NY Dead (Norumbega Characters pt 2)

NYC Maze characters bios (work in progress)

Peter Stuyvesant - The first stop for the boat the Great Crow (Groote Gerrit) was Curacao, and Peter Stuyvesant arrived in NYC on May 11 1647. Also on board was his wife Judith. During Peter Stuyvesants rule, travellers were allowed to buy anything at anytime for economic reasons. Stuyvesant's 1653 wall replaced the old animal wall, with sharpened 16 foot logs, that were secured 4 feet deep. Starting just north of Wall and Pearl, it stretched to the Hudson river, and turned south till the northwestern side of Trinity graveyard. Stuyvesant created the first real jail in NYC, inside Fort Amsterdam in 1653. Stuyvesants plan enlarged and fortified the canal (which became Broad Street) to Beaver Street. Ironicly thats where Stuyvesant last stood as the final Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam. Stuyvesant established the NYC's first Poorhouse at 21-23 Beaver Street in 1653. Stuyvesant cared alot for the protection of New Amsterdam against fire, in 1653, he hired four fire wardens to inspect all the buildings in town, also organizing a paid police force of 8 men. Peter Stuyvesant also authorized a municipal wharf, at Pearl and Moore. Peter Stuyvesant lost his right leg, fighting the Portuguese in the West Indies. Besides rebuilting the crumbling fort, Peter Stuyvesant also started the Rattle Watch, and made sure chimneys were built better (no more wooden ones). Peter Stuyvesant, opened a free school at the Stadt Huys. The first hospital was opened during Peter Stuyvesant's 16 years in office. Stuyvesant built a fence in 1653, along the North side of Wall Street. This 12 foot wooden stockade wall was removed by 1699. Peter Stuyvesant wanted to fight but the town had other ideas, like giving peace a chance. So Stuyvesant brokered a peace deal with the British Navy without firing a shot. Haystacks seemed to cause many fires, so it was the first thing they moved out of town after after Peter Stuyvesant built the Wall street wall. After surrendering to the British in 1664, Peter Stuyvesant marched with Dutch soldiers to the beat of loud drums, down Beaver Street to the Broad Street canal , where the rowboat took him to where his boat to Holland was docked. Curaçao emerged as a center of the slave trade, and was the most valuable of the 3 islands (due to its deep water harbor) the Dutch seized in 1633. In 1638, Peter Stuyvesant became the governor of Curacao.

On Dec. 31 1655, Peter Stuyvesant made the following laws. The first offense of firing of guns or just beating a drum was 12 guilders, 24 for the second, and arbitrary correction for the 3rd offense. Planting a May-pole was prohibited, maypole celebrations often got out of control, so they were banned. Peter Stuyvesant enacted laws on Jan. 25 1658, that made playing tennis during church service hours illegal, and outlawed the sick game of pulling the goose. Peter Stuyvesant tried to end the Indian wampum currency and substitute Dutch coins, but the Dutch company disagreed and did not want the valuable coins lost in the New World.

With 7 ships and 600 to 700 men, Peter Stuyvesant retook Fort Casimir in New Sweden up the Delaware River, on September 11, 1655, and by September 25th Fort Christina in New Sweden surrendered. Peter Stuyvesant had to pay the Indians gunpowder and lead as ransom for 100 women & children held captive for 2 years after 1655. 28 farms were destroyed in the Peach war, and 40 citizens were killed. Peter Stuyvesant called his mansion at the watery end of Whitehall Street, Government House. More famous than Whitehall was Peter Stuyvesant Bouwerij (farm) where he retired during English rule. Music legend Loudon Wainwright III, and son Rufus Wainwright were related to Peter Stuyvesant. Judith Bayard was the sister of Peter Stuyvesant's brother-in-law Samuel Bayard who was married to Peter's sister, Anna Stuyvesant. Peter and Judith had 2 kids, both boys, Balthasar Lazarus in 1647 and Nicolaes Willem in 1648. Judith Bayard Stuyvesant, was born in Holland, but died in New York in 1687. Judith Bayard Stuyvesant's father was French protestant Balthazar Bayard. It was while Peter Stuyvesant was Governor of Curacao in the West Indies, that he lost his leg. Curacao and Saint Martin were the only two Spanish colonies that the Dutch had conquored successfully. The Dutch failed when they attempted to take over Puerto Rico. Dutch Brazil had all territory from Cabo de Santo Agostinho in the south to Rio Grande in the north. The Dutch held Bahia (Salvador), Brazil from 1624 - 1625, but a Portuguese revolt forced the Dutch to surrender in 1654. Peter Stuyvesant's wife was named Judith Bayard Stuyvesant, she was born in Holland, and died in New York in 1687, Judith was the sister of Samuel Bayard. Anna Bayard was Stuyvesant's widowed sister who sailed with her 4 kids on the same boat that brought Peter to NYC. Balthazar Johannes Stuyvesant was Peter Stuyvesant father. Peter Stuyvesant's son Nicholas William was born in 1648, and died in 1698. Nicholas married Maria Beckman, the daughter of William Beckman. Peter Stuyvesant's son, Balthazar Stuyvesant signed the petition with 92 other NYC citizens to surrender NYC to the British without bloodshed. Peter Stuyvesant yielded eventually after proclaiming I would rather be carried to my grave. Augustus van Horne Stuyvesant, Jr. was the last direct descendant to Peter Stuyvesant. Cannon salutes were only used for important arrivals, they almost used up all their gunpowder to mark Peter Stuyvesant's arrival. On March 24, 1653, Stuyvesant made the first Wednesday of each month, a fast and prayer day. Peter Stuyvesant used the militia and the fort garrison to wage war on the Swedes who were living off the Delaware river. The Esopus Indians lived close to what is now Kingston, NY, when they started pillaging and burning the town Peter Stuyvesant sent soldiers. The Esopus Indians were the last Indian tribe to go on the warpath during Dutch rule. Too many gardens were listed on the city plans. All the gardens inside the wall seemed to make the directors in Amsterdam mad. A more compact use of land would be easier to control and more economical, they claimed and admonished Peter Stuyvesant.

Judith Bayard Stuyvesant - Peter Stuyvesant's wife was named Judith Bayard Stuyvesant, she was born in Holland, and died in New York in 1687, Judith was the sister of Samuel Bayard. Judith Bayard was Peter Stuyvesant's wife, they had no daughters.

Christopher Colles - In 1774, Christopher Colles created NYC's first log pipeline, reservoir and pumping station on White Street, just East of Broadway. Christopher Colles built a sterm engine in 1787, for a steamboat in the Collect Pond, but it was to big.

