor is Thomas Willett. (ms)
1667 Peace of
1673 Temporary restoration of Dutch rule (
1674 Edmund Andros appointed governor.
1676
1678 Charles Wolley, the first Anglican preacher to be assigned to the
province, arrives in
1686 Governor Dongan grants a “charter of Libertyes” to the city on April
27. On May 29, James II writes to Gov. Dongan ordering that the assembly, with
the recently granted “Charter of Libertyes and priviledges”, be disallowed.
1688
1691 Arrest, conviction and execution of Leisler, Milborne and six others.
1696 Captain William Kid sails from
1698 Census reveals that the population of the
1702 Yellow fever outbreak devastates city, with 570 deaths.
1703 Census reveals a population in
1711 Slave market opens at Wall Street and
1712 Slave revolt repressed with cruel punishments.
1723
1725 First
1729 First Jewish synagogue built in
1731 First public library opens in City Hall with 1,642 volumes, the
property of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
Smallpox epidemic kills 478 whites and 71 African-Americans.
1732 New Theatre opens at
1735 The trial of John Peter Zenger - won the first court case against accusation of slander in published articles by proving the articles actually published the truth; has to do with freedom of the press. (dr)
1741 The great slave conspiracy. Thirteen African slaves burnt at the stake;
eighteen hanged; seventy others sold elsewhere.
1754 Charter granted for foundation of King’s College (re-named
1757 Publication in London of William Smith’s History of
1760
1761
1765
1767 Opening of the
1768 Establishment of the New York Chamber of Commerce to promote the “General
Interest of the Colony, and the Commerce of this City in particular”. Opening
of Samuel Francis’s exhibition of wax figures at
1776 British Army occupies
1783 Evacuation of the British Army and Loyalists.
1784 Law of May 12 bars Loyalists (those who had been officeholders under
the British, served in the British army, left the state, or who had joined the
British) from voting or holding office. It is estimated that this law
disqualified more than two-thirds of all the inhabitants of the City and
Bank of New York founded.
1785 Publication of the first number of the New York Daily Advertiser,
the city’s first daily newspaper. Cornerstone laid for Saint Peter’s Church
(Church and Barclay Streets), the city’s first Roman Catholic church.
NY State becomes the capital (1785-1797). (ad)
George Washington inaugerated at Federal Hall. (ad)
1787 The
1788 May 13, first meeting of Mooney's Lodge aka the Society of St. Tammany. This society, started for social and philanthropic purposes, would eventually dominate NYC politics. (sm)
NYC March to support the ratification of the Constitution. (ad)
1789 April 30th, George Washington is sworn into office in Federal Hall on Wall Street. (yr)
1792 Stock Exchange opens at
1794 Opening of City Hotel on Broadway.
1796 The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the city’s first black
church, founded.
1797
1798 Last performance given at the John Street Theater, January 13. Park
Theater opens on January 29th.
Yellow fever epidemic (br)
1800 Republicans carry
1807 President Jefferson’s embargo on foreign trade, proclaimed December 22,
shuts down
1808
1809 First Catholic receives the nomination of Tammany Hall for political
office in
Washington Irving wrote A History of New York under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerboker; the term "Knickerboker" came to mean anyone from New York. (aq)
1812-15 War with
1813 Burials below
1815 The first St. Patrick's Cathedral opens on Prince Street. (lg)
1817 Regular monthly sailing of packet service, called the Black Ball Line,
between
Governor Clinton overturns the first spade of earth for the Erie Canal project. (an)
1819 Depression. The value of real estate and personal property in
1820 Mercantile Library founded at
1822 Red Star Line begins regular monthly sailings to
1824 Castle Clinton reopens on July 3 as
1825 Governor De Witt Clinton opens
1827 Abolition of slavery in
1829 Bryant becomes editor of
1831 April 25 - the New York and Haerlem Railroad Company incorporated, connecting all the ports along the hudson river and providing a convenient method of transportation and freight for merchants and settlers. (an)
1832 Cholera summer in
1834 New Yorkers win right to vote for Mayor aka Chief Magistrate (ra)
July, Anti-Abolitionist Riot - the riot that began as because of an anti-American remark by George Farren escalted into a riot against abolitionists and their places of business, homes, and churches; destruction of property. (dr)
1835 December 16-17: fire destroys much of the property between
1837 Financial panic. There are 17 daily papers in
An old brewery in Five Points is converted into the first tenement house. (lg)
1838 The Great Western, the first steamship put into regular transatlantic
service, sails from Pier I at the
1841 First issue of Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune published April
10.