Aaron Burr - Aaron Burr ended up pennyless, he did not start his life that way. Born in Newark, New Jersey, on February 6, 1756. In 1769, Burr schooled at the College of New Jersey (Princeton University). His parents both died when he was 2 years old in 1758, his older sister (2 years older) Sally and Aaron lived with his grandparents who also died of yellow fever in 1758.
At 19 years old he was fighting in the the Continental Army at the 1775 Battle of Quebec. The winter was deadly for the 1,100 men crossing Maine, living on dogs, reptiles and their own shoes.
Burr's first law practice was in Albany in 1782.
When Burr was only 20 years old, he worked writing letters for George Washington, but after 6 weeks of working with the Commander in Chief, he resigned to go back to the front lines of the war. Washington never trusted him again.
A brigade commanded by the late General Silliman was taken by General Knox to defend the small Bunker Hill fort at Grand and Lafeyette streets. The British cut off the Island 3 miles north which halted General Knox's willingness to heed Washington's order to retreat to Harlem Heights. Aid-de-camp to General Putnam, Major Aaron Burr rescued this brigade on Monday September 16, 1776.
Burr married his first widow, Theodosia Prevost who gave birth to his daughter Theodosia Bartow Burr in 1783. Theodosia Prevost died in 1794.
While Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State he lived on Maiden Lane, Aaron Burr also lived on Maiden Lane before in 1797.
When Burr defeated General Philip Schuyler for Senator (1791-1797), he started the snowball rolling with Schuyler's son in law Alexander Hamilton.
While Burr was a Senator from NY, he wanted access to historical archives to write the History of the Revolutionary War of America, George Washington had Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson block his access to this restricted library. Aaron Burr's journalist urges were calmed after he started the New York Morning Chronicle on October 1, 1802, which had articles by Washington Irving, and was edited by his brother Peter Irving.
Burr had two duels with John Church in 1799.
Aaron Burr's 1799 Manhattan Company's reservoir was located on the north side of Chambers between Elk and Centre, in front of its well (on the west side of Centre Street between Reade & Duane) by the southern side of the Little Collect Pond.
The duel with Hamilton was due to multiple reasons; they were long-standing political rivals and personal enemies for years; Hamilton was angered by Burrs using the towns fresh water supply to start a rival bank in 1799; When Burr ran for Governor of New York in 1804 as an independent candidate, and Hamilton opposed his candidacy (using rumors and slander in the press), Hamilton attacked and ruined Burr's bid, which made Morgan Lewis governor of New York from 1804-1807; Hamilton's interference prevented Burr from being President, instead of a Vice President (1801-1805).
The Richmond Hill mansion was first called the Mortier House, was built between Varick, Charlton, MacDougal, and King streets, by the Paymaster of the British Army, Andrew Mortier.
Before the Battle of Long Island, George Washington slept here, it was his NYC residence starting on April 13th, 1776 (Washington used the mansion at #1 as his headquarters as well).
Between June 1789 until August 1790, Richmond Hill was the official residence of John Adams when he was Vice President. Burr rescued General Knox's brigade on September 16, 1776. Burr was an aide to George Washington (writing speeches for 6 weeks), and met him time to time at Richmond Hill. Burr then became the aide-de-camp to General Israel Putnam. Washington left Richmond Hill before he retreated to Harlem Heights around September 13, 1776, when he moved uptown to the Roger Morris mansion (later called the Jumel Mansion).
One of the last of the British officers who took over the Richmond Hill mansion was Sir Guy Carleton, the last commander of the British Army. After 1783, when the British left NYC, the Richmond Hill mansion was left abandoned.
In 1794, Burr moved up to the 1760 Richmond Hill mansion on a high hill between Varick, Charlton, King and MacDougal streets. Burr widened the part of the stream that ran down Charlton street by creating a dam on the Manetta stream which created a waterway known as Burrs pond. Burr lived at Richmond Hill until 1804.
After 7 years of leasing the Richmond Hill from the Episcopal Trinity Church (for peanuts), and dueling Alexander Hamilton, Burr transfered the 69 year lease of Richmond Hill to the original John Jacob Astor (who made a killing when real estate in the neighborhood boomed). In 1820 John Jacob Astor moved the mansion to the southeast corner of Varick and Charlton streets (about 100 feet east of Varick to be exact).
In 1822 the Richmond Hill mansion opened as a summer resort. In 1831, the mansion was converted to a fashionable theatre called the Richmond Hill Theatre, in 1832, the theatre featured Italian Operas. Before it was torn down in 1849, Richmond Hill ended its historic journey as the Tivoli Gardens.
Madame Eliza Bowen Jumel - French Caribbean plantation owner Stephen Jumel (who made his fortune as a wine merchant) bought it from British Colonel Roger Morris (who built Mount Morris as a summer retreat for him and his wife Mary Philipse) in 1810. Stephen's wife Madame Eliza Bowen Jumel was a former prostitute married him in 1804, and left him almost penniless by 1822, but she returned to NYC from Paris to try to regain their fortune. Stephen Jumel joined her 6 years later where they lived comfortable until he died at 70 years old from an accidental fall. George Washington took over the Morris-Jumel Mansion between September 14 and October 20, 1776. Aaron Burr married Madame Eliza Jumel and lost her money in a scheme to create a German colony in Texas. The marriage soon collapsed. Eliza Jumel died alone on July 16, 1865, at 92 years old.
After looking at his spectacles in his attendants hands, Aaron Burr's last word from his death bed in Port Richmond, Staten Island was Madame (referring to Madame Jumel, who he wanted to get the glasses).
Hamilton opened his 1783 law office at his home at 33 Wall Street then at 58 or 67 Wall Street from 1783-1790. Burr found one nearby at 10 Cedar street, and lived upstairs. Burr had numerous law office locations on Nassau Street, at 9, 23 or 73 Nassau Street (many just cubbyholes in size). When he was 78 and married Madame Jumel his law office was at 23 Nassau and he lived in Jersey City. A later Burr law office location was by the Collect Pond, at 11 Reade street, just west of Centre street, this location was right across from the main water pump of his Manhattan Company.
In 1799, when Burr started the Manhattan Company scheme to open up a bank (which opened 6 months later) that opposed Hamilton's Federalist Bank of New York (which only gave loans to Federalist's), he was a member of the New York Assembly. Using the scare of yellow fever, Burr pushed his own companies water bill through the Legislature through political manipulation which got the approval of Governor Jay. Citizens became angered when they realized the real purpose of the Manhattan Company, and many never trusted him again (he was defeated at the following election). By 1840, the Manhattan Company had 25 miles of wooden pipes and fourteen miles of iron pipes, working 3 feet under street level. The water was raised from underground wells and springs by a steam pump, and stored 15 feet above the level of nearby Broadway. The huge water tank took up 3/4 of a building that was formerly on the corner of Reade and Centre streets. Smaller lateral pipes ran from the main water pipes to the houses that paid the $10 fee (besides the monthly water bills). The supply was far from pure or wholesome, often polluted water from the Collect pond contaminated the water, whose pipes were often leaking or totally offline. Croton water came to NYC's rescue in 1842.
Aaron Burr introduced the widowed Dolley Payne to James Madison, the fourth President of the United States. Mrs. Payne ran a boarding house in Philadelphia (the Capital at the time), where Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson roomed during the George Washington administration.
Burrs trial for treason in 1807
Burr was broke and exiled in Paris until he was 55 years old.
Aaron Burr re-opened up his NYC law offices at the age of 55, after returning from exile in 1812. His daughter Theodosia, who sailed on the schooner Patriot from Georgetown South Carolina was lost at sea to the storms or the pirates.
When he was 77, Burr's old friends moved him to the John Jay House on Bowling Green, after his health and spirit were broken after his 4 month marriage to Madame Jumel (July 1st, 1833 - Oct 1833). The last years of Burr's life, he spent in poverty. Shortly after the John Jay House was torn down in 1836, Burr died obscure and pennyless. Burr's final days were in Port Richmond (then called Mersereau's Ferry), Staten Island, he died on September 14th, 1836, at the ripe old age of 80. Aaron Burr was buried in the college grounds in Princeton, NJ. Alexander Hamilton's branch of Government (Federalist Party) was pro-British, Aaron Burr's party (Republicans) was pro-France.

Aaron Burr based his first law practice in Albany in 1782, but later opened the first of his many NYC law offices near Alexander Hamilton's home and law office at 33 Wall Street, at 10 Cedar Street, and lived upstairs. Burr’s numerous law office locations included Nassau Street, at 9, 23 or 73 Nassau Street; many of them just cubbyholes. After he won the VP election of 1800, Aaron Burr became America’s third vice president, serving 1801-1805. Burr’s victory was thanks in part to Tammany; John Adams might have been re-elected if he won NY State. Burr was historically noted as the first vice president not to win the presidency.

Burr lived on Maiden Lane before moving to the Richmond Hill estate that George Washington once used as his headquarters. While Thomas Jefferson served as Secretary of State in 1790, he lived at a small rented house at 57 Maiden Lane. In 1929, the Home Insurance Company unveiled a plaque honoring Thomas Jefferson on their high rise headquarters building at 57 Maiden Lane.

America's first legal “dream team” consisting of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and Brockholst Livingston (who would be appointed to the Supreme Court) defended carpenter Levy Weeks, who most likely killed Gulielma (Elma) Sands and dumped her body in the Manhattan Well on Spring and Greene Streets. Thanks to this dream team, Weeks was acquitted of her December 22nd, 1799, murder.

The back story was that after three years of staying at her cousin Catherine Rings’ apartment, Elma Sands was to be wed to Levy Weeks, who also was living in the building. Witnesses saw Weeks’ brother Ezra’s sleigh near the well, and other witnesses heard a girl scream “Murder!” The Weeks brothers were doing construction for Alexander Hamilton at the Hamilton Grange in Harlem Heights, a connection that led to his defending Weeks.

After the judge freed Weeks, Catherine Rings rose from her courtroom seat, pointed to Hamilton and cursed him, saying, “If thee dies a natural death, I shall think there is no justice in heaven.” Four years later on July 11th, 1804, Catherine Rings must have been celebrating Hamilton's death from the hands of another lawyer at her cousin’s murder trial.

Burr was indicted in both New York and New Jersey for murdering Hamilton, but the charges were dismissed or resulted in acquittal so he was never jailed or even fined. After he left the vice presidency in 1805, Burr wanted to secede from America and form his own monarchy in western North America. Wanting to lead an insurrection into Spanish possessions in Mexico got him arrested in 1807 for treason, but he was acquitted once again. Burr’s self-exile to Europe lasted several years, but he returned to practice law again.

At the age of 55, Burr re-opened his NYC law offices in June 1812. His offices on Reade Street just east of Broadway were where A.T. Stewart's Marble Palace building now stands. A later Burr law office was located by the Collect Pond, at 11 Reade Street just west of Centre Street, right across from the main water pump of his Manhattan Company.

Burr’s few remaining friends moved him to the Jay House on Bowling Green after his quick marriage to Madame Jumel. When the Jay House was torn down in 1836, Burr moved to Port Richmond, Staten Island. After a long rich life, Burr died in comparative obscurity and poverty on September 14th, 1836. He was 80 when his story ended.

Aaron Burr's daughter, Theodosia Burr Alston, who owned the old carriage house (between 7th Avenue and West 4th Street), still haunts the One If By Land, Two If By Sea restaurant at 17 Barrow Street.

Aaron Burr's scheme to start a bank to rival Alexander Hamilton's Bank of New York (established March 1784; opened June 9th, 1784) exploited the city's water needs. The Manhattan Company put its water pipes only in neighborhoods they could profit off. In 1799, Aaron Burr's Manhattan Company used the yellow fever epidemic and newly invented steam engines to gain exclusive water supply rights to Collect Pond. The first meeting of the directors of the Manhattan Company was held at Edward Barden's Tavern on April 11th, 1799. Daniel Ludlow was chosen president of the Manhattan Company.

The Manhattan Company's reservoir, located on the north side of Chambers between Elk and Centre, was constructed in front of its well (on the west side of Centre Street between Reade & Duane Streets) by the southern side of the Little Collect Pond. Burr had $2 million of capital ready for this ambitious project. The Manhattan Company also had a sneaky clause permitting the company to use surplus capital to purchase stocks, and invest in other lines of business and moneyed transactions. It worked and this clause paved the way to NYC's second bank with the approval of the Legislature and Governor Jay’s signature. The Bank of the Manhattan Company (eventually Chase Manhattan) started business at 40 Wall Street September 1st, 1799. On the seal of the Manhattan Company was the Greek sea god Oceanus. The Manhattan Company doomed the tea water pumps and any attempt to construct a more reliable supply of water.

In 1800, the Manhattan Company wells first brought water to a mere 400 upper-class home subscribers through its six miles of wooden (pine) pipes (an idea stolen from Christopher Colles). By 1836, the Manhattan Company expanded up to Bleecker Street with a total of 25 miles of pipes in NYC, which supplied 2,000 homes. Years later 40 miles of its badly built pipes brought its muddy water to over 50,000 citizens. Citizens above Grand Street on the east side were so disgusted by the water, they wouldn’t patronize the Manhattan Company, and no water pipes were ever built in that part of NYC. Firefighters couldn't even access Manhattan water to extinguish fires in that part of town.

Manhattan Company's hollow log-based waterworks were often offline because the water was often causing clogs, leaking or contaminated. The Croton water in 1842 killed the water monopoly of the Manhattan Company, but until 1925, Chase Manhattan Bank's charter forced it to pump water twice a week from the well on the NW corner of Reade and Centre (across from Burr's law office 11 Reade).

The Federalists Bank of New York (founded March 1784) was the first bank in NYC and the country until 1792, when the Federalists also opened a branch of the First Bank of the United States (whose headquarters in Philadelphia opened December 12th, 1791). The Bank of New York was first located at the three-story Walton House at 67 St. George Square (now 326 Pearl Street) just south of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Bank of New York in the Walton House opened up a few months before the British left NYC on November 25th, 1784. From June 9th, 1784 to 1799, no other political party member could get access to funds like the Federalists could. Burr's Manhattan Company Bank was run by Democrats (who at the time were called Republicans), the minority political party in that era of NYC. To combat the Manhattan Company Bank, Hamilton opened up the Merchants Bank in 1804, directly next door at 42 Wall Street.

In the autumn of 1805, all the banks moved out of lower Manhattan due to yellow fever. The Manhattan Company bought land east of the Bowery by the East River, somewhere in the East Village or Lower East Side. In the two years between 1833 and 1835, Greenwich Village property values rose 400 percent. The Merchants Bank of New York and The Bank of the Manhattan Company merged on March 29th, 1920. It looked like even in death, Burr won another duel with Hamilton. In 1955, the Manhattan Company merged with Chase National to create the Chase Manhattan Bank. Burr's and Hamilton dueling pistols are on display at the executive conference floor of the JP Morgan Chase bank at 277 Park Avenue.

Alexander Hamilton - Alexander Hamilton was born illegitimate and escaped being a pennyless orphan by coming to NYC. Americas first Secretary of the Treasury left the West Indies when he was 12 and went to NYC to be educated at Kings College. Elizabeth Schuyler married Alexander Hamilton in 1780. The Schuyler's were one of the distinguished families in NYC, which put Hamilton at the top of NYC society. By 1782 Hamilton was elected a member of the Continental Congress. Hamilton tried to ruin John Adams Presidency and stop Thomas Jefferson run for President in 1800, but after the Federalist House of Representatives deadlocked, he pushed for Jefferson over Burr. Burr ran for Governor of New York, and Hamilton opposed his candidacy, using rumors and slander Hamilton attacked and ruined Burrs bid, and supported Morgan Lewis. Alexander Hamilton founded the first US Bank in 1784, it was the Bank of New York. As 49 year old Hamilton lay dieing in a house on Jane Street, he told the preist that he had no ill-will against Col. Burr, and refused to harm him. After a handwritten note of Hamilton's death was tacked up at the Tontine Coffee House, 335 merchants and stockbrokers agreed with the common council to wear a black armband for 30 days. In 1691, Andrew Hamilton tried to establish a postal service for all the colonies. Alexander Hamilton was 32 when he organized the writers of the Federalist papers. Hamilton wrote the most articles (over 50) out of the bunch. Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn was named for the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, its troops helped put down the New York Draft Riots of 1863 Fla., Ill., Ind., Kan., Neb., N.Y., Ohio and Tenn. all have Hamilton counties named after Alexander Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton's branch of the government was fiercely pro-England, while the Republicans were pro-France.

James Bogardus - James Bogardus erected cast iron buildings, shot towers and fire towers. A 10 sided, 4 story (125 feet) cast iron watchtower was built in 1853, at 253 Spring by Bogardus, just East of Varick by the end of the pre 6th ave MacDougal street. His first cast iron watchtower was built on 9th Avenue at West 33rd Street in 1851. James Bogardus's McCullough (1855) and Tatham Brothers (1856) shot towers were built with masonry walls around freestanding iron frame skeletons, very prophetic of Manhattans famous skyscrapers to come. The McCullough Shot Tower was at 63-65 Centre Street between Pearl and Worth. This 11 story 175 foot high tower was built in 1855, in only 3 months. The 10 year location of the Eccentric Mill Works (1849-1859) was by the Collect Pond at Duane and Worth, which was another metal framed structure built by James Bogardus. It was taken down to widen Duane Street. Franklin Square (Pearl and Cherry by Dover) was the location of Harper and Brothers (book publishers) building (1854-1920) also built by James Bogardus. Franklin Square (Pearl and Cherry by Dover) was the location of Harper and Brothers (book publishers) building (1854-1920) at 331 Pearl Street. This 1854 Harper and Brothers building was also built by James Bogardus.

Bill Poole (Bill the Butcher) - Member of the Bowery Boys who got his start as a Bowery B'hoy.

Hell-Cat Maggie - Maggie ran with the Whyos, she filed her front teeth before battle, using her brass fingernails.

Sadie the Goat - Queen of the head butt who hung around the docks of 4th Wards Water Street with the Charlton Street Gang

Goo-goo Knox - Goo-goo left the Gophers( A Hells Kitchen gang with street tough Stumpy Malarkey) for the Hudson Dusters.

Gallus Mag - Gallus Mag bit off Sadie the Goat ear, pickled it in a jar in the bar where she was the bouncer, and banished her from NYC

Paul Kelly - Paul Kelly lead Five Pointers Gang, an early 1900 gang that launched the Gambino family

Happy Jack Mulraney - Member of the Gophers who suffered from a partial paralysis of his facial muscles, which created his smile

Kid Dropper - Nathan Caplin aka Kaplan aka Jack the Dropper. Jewish gang leader/Con artist extraordinaire, who was killed for fighting with new rival Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen over wet wash laundry workers.

Legs Diamond - Member of the Hudson Dusters, whose members were mostly cocaine addicts from the Village who loved to rob the railroad depots

Monk Eastman (Ostermann) - The Eastman Gang was a Jewish gang that was lead by Monk Eastman (Ostermann) who owned a pet store on Broome Street in the LES.

Peter Rutgers - This brewer named Peter Rutgers, was one of the main overseers of the fire department. Peter Rutgers was first in the drivers seat on NYC's first 2 fire engines from London in 1731. Rutger's brewery was not on Stone street. A family of brewers, the Rutgers included. Jean Rutgers, their forefather, had a brewery in the early 1650's. Alice, daughter of Anthony Rutgers, married Leonard Lispenard, and one of the latter's sons (Anthony).

John Roosevelt - That alderman was the second citizen to drive NYC's first 2 fire engines from London in 1731.

Orison Blunt - The Senior Republican on the Board of Supervisors. An Industrialist gun maker who invented the ancestor of the modern Gatling gun and machine gun that was called the pepper box gun that was operated by a crank handle which could get off 70 shots per minute. President Lincoln tested it in Washington and then it was send to the front (where it was captured by the rebels). Orison Blunt after the war found it in a NYC junk shop and bought it back for $5. He also invented the breech-loading cannon. Born in Gardiner, Maine in 1816. His partner was William J Syms and they opened a gunsmith shop on Chatham street, and later moved to Broadway. Orison Blunt got into politics in 1853, by being elected Alderman of the Third ward. Board of Supervisors members Orison Blunt, Boss Tweed and Mayor George Opdyke worked together to solve the draft riot problem. Police, firemen and state militiamen were to be exempt to protect NYC. 2 million dollars of bonds sold on Wall street created a fund to pay poor workmen (decided on a case by case basis) who could never afford the $300 commutation fee. These poor draftees would be tempted with $300 cash to join Lincoln's army. Orison Blunt and Boss Tweed went on a secret mission in late August 1863, to the War Department in Washington D.C. to meet with secretary of war Edwin Stanton and the head of the draft James Barnet Fry (not Lincoiln). This meeting gave Tammany Hall through the Board of Supervisors the right to run Lincoln's NYC draft.