1842 Charles Dickens arrives in
The New York Croton water system is finished. Supplying 35 million gallons a day, the water system provides dramatic improvements for the city, including the decreased risk of fire. (sm)
July 4, Croton Reservoir opens @ 42nd + 5th Avenue bringing clean upstate water to NYC. (ak)
1843 Charles S. Stratton, a five-year-old midget, renamed “General Tom
Thumb” is put on exhibit by P.T. Barnum.
1845 Knickerbockers Baseball Club accepts Abner Doubleday - Alexander J.
Cartwright rules for baseball.
1848 Work begins to extend the Battery and incorporate
1849 Anti-British protestors attempt to break up the performance of William
Macready at the Astor Place Opera House. In the ensuing rioting, more than 20
persons are killed.
1851 First issue of the New York Daily Times appears August 18.
Commodore John C. Stevens, founder of the
New York Yacht Club, wins the race in the schooner
1853 President Franklin Pierce opens World’s Fair at
Elisha Graves Otis demonstrates his
steam-powered passenger elevator at the Latting Observatory, adjacent to the
New York Crystal Palace Exhibition.
New York establishes Juvenile Asylum to cope with vagrant children. (ra)
New York legislature designated 59 St - 109 St for the creation of Central Park, first public park in the nation. (aq)
1854 Opening of
1857 Gang feud between the Bowery Boys and the Dead Rabbits finally quelled
by the calling out of the militia.
Financial panic begins in August.
Frederick Law Olmsted appointed Superintendent
of Central Park.
1858 Cornerstone of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, on
1859 The first sections of Central Park open to the public.
1860 Abraham Lincoln speaks at Cooper Union. The Prince of Wales (later King
Edward VII) visits
Founded in 1851, the New York Times becomes the primary newspaper of New York City. (sm)
1861
During the first winter of the war, the Brooklyn Navy Yard used New York City's accumulated expertise to produce America's first ironclad warship, John Ericsson's Monitor. (br)
1863 Draft riots in
1865 Publication of the Report of the Council of Hygiene and Public Health
of the Citizens’ Association of New York upon the sanitary condition of the
city. This is the first such sanitary survey of any American city, which leads
to the passing of the bill which creates the Metropolitan Board of Health.
Professional Fire Department created by Legislature. (ra)
The old system of volunteer fire companies was abolished and the Metropolitan Fire District (Manhattan and Brooklyn) was created to be served by uniformed, salaried, professional firefighters. (br)
1866 New York's first elevated train line. (ms)
New York's first Elevated transporation line is built and used. (nd)
The city (NYC) became part of the Metropolitan Sanitary District, and the Board of Health was created to deal with the centuries-old issue of communicable diseases. City money was made available to subsidize both Mount Sinai Hospital and Catholic Education. (br)
1867 Harper’s Bazar founded in
1st elevated railway constructed by West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway along Greenwich and Ninth Avenues. (ak)
1868 The
1869 Mary Mason Jones builds the famous Marble Row of elegant Italianate
residences at the northeast corner of
1870 First rail car from
1871 Opening of Grand Central Depot on
1872 A new record price for
Strikes for an eight hour workday - 100,000 workers had a strike for the eight-hour work day and won in this year. (dr)
1873 Harlem annexed to
November: Boss Tweed convicted of 204 counts
of fraud and sentenced to twelve years on Blackwell’s Island.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates his new invention, the telephone. In
this year the
1878 Opening of “el” on
Boss Tweed dies in prison. NY afterward recovers only $876,241 out of the millions he had stolen. (jb)
1879 Opening of
1880 Opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a site in
1881 The Edison Electric Company’s generators at
1883 Opening of the Metropolitan Opera House,
1886 Statue of
1887 First use of electric streetcars.
1888
September 17 - first electric streetcar open to passengers in New York City, enabling fast surface mass transit for residents. (an)
Great Blizzard 3/12 - 14 $25 mil in fire damage - leads to calls for underground railway, which was approved in 1894 and began in 1900. (ak)
1892
1894 Lexow Committee investigates corruption in the
1895 Teddy Roosevelt becomes police commissioner. (br)
Theodore Roosevelt becomes police commissioner (ms)
1896 The Dow Jones Industrial Index, initially monitoring stock price
movements of twelve companies, begins continuous publication.