Boss William Marcy Tweed - Tweed was born at 1 Cherry street, close to where the Brooklyn Bridge is today. His father had a chair making business at 24 Cherry. Tweed was born at 1 Cherry Street on April 3rd,1823. His father Richard Tweed who was a blacksmith on Rutgers street and his mother Eliza lived at 1 Cherry Street at the top of the hill. Boss William Marcy Tweed was the baby of his family, he had 2 older brothers and two older sisters. Boss Tweed's first occupations were a chairmaker, a bookeeper for a saddle-maker and also kept books for a Pearl street manufacturer of brushes. At 21 years old blue eyed William Tweed married 17 year old Mary Jane Skaden in 1844, and moved into a top floor room in her fathers house at 193 Madison street.
During the draft riots of 1863 Boss Tweed was Deputy Street Commissioner. Cherry Street and Pearl Street is no longer an intersection, due to the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, but it was near Tweeds birthplace. Tweed was a fireman, a member of the Big Six, but he became a corrupt politician. For six year after 1865, Tweed stole almost $200,000,000, starting the Panic of 1873. What a cover. Boss William Marcy Tweed built hospitals and orphanages, widened Broadway and got land for Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tweed's mansion at 45th and Fifth avenue had a near by stable full of horses. John Jacob Astor and other rich New Yorkers signed a baseless certificate of character supporting Tweed (who was the third largest owner of Manhattan real estate). Tweed owned two yachts, and a race horse, he could afford them his organization raked in 1-4 billion in todays dollars. Tweed's stickpin was ten and a half carats, he also wore a blue-white gem in his shirt. Some called him the Santa Claus with a diamond pin Almost 6 foot tall, Tweed was a 300 pound non smoking non drinking ringleader of corrupt city officials, law makers and contractors. Tweed's City Hall lunch club fed his organization using fraud, money-laundering and profit sharing. The Tweed Ring pillaged approximately $13 million in city funds and used the construction of the county courthouse as a pretext to embezzle millions of dollars. Commissioner of Public Works was one of Tweed's titles. Tweed controlled every office in the city government. Tweeds ring controlled the courts, legislature, treasury and the ballot boxes. Peter Sweeny, head of the Department of Parks was part of Tweeds City Hall lunch club that started his Ring of corruption called the Tammany Ring. Tweeds organization used money-laundering, and profit sharing to commit fraud with the help of Comptroller Richard Connolly. Upstate Republicans were bribed to maintain Tweeds system of honest graft, which also applied to Mayor A. Oakey Hall. Tweeds illicit profits made him the third biggest owner of NYC real estate, and a pal of Mayor John Hoffman. After the prosecutors immense legal costs, Tweed alone became the scapegoat, but he was not the only one of the Ring that served time in jail (James H. Ingersoll spent 2 1/2 years in jail). Other Tweed Ring members were Sheriff Matthew Brennan, Mayor John Hoffman, James Kelso, and James O'Brien. Referring to Thomas Nasts cartoon images of himself, Tweed said My constituents do not know how to read, but they can not help seeing them damned pictures. Other quotes included: Nine men out of ten either know me or I know them; and As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it? Boss Tweeds last words around noon on April 12, 1878 were I hope they are satisfied now. Tweeds last words were said right after he said Well, Tilden (Samuel Jones Tilden, the New York governor) and Fairchild (Charles Fairchild, the New York State attorney general) have killed me. Tweed died April 12 of the same year (1878) in a debtors prison on Ludlow street, and was buried in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. Tweed said If I could have bought newspapermen as easily as I did members of the Legislature, I wouldn't be in the fix I am now. The Evening Post, tried to aid the Tweed ring, but it was too late. Tweed underestimated his enemies, and made a full confession (even admiting to things he was not even involved in). Ironically, Tweed was convicted in the structure (now called Tweed Courthouse at 52 Chambers) that he was responsible for building, on the south side of Chambers Street just west of Centre Street. $250,000 was the amount of the original budget of the Tweed Courthouse, it ended up almost costing twice what United States spent to purchase Alaska in 1867. It took 11 years (1861 -1872) to finish the Tweed Courthouse. During renovations of the Tweed Courthouse, in 1999 they removed the cast iron and 18 layers of paint as well as putting in new floors and roof. The triangular open space at East Broadway and Canal Street, now known as Nathan Strauss square, was once called Rutgers square, but it also had Tweed's name on the space as well, when it was called Tweed Plaza. Henry Street and Gouverneur Street was the location of Engine #6, the fire station Tweed was in charge of. Board of Supervisors members Orison Blunt, Boss Tweed and Mayor George Opdyke worked together to solve the draft riot problem. Police, firemen and state militiamen were to be exempt to protect NYC. 2 million dollars of bonds sold on Wall street created a fund to pay poor workmen (decided on a case by case basis) who could never afford the $300 commutation fee. These poor draftees would be tempted with $300 cash to join Lincoln's army. Orison Blunt and Boss Tweed went on a secret mission in late August 1863, to the War Department in Washington D.C. to meet with secretary of war Edwin Stanton and the head of the draft James Barnet Fry (not Lincoiln). This meeting gave Tammany Hall through the Board of Supervisors the right to run Lincoln's NYC draft.
5,000 poor people gathered outside Tweed's son in law, Frederick Douglass's apartment at 68 E 77th street. Tweed's coffin was oak with oxydized silver handles, that was draped with black silk velvet on the outside and quilted white satin on the inside. Plot 6,477 was just north of the entrance to the cemetery

Leonard Bleecker - One of the 24 stock brokers who started the stock exchange under a buttonwood tree at 68 Wall Street.

Hamilton Fish - Named after family friend Alexander Hamilton, this Whig became Secretary of State under Ulysses S. Grant

Molly Williams - Molly Williams was the first female firefighter . Bucket brigader Molly Williams was a slave to member James Aymar. In 1818, when fireman were sick, she helped pull the old engine through the snow.

Lillie Hitchcock Coit - In 1859, Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a NYC heiress tomboy ran with Knickerbocker Engine Company Number 5

John Jacob Astor - Born in Waldorf Germany in 1763, his first NYC job was selling doughnuts, cakes and cookies to small NYC shops. Tired and uninspired from his first job, John Jacob Astor sold flutes from his older brother Peter who manufacturered musical instruments. John Jabob also sold cheap jewelry and beads on ships in port. He started working for Quaker Fur trader Robert Bowne who hired him for $2 a week to pound furs with sticks, salted them, and take them to the tanners. John started buying and selling furs and used profits from small fur sales to afford passage back to England to get more musical instruments. His toy and German nicknack store was in a wooden shanty at 362 Pearl Street, just North of Frankfort. John Jacob Astor was considered a market entrepreneur, as well as James J. Hill, John D. Rockefeller, Charles M. Schwab and Cornelius Vanderbilt. According to Burton W. Folsom, Jr., Astor was a political entrepreneur (businessperson who relied on deals with the government, rather than competing fairly). John Jacob Astor made his fortune in the fur trade, real estate, and opium industries. John Jacob Astor had no scruples but was smart enough to keep firearms out of the sale, he did sell Indians firewater and flannel. In 1786, Astor started dealing directly with the Indians. Combated the British fur-trading monopoly in Canada with his own trading posts. The Jay Treaty opened up new markets in Canada and the Great Lakes region, and John Jacob Astor made millions. Even more money came from his speculation in government securities as John Jacob Astor acquired large tracts of real estate in New York City with his opium profits. Between 1816-1818 Astor's American Fur Company bought and sold 10 tons of Turkish opium for a huge fortune which he used to buy up large amounts of land in NY. John Jacob Astor traded furs, teas and sandalwood with Canton in China. In 1816, John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company bought ten tons of Turkish opium and shipped them to Canton on the Macedonian.

Andrew Carnegie - Andrew Carnegie's cheap and efficient mass production of steel rails for the railroad industry created U.S. Steel. Scottish-born American

John Davison Rockefeller - John Davison Rockefeller was the most infamous robber barons whose monopolistic practices turned him around to become a Northern Baptist Philanthropist. He was born in Richford, New York.

John Jacob Astor IV - Astoria Hotel builder who went down with the Titanic on April 15, 1912, after putting his wife and unborn baby in a Lifeboat. He was born in Rhinebeck, New York.

Daniel Webster - Lived at 19 Broadway

Jean Moreau - planned a campaign against Napoleon, and lived at 119-121 Pearl in Captain William Kidd's old house.

Captain William Kidd - In 1691, the Scotland born privateer Captain William Kidd (who had to be hanged twice) lived at the same address at 119-121 Pearl Street as Jean Moreau who planned a campaign against Napoleon. Other addresses of Captain William Kidd were at 126 William street and 56 Wall Street. Kidd bought the 56 Wall street home from Governor Dongan when the Wall on Wall street was torn down.

Abraham De Peyster - This NYC born city official and merchants statue stood in Hanover Square (he was first in Bowling Green and is heading to City Hall Park). Abraham De Peyster's three story mansion was built in 1690 on 178-180 Pearl street, between Cedar and Pine street. Abraham De Peyster was NYC's Mayor from 1692-1695.

Johannes de Peyster - Johannes de Peyster was a Dutch Burgher in old NYC. Burghers and Freemen had the right to operate stores.

Thomas Edison - Edison's Pearl Street station opened in 1882 at 255 and 257 Pearl Street. This generating station made his light bulb commercially viable enough to compete with gas (with in 1/2 mile). On April 23, 1896, Thomas Edison gave the first public demonstration of his Vitascope movie projector, in Koster & Bial, which was a concert hall that was once the former Manhattan Opera House owed by Oscar Hammerstein, Sr.

Theodore Roosevelt - Teddy was born in a Brownstone at 28 E. 20th Street, NYC

Nicholas Byardt (Bayard) - Elizabeth and Ann (Former name of Grand Street) were named after kids from Nicholas Bayard's 1st wife. The Downtown Ann was named after Mrs. Ann White, who was married to Capt. Thomas White a developer and merchant. Nicholas's daughter Hester married John Van Cortlandt. Judith was another Bayard daughter. Relative of the Stuyvesants, when Peter and his sister married Bayards. Nicholas owned Bayards farm and a house between Pearl and Stone (1 Hanover st) near Beaver & William. Nicholas Bayard came over with Peter Stuyvesant from Holland, he was a butcher and a brewer whose wife Judith Verlett, was once locked up in Hartford Conneticut as a witch. Nicholas Bayard was a strong opponent of Leisler, but was sentenced to death for treason by General Bellomont (reversed by English courts). Nicholas Bayard's daughter Hester married John Van Cortlandt.

Robert Herring - Cornelia Street in 1794, was part of the farm of Robert Herring. He named the the street after his granddaughter Cornelia. Robert Herring's granddaughter was named Cornelia. Herring's farm (originally Harinck, and also spelled Haring) stretched beyond Broadway to the east of the farm which included Washington Square Park.

Cornelius Dircksen - In 1638, Cornelius Dircksen's boat could be summoned by a toot from a horn that was hanging from a tree at Pearl and Dover streets. Farmer Cornelius Dircksen ran the first ferry service across the East River, rowing his boat from Pecks slip at Pearl and Dover streets to Fulton's landing in Brooklyn.

Abraham Verplanck - Abraham Verplanck was a member of the original board of 12 Men to advised Government about Indian problem. The original board of 12 Men was assembled by Director Willem Kieft. Kieft disbanded the council because it disagreed with his military ambitions. Kieft threatened him with banishment . One of the signers of the petition requesting Peter Stuyvesant surrender to the British. On April 27, 1643, he was forced to mortgage Paulus Hook to Jan Damen and Cornelis Van Tienhoven to get a loan to overcome his lost property due to the Indian war.

Cornelis Van Tienhoven - Cornelis Van Tienhoven was the Company accountant, who got to NYC in 1633. Peter Stuyvesant made him sheriff and attorney general in 1652. He lived at 227-229 Pearl Street (by Maiden Lane). A thickset man with a red bloated face who came to NYC in 1633. He led 80 soldiers to Hoboken to kill sleeping Indians, he also caused the Peach War. To avoid a court of inquiry he planned his own disappearance. Cornelis Van Tienhoven was smart, subtle and sharp-witted, but considered an atrocious villain, murderer and traitor.

Fernando Wood - In his second term as Mayor, Fernando Wood wanted NYC to secede from the North. Fernando Wood wanted to create a Free City that would continue to do business with the Confederacy that ran the cotton industry. Tammany was this shipping merchants rocketship to a political career in the Democratic party. Revenues from Southern cotton helped run Mayor Fernando Wood's Democratic machine. He was a copperhead.

Benedict Arnold - military traitor who handed West Point to the British. Using West Point as bait in 1780, this selfish soul defected to the British in exchange for land in Canada, money, pension and a military commission. He died broke & unknown

Lt. Gov. Francis Nicholson - Lt. Gov. Francis Nicholson, the Agent for the British crown in NYC, was overthrown during Leisler's Rebellion

Tom Riley - Tom Riley was the name of a Liberty pole put up in 1835 on Washingtons birthday, in front of Tom Riley's Hotel at the southwest corner of Franklin Street and West Broadway.

Thomas Lote - In 1743, cooper and boatbuilder Thomas Lote built Old Brass Backs, the 1st fire engine in New York City.

Peter Zenger - In 1735, his New York Weekly Journal was the mouthpiece of opposition to the government. The first case of libel in NYC, came after two years of sharp barbs from his New York Weekly Journal (which started in November 5, 1733 but incorrectly dated October 5). Andrew Hamilton defended Zenger and proved all the charges printed by Zenger were true and hence not libelous. Zenger's main writer was James Alexander and it audience was the Popular party, the other newspaper was a Government mouthpiece.

Robert Randall - Robert Randall's octagonal building was set on a small hill whose southern border was on 8th street, Broadway on the east, 5th ave on West and 10th street on North. Robert Richard Randall was a philanthropist. Robert Richard Randall was buried June 5, 1801, in Sailors Snug Harbor Cemetery. This Caribbean pirate gave the Brevoort farm to the Sailors Snug Harbor charity.

James Delancy - This French Huguenot family farm was East of the Bowery by Christie and Delancy street

Anthony Bleecker - Anthony Bleecker's farm ran from Sullivan to the West to Mercer to the East, and just beyond Houston on the South.

Washington Irving - Writer Washington Irving (named after George Washington), used Diedrich Knickerbocker as a pseudonym as well as Johnathan Oldstyle and Geoffery Crayon. Mocking Dutch customs, Washington Irving created a 25 year old history scholar in his 1809 book A History of New York. The Allmighty Dollar was a quote from Washington Irving's 1855 story The Creole Village. The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages. Edward Windust's restaurant (1824-1865) on Ann street was NYC's most famous resort in the days of the Park Theatre, customers included Washington Irving and Femimore Cooper.

George Clinton - The 1st Governor of New York who was elected in 1777.

Thomas Willett - The 1st Mayor of NYC (1665-1666). On June 12, 1665, Thomas Willett was appointed Mayor of New York, by Governor Richard Nicolls. A Lower East Side street that climbs Mount Pitt is named after him or Sons Of Liberty member Colonel Marinus Willett ( NY Sheriff 1784-88) & became Mayor in 1807.

Richard Nicolls - Richard Nicolls was the first English governor, who gave New York its name after he seized the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in 1664. After the British took NYC in 1664, Richard Nicolls became Governor of NYC, almost 25 years after the Militia was first formed.

Thomas Delavall - Thomas Delavall was second, fifth and eleventh (1666, 1671, 1678) Mayor of NYC, born in London he came to America with the English army in 1664.

Cornelius Van Steenwyck - The 4th Mayor of NYC from 1668 to 1671, and fourteenth Mayor from 1682 to 1684.

Matthias Nicholls - Matthias Nicholls was NYC's 6th Mayor, who ruled in 1672 when NYC population was around 5000 people.

Sebastian Jansen Krol - Consolers of the sick, Sebastian Jansen Krol and Jan Huych would read the Bible on Sundays in a loft above Frances Moelmackers mill on William street.

Dominie Everardus Bogardus - One brewery, and three saw mills were working in 1633, when NYC's first minister Everardus Bogardus first arrived. Dominie Everardus Bogardus was the second pastor of the First Reformed Dutch Church at New Amsterdam for 14 years. Everardus Bogardus refused to preach in a horse mill, so in 1633, the citizens built a small rough wooden church on Pearl by Broad. He died at sea en route to clear his name from another doomed passenger Willem Kieft. Pastor Evardus Bogardus petitioned for Kiefts recall, and he was returning to Holland (with Kieft) to answer some charges that were brought by Kieft, when he died on the shipwreck of the Princess Amelia. After minister Everardus Bogardus denounced Director Kieft from his pulpit: Director Kieft made his soldiers play ninepins close to the church during services; Director Kieft ordered his soldiers to sing and dance by the church during services; Director Kieft ordered his soldiers to beat their drums by the church during services; and Director Kieft ordered his soldiers to fire the cannon during services.

Dominie Jonas Michaelius - Dominie Jonas Michaelius greeted Manhattan on April 7, 1628 in the loft above the horse run grain mill south of Hanover Square, founding the first Protestant order in America.

Samuel Drisius - Samuel Drisius came to NYC in 1652, and held charge of the Church for 21 years. He was the third minister in NYC when the British took over.

Ferdinand Steinmeyer - Roman Catholic Ferdinand Steinmeyer was a Jesuit spy who was known as Mr Farmer. Catholics had to sneak to worship in a Wall street attic before the American Revolution.

Jan Huych - Consolers of the sick, Sebastian Jansen Krol and Jan Huych would read the Bible on Sundays in a loft above Frances Moelmackers mill on William street.

Jacob Leisler - He had property on Frankfort street. Many historians claim he was hung and buried by Leislers house near Printing House Square, but some claim it was at the foot of the gallows outside the Stadt Huys near Leislers property on the Strand. In 1691, after their speedy trail was over at the Stadt Huys a hole at the foot of the gallows was filled for 7 years with their bodies. Disinternment came in October of 1698, and their coffins laid in state inside the Stadt Huys for several days. Frankfort street was named after the town in Germany Jacob came from. Jacob Leisler was executed by this drunken Governor in question during his 6 months in office.

Stoffel Mighielsen - Stoffel Mighielsen-towncryer

George Dieterich - A NYC baker (Waldorf born ) who gave John Jacob Astor a great way to explore and meet the merchants. George Dieterich was a baker who in 1784, lived at 351 Pearl Street (Queen Street at the time) at the corner of Frankfort and Pearl. This German baker knew John Jacob Astor from Europe, and got him work selling donuts, cakes and cookies to stores.

Asser Levy - In November 1655, he overturned the ban on Jews in the citizens guards, he also gained the right to have a trade, and opened the first kosher butcher

John Bowne - His 1662 act of civil disobedience against Stuyvesants Quaker ban, was pardoned by the Dutch West India Company. This ended religious bias (for the most part) in early NYC

Robert Hodgson - In 1657, this young Quaker had to choose a fine of 100 guilders or push a wheelbarrow for two years. He was hung by his hands and beaten for many days.

Sybout Claesen - a carpenter who built the Schoeynge, which was sheet piling with a wooden siding. This early wall guarded Pearl Street and City Hall against the East Rivers high tide. Sybout Claesen created the wall and a wooden supported waterfront in 1654 to 1656, called De Waal.

Diedrich Knickerbocker - An imaginary historic writer. Mocking Dutch customs, Washington Irving created a 25 year old history scholar in his 1809 book A History of New York

Johannes Megapolensis - Protestant minister Johannes Megapolensis came to NYC in 1649, after preaching to the Indians for 7 years (since 1642).

Jacob Hendricksen Varravanger - On December 23 1658, with one matron and a simple house Jacob Hendricksen Varravanger started to help the sick soldiers who had no families and for the companies negroes.

Hans Kiersted - In 1638, Hans Kiersted became the first surgeon of the Dutch West India Company to come to NYC. He became the top colonial physician, his Kiersted or Kierstede ointment was used as an antiseptic until the early 19th century.

Johannes La Montagne - Johannes La Montagne was a Huguenot physician who came to NYC in 1637, and quickly outclassed the local shop surgeons.

Jacob L Orange - Jacob L Orange was appointed in 1658, by the West Indies Company to practice in NYC.

Samuel Staats - Samuel Staats was the best known doctor in 17th century NYC.

George Clinton - The daughter of New York Governor George Clinton was Catherine Clinton, who became the first wife of Pierre Van Cortlandt the son of the first Lieutenant Governor of NY state.

Dewitt Clinton - Dewitt Clinton was the first student at Columbia College. May 19, 1784, the old Kings college reopened after the Revolutionary war, and Dewitt Clinton (the Father of the Erie Canal) was de first pupil. Dewitt Clinton and David Provost were regulars of the Shakespeare Tavern, at the Southeast corner of Fulton and Nassau Streets. The 7th Regiment was organized at this Tavern. Dewitt Clinton was NYC's 1st mayor to occupy the current City Hall.

William Samuel Johnson - William Samuel Johnson's dad was the first president of Kings College, he became the first president of Columbia College in 1787, until 1800.