1897 Opening of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
1898 Population of 3.4 million makes combined city world’s second largest,
after
1899
The “Boulevard” becomes Broadway above
1900 Race riot on
March 24: New York breaks ground for the subway system. (ad)
20th century
1901 New Tenement House Law states that all tenements must have windows. (ad).
1902 Macy’s opens giant
1903 By this year all four
1904
1905
1906 In the first " crime of the century ", the architect Stanford
White is killed while dining atop Madison square Garden by Harry K. Thaw, the
millionaire husband of White’s mistress, Evelyn Nesbit.
James Weldon Johnson moves to New York City (mk)
1907 Motor buses replace last horse-drawn public transportation. Metered taxi
cabs appear on city streets.
May 23: President Taft and Mayor Gaynor preside over the opening of the NYPL at Bryant Park. (ad)
1908 Consolidation under water: first
January 1st: the New York Times begins the tradition of dropping an illuminated ball in Times Square to ring in the new year. (ms)
January 1: an illuminated ball dropped in on time square to ring in the new year. (aq)
New Year ball-drop at Times Square inaugurated. (jb)
1909 Completion of
1910 Penn Station opens.
Premier of Puccini’s Girl of the Golden
West at the Metropolitan Opera.
1911 March 25: fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory at
May 23: The New York Public Library opens on 42nd Street. (ms)
NY Public Library opens in 42nd St. (jb)
Dreamland Amusement Park at Coney Island burns to the ground. (nc)
1912 The Titanic fails to arrive.
1913 Completion of Cass Gilbert’s
Grand Central Terminal, Ebbets Field open.
Arthur Davies organized an International
Exhibition of Modern Art at the 69th Regiment Armory. Now known as
the Armory Show, it was the first time Americans, accustomed to
representational art, came face to face with Duchamp, Brancusi, Picasso and
Matisse, among others. The Armory Show would generally be considered “the
turning-point in American Art” (Meyer Shapiro)
Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire intensified unionization in NY which led Jewish building workers to establish their first union Amalgated Clothing Workers Union. (aq)
1914 War begins in
1917 Wartime curfew set at 1 am cancelling all-night license for the sale of
intoxicating drinks.
1917-18 Deaths in the World War of men from
1919 Yankees buy Babe Ruth, star pitcher of the Boston Red Sox, for
$100,000.
Illustrated Daily News founded.
1920 Bomb explodes on Wall Street outside Morgan bank, killing 38.
Anarchists suspected but the crime was never solved.
1921
Sardi’s opens.
1923 Time Magazine founded by Henry Luce. Circulation of the first
issue was 9,000 copies.
Staten Island –
1924 February: Paul Whiteman gives a first performance of Geoge Gershwin’s Rhapsody
in Blue at the Aeolian Hall.
1925 The New Yorker founded by Harold Ross. In this year the
Luciano-Costello gang pays $10,000 to the Police Commissioner’s office to allow
their gambling interests to remain unmolested.
1926 Martha Graham opens her dance studio.
Opening of Savoy Ballroom 140th-141st and Lenox Avenue. (ak)
1927 William Paley buys a network he later renames CBS.
The Cyclone roller coaster was built, one of the nation's oldest wooden coasters still in operation. (aq)
1928 First animated electric sign in
1929 Stock market crashes October 24th (" Black Thursday "); On
Tuesday the 29th, 16,410,030 shares change hands.
1930 Completion of 77story
Dedication of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon’s
1931 Holland Tunnel and George Washington Bridge open, providing access to NJ. (aq)
1932 Screen debut of
1933 Relief rolls stand at 820,000 – about 12% of the city. Hospitals report
cases of starvation.
Rebelling againt Tammany Hall, the city
elects Fiorello La Guardia mayor on a Fusion ticket.
1934 City enacts 2% sales tax to be used for unemployment relief.
Nelson Rockefeller orders destruction of a
Diego Rivera mural he had commissioned for 30 Rockefeller Center because it
included a depiction of Lenin.
January: Fiorello LaGuardia becomes mayor of NY. (ad)
LaGuardia creates the New York City Housing Authority. (an)
1935 Riots in Harlem. (nc)
1937 Foundation of the
Anne Farley of the
1938 Chester F. Carlson invents xerox process in makeshift lab in
City council replaces Board of Aldermen.