Chancellor Livingston - Chancellor Livingston helped the development of steam navigation.

Myles Cooper - Myles Cooper was the second President of Columbia College at 26 year old. This Tory had wit, but it angered the patriotic mob that chased him back to England.

John Stevens - John Stevens was part of the Kings College Class of 1768, he introduced the steam railway and the screw propeller.

Napoleon LeBrun - Napoleon LeBrun and sons built 42 firehouses in NYC. The Engine Company No. 5 at 340 East 14th Street, is a 1880 structure that is the only LeBrun building still used as a firehouse. Napoleon LeBrun also built the Science Building at the Packer School in Brooklyn Heights in 1887. Engine Company 36 which originated as Fire Hook & Ladder Company No. 14 at 120 East 125th street by Lexington Avenue was a Romanesque Revival Style house that was built by Napoleon. Engine #6 at 269 Henry street near Gouverneur and St. Cecilias Church at 120 E 106th st were also LeBrun's. Engine Co. 14 at 5th ave & 18th street was a LeBrun Renaissance Revival house. Firemans Hall at 155 (120) Mercer Street by Prince street was home of Hose Co #5. This 1836 house was built before Napoleon LeBrun started builting anything. The 19th Police Precinct on 153 E 67th St is also a LeBrun. From 1879 to 1894, Napoleon LeBrun and Sons built all the FDNY buildings.

Hendrick Van Dyck - Hendrick Van Dyck started the Peach war, by killing a squaw who was stealing fruit from his orchard. The Indian response was 64 canoes of almost 500 Indians pouring into a defensless town (Stuyvesant and his army was fighting the Swedes by the Delaware). Van Dyck was pierced by an arrow and died.

Juan (Jan) Rodrigues - Jan Rodrigues was a mixed African and Spanish fur trader that came from Santo Domingo who crossed paths with Dutch explorer Captain Adrian Block, he was living on Nut Island in 1624. Juan (Jan) Rodrigues a Spaniard from Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic and Haiti). Jan Rodrigues was the first non indian merchant in NYC, this black (mulatto) man was a Spaniard from Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic and Haiti). He was the first non native to live in NYC. He was a former crewman from the boat Jonge Tobias who traded and lived among the natives in 1612 (w/o support of a harbor ship). Fleets first came to the New World looking for cod and herring. In the 1500's, French and English fishing fleets came to the New World to fish for cod, pollack and herring and sailed home. The first one here is not to be confused with William Rodriguez (the last one out)

The Dutch explorer/lawyer Adrian Block, sailed away with his two Indians, Valentine and Orson in 1611. Orson killed Hendrick Christaensz on the Hudson River abord the Swarte Beer in 1619. Dutch lawyer Adrian Block spent the winter of 1613-1614, in NYC and survived thanks to the Indians. Tiger was the name of his boat that burnt and stranded him for the winter, while Restless was the name of the boat he built, to leave NYC the next Spring.

Adrian Block - Adrian Block (Adriaen) was a Dutch attorney and explorer whose boat Tijger (Tiger) caught fire while docked in a bay and stranded Block and his crew in Manhattan for a Winter. While shipwrecked in Lower Manhattan in 1613-1614, Adrian and crew built an escape boat called the Restless. After he returned to the Netherlands, the Dutch officials created Nieuw Nederlandt. Adriaen Block's ship supposedly caught fire right off a bay off the Hudson river by the World Trade Center site or down by Battery Park. Most historians insist that the plot of the former Trade Towers was the location where the Tiger burnt, and that the shipmates built huts by 39-41 Broadway, but I disagree. A bigger and easier managed bay where his docked boat could have caught fire, was off the quieter East River up the Collect Pond stream. which could be the source for the name Old Wreck Brook. This large bay off the East River between Dover and James streets, existed before NYC's widening of its coast through landfill. Adrian's boat took fire when it was anchored in a bay, the one by the outlet of the Collect was the largest downtown bay, and close to the Collect Fresh Water pond, which would have been the perfect place to survive. Adrian's boat was shipwrecked on NYC in 1613 and stayed the winter, but he was not the first non native, Juan (Jan) Rodriguese was. The Dutch explorer/lawyer Adrian Block, sailed away with his two Indians, Valentine and Orson in 1611. Orson killed Hendrick Christaensz on the Hudson River abord the Swarte Beer in 1619. Dutch lawyer Adrian Block spent the winter of 1613-1614, in NYC and survived thanks to the Indians. Tiger was the name of his boat that burnt and stranded him for the winter, while Restless was the name of the boat he built, to leave NYC the next Spring. Fleets first came to the New World looking for cod and herring. In the 1500's, French and English fishing fleets came to the New World to fish for cod, pollack and herring and sailed home. Adrian Block was the first European to sail into Long Island Sound realized that Manhattan and Long Island were indeed islands. Adrian Block's boat called Tyger caught fire in a bay in Lower Manhattan, I believe it was where the Old Wreck Brook emptied into (East River), not wrecked on the rocks where the Trade Towers would soon be built (with asbestos).

Hendrick Christiaenzen - Hendrick Christiaenzen was Captain of the Fortuyn (Fortune), a Dutch ship that returned Adrian Block to the Netherlands. Hendrick Christiaensen was the captain of the Dutch ship the Fortuyn, one of the three Dutch ships that landed in NYC in 1613

Thijis Volckenz Mossel - Thijis Volckenz Mossel was the Captain of the Jonge Tobias, who sabotaged Adrian Blocks Beaver trading with the Natives, by offering them three times more than what Block was trading.

Christian Hendricksen - Most historians give Christian Hendricksen from the Netherlands the #1 spot as the founder of NYC. But before him, there was a black spanish man who seemed to be written out of NYC history.

John the Turk - John the Turk was a Moroccan Muslim who was farming early NYC.

Adrian Vanderdonck - Adrian Vanderdonck was an early explorer who sailed New York Harbor, before New Netherland was formed.

Henry Hudson - Henry Hudson never realized that Manhattan or Long Island were islands. Half Moon was Henry Hudson's ship that brought him to the New World. Mirrors were a magical item that left the Indians in awe, Henry Hudson traded mirrors with the Indians for their tobacco and furs. As future explorers came after Hudson, the Indians traded furs for blankets, kettles, guns and rum. Henry Hudson traded colorful cloth with the Indians for their tobacco and furs. Indians loved the white man tools, and how sharp they were. Henry Hudson traded knives and ax with the Indians for their tobacco and furs. England tried to legitimize its takeover of the region by claiming Hudson was a subject the king. In 1664, the British started calling the North River by the name Hudson River. Wind and ice stopped both the 1st and 2nd trips (1607 and 1608) of Henry Hudson who was hired by the Muscovy Company both times. Both trips by Hudson (for the Muscovy Company) went north and then east with the same crew. The Dutch East India Company paid $320 for Hudson's 1609, third trip north and then east, but icy wind made him try going West this time. Thomas Smith an English merchant financed the fourth trip of Henry Hudson, in 1610, which Hudson got stuck in the ice for the Winter, most of his crew mutinied and left him to die with his son and 6 other supporters. Henry Hudson discovered the Hudson Bay in 1610. The Hopewell was Henry Hudson's first boat. One Indian name for the Hudson river was Muhheakantuck, meaning great waters that flow two ways. The Hudson was called the North River since early Dutch times. England tried to legitimize its takeover of the region by claiming Hudson was a subject the king. In 1664, the British started calling the North River by the name Hudson River. Henry Hudson's boat was called the Half Moon, it was the boat Hudson and his 18 men crew sailed into the New York harbor on September 3, 1609. Hudson's Half Moon first explored the Delaware River days before (August 28th) anchoring off Sandy Hook. Robert Juet was one of Hudson's mutinous crew, he died of starvation. The first company to send Hudson in search of the North eastern passageway to Asia was the English Muscovy Company, his boat was called the Hopewell. Hudson's last voyage was on the Discovery in 1611, where he was cast adrift in a small boat with no supplies and with several supporters (and the sick) and his son John who was his Cabin Boy.

Adriaen van der Donck - This attorney, Adriaen van der Donck tried to prove the New World was Dutch in 1641, by publishing a book called A Description of the New Netherlands.

Samuel de Champlain - Samuel de Champlain was a French explorer and navigator who mapped most of the East coast of Northern America before 1607.

Giovanna Di Verrazzano - In 1524, Giovanna Di Verrazzano became the first European to explore the New York Harbor. Refugio was Verrazanos name for Narragansett Bay.

Thomas Leggett - In 1780, Thomas Leggett had a dry grocery (no rum) at the corner of Peck Slip (Dover) and Pearl, six stores South of the Bank of New York. It was during the time of the Franklin Market at Dover and Pearl.

Walter Franklin - Walter was a member of the Committe of One Hundred, after May 1st, 1775. Walter was a member of the 1st Provincial Congress of the Province of New York (which met May 23rd, 1775). Walter was a senior partner at the importing firm Franklin, Robinson & Co., that traded with China and the South Seas. Lived at the first White House before Washington at the corner of Pearl and Cherry(demolished in 1856). Franklin Square was named after him, not Benjamin, it was the most aristocratic quarter of NYC. The address on Cherry street has been listed as #1 but #8 and 10 Cherry (78 Queen Street) may be correct. Walter's widow or daughter married Samuel Osgood, who was the first Postmaster General. He died June 8, 1780. Maria Franklin his eldest daughter married Gov. De Witt Clinton. The second eldest daughter Hannah Franklin married Gov. De Witt Clinton's brother George Clinton. Walter brother was John, their father was Thomas.

Samuel Osgood - first Postmaster General and Naval Officer of the Port of NY (1803-1813). He married Walter Franklin's widow.

George Dieterich - George Dieterich was a baker who in 1784, lived at 351 Pearl Street (Queen Street at the time) at the corner of Frankfort and Pearl. This German baker knew John Jacob Astor from Europe, and got him work selling donuts, cakes and cookies to stores.

Andrew Hammersly - A 1784, dry goods merchant and ironmonger, who had his shop at 46 Hanover Square (109 Pearl Street).

Robert Lenox - Rich

John G Coster - Rich

Stephen Whitney - Rich

Nat Prime - Rich 3rd richest in NYC, Banker. suicide from a delusion he was becoming poor.

Catherine Schuyler - Daughter of Colonel John Van Rensselaer, who was born in 1734, married Major General Phillip Schuyler and had 14 kids, their 2nd kid Elizabeth married Alexander Hamilton in 1780. The Schuyler's were one of the distinguished families in NYC, which put Hamilton at the top of NYC society. By 1782 Hamilton was elected a member of the Continental Congress.

Robert Leroy Parker - Robert Leroy Parker aka Butch Cassidy came to NYC with the Sundance Kid for a few weeks before they fled the country. Harry Longabaugh aka Sundance Kid stayed at Mrs. Taylor's Boarding House for a few weeks with his girlfriend Etta Place on Feb. 1st- 20th,1901, before they both took the British steamer Herminius, to Argentina with Butch Cassidy. Mrs. Taylor's Boarding House was at 234 East 12th Street.

Harry Longabaugh - Harry Longabaugh aka Sundance Kid stayed at Mrs. Taylor's Boarding House for a few weeks with his girlfriend Etta Place on Feb. 1st- 20th,1901, before they both took the British steamer Herminius, to Argentina with Butch Cassidy. Mrs. Taylor's Boarding House was at 234 East 12th Street.

Henry McCarty - Henry McCarty aka William H. Bonney aka Billy the Kid was born in New York City in 1859, also known as Kid Antrim he lived at Allen & Grand streets until he was 4 or 5. Because Allen was widened in 1931, his old apartment might be in the middle of the north east side of Allen street.

Edward Osterman - Edward Osterman aka Monk Eastman. Pet store owner turned Gangster Monk Eastman was shot to death on Christmas night, 1920 at the SW corner of 14th Street and 4th Avenue by a subway station in front of the Bluebird Cafe at 62 East 14th Street. Shot by Jerry Bohan, a Prohibition agent who was one of his partners. Monk liked cats and pigeons but not his LES rivals the Five Pointers. Monk was short for Monkey, due to his ugly face which kept getting worse due the amazing numbers of fights he got himself into. He was part of the toughs that Tammany boss Big Tim Sullivan used on election day and for other violent events.

Arthur Flegenheimer - Arthur Flegenheimer aka Dutch Schultz was a loose canon who was taken out by Murder, Inc. on October 23, 1935 in Newark, NJ at the Palace Chop House.

Samuel J. Tilden - Samuel J. Tilden the reformer, was one of Boss Tweeds enemys.

William E. Dean - Proof of the real cause of Yellow Fever came in 1900, when an infected mosquito was tested on William E. Dean, a soldier from Troop B, Seventh Cavalry.

William Dewitt - William Dewitt, a baker on Whitehall Street, on September 8, 1795 became the 1st patient to escape Bellevue, and an early NYC yellow fever victum.

Abraham Gallatin - Established in 1816, Abraham Gallatin helped charter the Second Bank of the United States. He also was Secretary of the Treasury for Thomas Jefferson, and helped charter NYU in 1831.

Joseph B Martin - Smokey the Bear was named after Joseph B Martin. Smoky Joe grew up on East 13th street close to Engine #5, and became the Assistant Chief of the NYC Fire Department (1919-1930).

Alexander McDougall - Alexander McDougall was a leader of NYCs 1765, Sons of Liberty, he was a prosperous self-made man whose father was a milkman. The Liberty Boys had no interest in total liberty from England when they first organized. The Liberty Boys originally just wanted for Americans to decide their own taxes. The idea for freedom from religious persecution came afterwards. The Liberty Boys had a small agenda when they first organized. A Member of Parliament named Isaac Barre who was a supporter of the American colonists first called Americans the Sons of Liberty, who would resist the Stamp Act tax of 1765. The Golden Hill Inn was at 112 William street and was a frequent meeting place for the Liberty Boys. Behind this Inn on January 18, 1770 the Sons of Liberty fought the British regulars, and the first blood of the Revolution was shed. The Burns Coffee House, at 113 or 115 Broadway (by the west side of Cedar street) was the headquarters of the Sons of Liberty used to meet at before the Revolutionary war. It sat on the site of the former house of Etienne De Lancey. The Sons of Liberty made an old tavern at the NE corner of Ann & Broadway their home when it became Hampden Hall. Hampden Hall was near the resort called Spring Garden, which was just North of the shoemaker's pasture (shoemakers pasture ran on the East side of Broad street). In 1770, Montague's Tavern on Broadway opposite the fields (City Hall Park) was the headquarters of the Liberty Boys.

Isaac Sears - Isaac Sears was a leader of NYCs 1765, Sons of Liberty, he was a prosperous self-made man whose father was an oyster catcher. The Liberty Boys had no interest in total liberty from England when they first organized. The Liberty Boys originally just wanted for Americans to decide their own taxes. The idea for freedom from religious persecution came afterwards. The Liberty Boys had a small agenda when they first organized. A Member of Parliament named Isaac Barre who was a supporter of the American colonists first called Americans the Sons of Liberty, who would resist the Stamp Act tax of 1765. The Golden Hill Inn was at 112 William street and was a frequent meeting place for the Liberty Boys. Behind this Inn on January 18, 1770 the Sons of Liberty fought the British regulars, and the first blood of the Revolution was shed. The Burns Coffee House, at 113 or 115 Broadway (by the west side of Cedar street) was the headquarters of the Sons of Liberty used to meet at before the Revolutionary war. It sat on the site of the former house of Etienne De Lancey. The Sons of Liberty made an old tavern at the NE corner of Ann & Broadway their home when it became Hampden Hall. Hampden Hall was near the resort called Spring Garden, which was just North of the shoemaker's pasture (shoemakers pasture ran on the East side of Broad street). In 1770, Montague's Tavern on Broadway opposite the fields (City Hall Park) was the headquarters of the Liberty Boys.

John Lamb - John Lamb was an instrument maker and Son of Liberty leader, who was hurt by British soldiers on August 11, 1766 on the Commons (City Hall Park), as he attempted to raise another Liberty Pole. The Liberty Boys had no interest in total liberty from England when they first organized. The Liberty Boys originally just wanted for Americans to decide their own taxes. The idea for freedom from religious persecution came afterwards. The Liberty Boys had a small agenda when they first organized. A Member of Parliament named Isaac Barre who was a supporter of the American colonists first called Americans the Sons of Liberty, who would resist the Stamp Act tax of 1765. The Golden Hill Inn was at 112 William street and was a frequent meeting place for the Liberty Boys. Behind this Inn on January 18, 1770 the Sons of Liberty fought the British regulars, and the first blood of the Revolution was shed. The Burns Coffee House, at 113 or 115 Broadway (by the west side of Cedar street) was the headquarters of the Sons of Liberty used to meet at before the Revolutionary war. It sat on the site of the former house of Etienne De Lancey. The Sons of Liberty made an old tavern at the NE corner of Ann & Broadway their home when it became Hampden Hall. Hampden Hall was near the resort called Spring Garden, which was just North of the shoemaker's pasture (shoemakers pasture ran on the East side of Broad street). In 1770, Montague's Tavern on Broadway opposite the fields (City Hall Park) was the headquarters of the Liberty Boys.

Samuel Adams - Samuel Adams and Paul Revere headed the Sons of Liberty in Massachusetts. The Liberty Boys had no interest in total liberty from England when they first organized. The Liberty Boys originally just wanted for Americans to decide their own taxes. The idea for freedom from religious persecution came afterwards. The Liberty Boys had a small agenda when they first organized. A Member of Parliament named Isaac Barre who was a supporter of the American colonists first called Americans the Sons of Liberty, who would resist the Stamp Act tax of 1765.

Benjamin Rush - Benjamin Rush (Signer of the Declaration of Independence and the head of a US Army medical team) thought yellow fever was caused by rotting coffee, but he also thought rotten vegetables caused fevers. Benjamin Rush believed the state of the blood vessel based on race, nationality, diet and morals caused yellow fever. The real culprit of the viral disease called yellow fever, was the infected female Aedes aegypti mosquito (no longer found in NYC).

Adam Roelanstsen - Adam Roelanstsen, was the first schoolmaster of Manhattans Collegiate School but also NYC's first polluters. Adam Roelanstsen, may have been the first schoolmaster of Manhattans Collegiate School but his second job was running a bleaching ground on Maiden Lane destroying a fresh water pond.

John Coleman - John Coleman (Colman), was the namesake of Coleman's Point. John Coleman was the first white person killed in New York, on Sept. 6, 1609, by an Indian arrow in his throat. He was the 1st white person buried on Long Island. John Coleman was buried in Coney Island September 7, 1609, after being killed by Indians the dark night before. The darkness made it difficult to return to Hudsons boat.

Wilhelmus Beekman - Wilhelmus Beekman sold the swamp (Beekman's swamp) to Jacobus Roosevelt in 1734, for two hundred pounds. The Downtown Ann Street was named for one of Gerardus Beekmans kids.

Peter T Curtenius - Peter T Curtenius owned an Ironwork factory that made Franklin Stoves, kettles & pots in the 1770s. He was not NYC's first polluter, but he did cause NYC's first unclean air law.

Leo Astor and Leo Lenox - Leo Astor and Leo Lenox were the original names of the lions that guard the front of the New York Public Library, they were also called Leo and Leonora and Lord Astor and Lady Lenox in a childrens book, but both are male lions. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia renamed the lions from the front of the New York Public Library to Patience and Fortitude, hoping to urge citizens to possess these qualities to make it thru the Great Depression.