1939 Outbreak of World War II. Opening of New York World’s Fair at Flushing
Meadow,
The Hippodrome Theatre is demolished and replaced by an office building and a parking garage. (an)
1940 Abe Reles’ testimony reveals the existence of Murder, Inc., a syndicate
enforcement arm which executes “contracts” on " bums "
(victims).Reles falls or is thrown to his death from a heavily guarded hotel
room on
Enrico Fermi’s team of physicists splits the
atom in
1941 Construction begins for large international airport in Idlewild
district of Queens.
At giant “America First” rally at
1942 Wartime blackout rules dim lights on Broadway, and in all windows above
the10th floor.
1944 The Beat Generation: in May Allen Ginsberg, a student at
Luna Park at Coney Island burns and Robert Moses replaces both Dreamland and Luna Park with the New York Aquarium and Luna Park Houses. (nc)
1945
1946 On December 23, the
First performances of the Ballet Society,
formed by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Reformed in 1948 as the
1947 In April 1947, Robinson became the first African-American to play in
the major leagues after signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Actors Studio opened by Elia Kazan, Robert
Lewis and Cheryl Crawford.
1948
New York City Ballet founded by George
Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein.
1949 Opening on Broadway of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.
Birdland, premier be-bop nightclub, opens on
Broadway ; its namesake, Saxophonist Charlie (Bird) Parker, plays Carnegie
Hall.
The census reports that 56% of the city’s
population is foreign-born, or of foreign or mixed parentage.
Opening of Lever House on
1952 First, perhaps finest, of the glass boxes goes up: Lever House.
Franklin National Bank issues the first
credit card.
United Nations headquarters finished. (ms)
1953 Subway fare increases to 15 cents; token introduced.
1955 Subway system and bus system put under management of the Transit
Authority. Demolition of
In a wave of mergers, Chase Manhattan Bank
and First National City Bank ( now Citibank) are formed.
1st edition of the Village Voice is published. (nc)
1956 Opening of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story, with lyrics by
Stephen Sondheim.
Maria Callas makes her debut, as does the
New York Coliseum.
1957 Running of last streetcars in
1958 Leonard Bernstein becomes the Philharmonic’s music director.
1959 Opening of Frank Lloyd Wright’s
1961
Leontyne Price makes her debut at the Met.
1962 December 11 - city officials vote unanimously to block the planned Lower Manhattan Expressway, proposed by Robert Moses, which would have cost the city about $80 million and placed an elevated highway along present-day 23rd street, as part of Interstate 478. (an)
1963 Opening of the
Strike 1: no newspapers for 114 days.
1964 Opening of New York World’s Fair at Flushing Meadow,
Verrazano –
New York Riots break out in Harlem it lasts for two days. (lf)
1965 In this year
Malcolm X assassinated.
November 9, NYC blackout. (nc)
Hart-Cellar Act is passed by Lyndon Johnson opens NY borders to immigrants with skills. (yr)
President Lyndon Johnson signs a bill at the base of the Statue of Liberty abolishing the immigration quota system. (lf)
1966 Demolition of McKim, Mead and White’s Pennsylvania Rail Road Station,
spurring preservation movement.
1968 Two hundred thousand students take part in giant antiwar rally in
Student protests shut
Demolition of the Singer Building, headquarters of the manufacturers of ubiquitous lower-east-side sewing machines. One Liberty Plaza stands there today. (an)
1969 Gay Rights Movement gains momentum.
Woodstock. (lf)
1970 First
1971 Frank Serpico testifies before Knapp Commission on police corruption.
1973
CBGB's opens on the Bowery. (lg)
1974 Philippe Petit walks tightrope between
1975 Completion of Tower 2 of the
Fiscal crisis deepens.
1976 Football Giants move to
1977 Studio 54 opens, a pinnacle of cocaine-disco-doorman culture.
David Berkowitz arrested after killing five,
terrorizing the city as “Son of Sam”.
The New York State Department of Economic Development launches the “I Love New York” marketing campaign for New York City to help it out of the fiscal crisis of 1975. The logo, developed by Milton Glaser, became a great success much to the chagrin of local residents. Before 1977 the official nickname promoted by the city was “Fun City.” (mk)
1978 Federal government stabilizes city finances with $ 1.65 billion
loan-guarantee package.
1980 The city mourns after John Lennon is gunned down by a crazed fan, Mark
Chapman.
1982 City opens barracks-style shelters for homeless.
1984 NYSE registers its first 200 million share day. Publication of Jay
McInerney’s Bright Lights,
Post-modernism joins the skyline in Philip
Johnson’s A.T and T. (now Sony) building.
1987 in October the NYSE falls 508 points. Publication of Tom Wolfe’s The
Bonfire of the Vanities.
Wall Street scandals spread. Two of era’s
biggest names, Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken, will go to jail for manipulating
deals.
1988 Tompkin's Square Police Riots: Protesters face-off against police over the real-estate tensions of gentrification resulting in violence. Police forcibly remove homeless from the park. (lg)
1989 April 20: an investment banker savagely attacked while jogging in
David N. Dinkins elected as first black
mayor.
Supreme Court abolishes Board of Estimate.
New charter hands more power to mayor.
1990 Census reveals a median income in metropolitan New York of $38,445, a
poverty rate of 11.7 percent, and a population made up of 18.2 percent blacks,
4.8 percent Asians, 15.4 percent Hispanics, and since 1980 a foreign
immigration of 1,514,101. Whites have become a minority of city residents.
1991 Construction uncovers African Burial Ground, cemetery for blacks in the
18th century.
Crown Heights Riots: Ethnic tensions erupt resulting in 3 days of rioting when a Hasidic man kills a Guyanese child in a motor accident. (lg)
1992 Reopening of restored Bryant Park. 68 of the city’s 75 police precincts
report decreases in total felonies compared with 1991.
Mollen Commission formed to investigate
charges of theft, brutality and “testilying” by police officers.
1993
Rudolph W. Giuliani becomes first Republican
mayor in two decades ; crucial support comes from
1994 Welfare rolls decline after reaching peak in 1993.
Mayor Giuliani cracks down on squeegee men as part of his quality-of-life intiative. (lg)
1997 New Amsterdam Theater reopens as
Drop in crime continues; 767 murders are
fewest since 1966.
On New Year’s Eve, Mayor Giuliani takes oath
of office for his second term.
2001 September 11, WTC falls. (nc)
September 11th, World Trade Center get hit by planes. (yr)
2002 Actor Robert DeNiro establishes the annual Tribeca Film festival in an effort to revitalize business in Tribeca after the attacks of 9/11. (lg)
2004 250th Anniversary: New York Society Library, New York's oldest public library was established in 1754, contains over 250,000 volumes, from an original charter from King George III. Its original location on Wall Street served as the first Library of Congress. Presently, there are over 3,000 members and 7,000 users. (mz)
RNC holds its convention in NYC. (lg)
Re-opening of the Statue of Liberty after the tragedy of 9/11. (nc)
2005 February 12: The Gates, Central Park , New York 1979-2005 opens. 7,503 orange gates, made of: 5,290 Tons of US Steal, 60 Miles of Vinyl Tube, and 1,067,330 square feet of saffron colored, recyclable, nylon rip-stop fabric are built along the pathways of the park to be removed on February 28, 2005. (mk)
August, blackout. (nc)
September 11, Niki moves to NYC. (nc)
Transit strike (12.20 - 12.22). (br)
MTA strike paralyzes the city for two and a half days. (lg)
2006 75th Anniversary: Empire State Building stands at over 1300' and is again New York City's tallest skyscraper. Emory Roth & Sons was the chief contractor that erected the building completed in 1931. (mz)
CBGB, a legendary music club at 315 Bowery, which launched the careers of such acts as the Ramones, Madonna, Blondie, and Talking Heads, closes. (an)
Joe Sitt's Thor Equities purchases most of the land currently occupied by the Coney Island Astroland park, with plans to destroy it and build large luxury condominiums and grotesque vegas-esque attractions. (an)
2011 100th Anniversary: New York Public Library is New York's Largest free library open to the public in all five boroughs of the City of New York. It officially opened in 1911 displacing the site of the New York City Reservoir. It is located on the corner of East 42 Street and Fifth avenue and is a national Landmark. (mz)
REFERENCES and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:
HOMBERGER, Eric. The Historical Atlas of
THE NEW YORK TIMES : The Decades.
http://www.nytimes.com/specials/nyc100/contents.html