Henry Janeway Hardenbergh - Henry Janeway Hardenbergh designed; the Dakota Apartments at 1 West 72nd street; the Con Edison Building at 4 Irving Place on 15th street; the Manhattan Hotel at Madison and 42nd street; and the Plaza Hotel at 59th Street and 5th Ave. The Dakota Apartments were built in 1881-84, as a Gothic terra-cotta brick and sandstone Victorian apartment building, that has a great steeply pitched slate and copper roof. The Manhattan Hotel at Madison and 42nd street was a 1897 Baroque French Chateau hotel was destroyed in the 1960. Henry also did the Schermerhorn building at 380 Lafayette Street on the NW corner of Lafayette and Great Jones. Hardenbergh's 12 and then 18 floor towers of the Con Edison Building at 4 Irving Place on 15th street were finished in 1914, an added 26-story clock tower was finished in 1929.

Adriaen Block - Adriaen Block's cartographic work of the New England coast showed that fur traders could have a greater effect.

Arnout Vogels - After hearing about Henry Hudsons journey on July 26th, 1610, Arnout Vogels ship St. Pieter (de Hoope) sailed on a secretive mission to the Hudson to trade directly with the natives. Vogels could have been the first Dutch trading expedition to the Hudson Bay. After hearing about Henry Hudsons journey in 1610, the ship St. Pieter (or de Hoope) sailed the Hudson on a secretive mission to trade directly with the natives (circumventing the French monopoly). What explorer who traded furs with Russia sailed the ship that was the first Dutch trading expedition to the Hudson Bay ?

Cornelius May - Cornelius May got the monopoly from Holland for trading furs with Hendrick Christiansen and Adrian Block. Cape May in New Jersey is named after this explorer.

Lambert van Tweenhuysen - Lambert van Tweenhuysen created Dutch trading companies to obtain beaver and otter pelts. In 1611 Captain Cornelis Rijser took the ship St. Pieter to the New World with passengers Adriaen Block and Hendrick Christiaensz.

Cornelis Rijser - In 1611 Captain Cornelis Rijser took the ship St. Pieter to the New World with passengers Adriaen Block and Hendrick Christiaensz.

Mary Jane West - Mary Jane West was known as Mae West. This Bushwick girl on February 7, 1927, after spending a night in the Jefferson Market Courthouse and jail, was sentenced to 10 days at the Womens Workhouse on Welfare Island for her Broadway play Sex.

Theodosia Burr Alston - Theodosia Burr Alston, the daughter of Aaron Burr who owned the old carriage house (between 7th Avenue and West 4th street), still haunts the One If By Land, Two If By Sea restaurant at 17 Barrow Street.

Dylan Thomas - Dylan Thomas drank himself to death at the White Horse Tavern (he died days later at St. Vincents Hospital). A reported 18 straight whiskies was his poison of choice, on his fateful November day in 1953 in this 1880 tavern on Hudson & 11th.

Giovanni de Verrazano (Da Verrazzano) - Giovanni de Verrazano was paid by King Francis I, this privateer attacked Spanish and the Portuguese ships. In 1524, Giovanna Di Verrazzano became the first European to explore the New York Harbor. Refugio was Verrazanos name for Narragansett Bay. Verrazano may have been executed at Puerto del Pico, Spain as a pirate in November, 1527, or even eaten by cannibals in 1528. This Italian, Giovanni da Verrazano was the first white man to see Manhattan, but not a resident. Other Italian explorers included Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, Tonti and Kino. Most explorers from Verrazano past Henry Hudson himself, were calling the Hudson the Riviere Grande, the Dutch called the river Mauritius.

William Dampier - British map maker William Dampier, who became a pirate explorer that sailed to the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, Australia, New Guinea, southeast Asia, and the South Seas. He became a writer but died a pauper.

Sir Francis Drake - The British privateer and explorer Sir Francis Drake, also dabbled in slave trading. He was the 2nd explorer who sailed around the world, before dieing of dysentery and set fire at sea. Sir Frances Drake was the first Englishman to sail around the world (1577).

Christopher Newport - Christopher Newport was an English privateer who transported colonists and supplies to Jamestown five times.

Martin Frobisher - Martin Frobisher an English privateer explorered northeastern North America searching for a Northwest Passage.

John Hawkins - English naval officer John Hawkins (1532- 1595) was also a privateer slave trader.

Burgher Jorisen - Burghers Path ran to William street from the East River up Old Slip, it was named after Burgher Jorisen who came to NYC in 1637, to become a blacksmith. Burghers and Freemen had the right to operate stores.

James Duane - James Duane was the first NYC mayor after the American revolution, from 1784 to 1789.

Jacob Kip - Jacob Kip was a Dutch Burgher in old NYC. Burghers and Freemen had the right to operate stores.

Johannes Van Brugh - Johannes Van Brugh was a Dutch Burgher in old NYC. Burghers and Freemen had the right to operate stores.

Nicholas Bayard - Nicholas Bayard was a Dutch Burgher in old NYC. Burghers and Freemen had the right to operate stores.

Alexander T. Stewart - After William B Astor (the landlord of NYC), and Cornelius Vanderbilt (the stock market speculator) , Alexander T. Stewart was the third richest man in America during its Gilded Age. The merchant prince Alexander T. Stewart, was afraid that the new street traffic nuisance (railway cars) would prevent his high class customers carriages from getting to his Marble Palace store on Chambers and Broadway. A.T. Stewart expanded the Broadway Ladies Mile north of Chambers Street, after he built his Marble Palace in 1846. Public outcry, forced President Grant to retract Alexander T. Stewart name, as appointee to Secretary of the Treasury. Anyone involved in trade or commerce could not hold that position in the old Republic anyway (Grant tried to change that law, but Congress disagreed). A.T. Stewart's (the merchant prince) fortune (after years of high living and bad business ventures) ended up in the hands of lawyers over the litigation of his estate. A.T. Stewart's body was dug up from Saint Marks Church on November 6, 1878. The $200,000 original ransom for A.T. Stewart, was paid by his widow three years later after she whittled it down to $20,000.

Henry Brevoort - Henry Brevoort was a collector of rare books and coins. Washington Square Park was a cemetery that was on (or just south) Henry Brevoort's 11 acre farmland, his tavern and orchard was around the current location of Grace Church.

Edgar Allen Poe - In 1835, Edgar Allen Poe fell for his 13-year-old cousin Virginia, and secretly married her. Poe went out to become a magazine contributor and editor. Poor nutrition and drinking lead to fever, delirium, madness and ultimately death. Edgar Alan Poe's alcoholic lifestyle ultimately killed him. Edgar Allan Poe rented space at the Mercantile Library to write. The Mercantile Library took over the Astor Place Opera House in 1855 at 13 Astor Place. In 1837, Poe lived in a little wooden house at 113 Carmine Street with his sick wife Virginia, here he wrote Arthur Gordon Pym. Poe wrote Fall of the House of the Usher at this home on 6th Avenue near Waverly Place as well as Ligeia. Poe wrote the Raven at this farm home in Bloomingdale Village that was on a high bluff, around 84th street between Broadway and West End Avenue. 85 Amity Street (85 West 3rd Street) was Poe's last home (1845-1846) before he moved up to the Fordham Cottage (where he stayed until the summer of 1849). Poe wrote The facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, and Imp of the Perverse, from his home on West 3rd street. Broadway and Duane Street was the location of the cigar store of John Anderson (from Poe's story The Mystery of Marie Roget).

Jack Kerouac - The beat writer Jack Kerouac's chronic alcoholism caused an internal hemorrhage at the young age of 47.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald - Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald became to famous too fast, at 23 he was the spokesman for the Jazz Age. His smoking habit most likely killed him, but drinking heavy as his wifes (Zelda Sayre) nervous breakdowns increased. A heart attack finished him at the young age 44.

William Sydney Porter aka O. Henry - The king of the surprise endings, O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) ended his 48 year life wandering the streets (and bars) of NYC as agitated magazine editors tried to find and sober him up when publishing deadlines approached. His wifes terminal illness made him return from Honduras.

Dylan Thomas - Liz Reitell, Dylan Thomas's NYC girlfriend claimed that 18 straight whiskies at the White Horse put this Welsh poet in a coma, who tried to hard to keep up with his wild reputation.

John Sloan - Part of the Ash-Can School, John Sloan was a local artist (88 Washington Place) who started a bonfire on top of the arch, set free red balloons, drank champagne and declared Greenwich Village as the Independent Republic of Bohemia. He named a piece The Arch Conspirators after the take over the Washington Square Arch on January 23rd, 1917.

Gertrude Drick - Gertrude Drick was a Texas artist who lead the group of artists and actors in the bohemian Liberal Club up the 110 step inner stairway to the top of the Washington Square Arch on January 23rd, 1917. They camped on top after climbing up with red lanterns, cap guns and hot water bottles.

Betty Turner - Betty Turner, Forrest Mann and Charles Ellis were also part of this crazy group of artists who took over the Washington Square Arch on January 23rd, 1917.

William Glackens - William Glackens was just an early modernist artist who lived and worked around the square. Other local artists included Everett Shinn, Willa Cather, John Reed, Max Eastman, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis and Eugene O'Neill.

Henrietta "Hetty" Howland Robinson Green - This blue eyed whaling fleet heiress(inherited $10 million) was the first woman to make an impact on Wall street, with her investments in Real Esate and railroads. After her ex husband died in 1902 she dressed in a long black skirt. Hetty was known as the Witch of Wall Street and died as the wealthiest woman in the U.S.

Victoria Woodhull - This American suffragist, Victoria Woodhull, supported free love, & was the woman who ran for President (1872). She was the first female Wall Street broker.

Ann Lohman - Ann Lohman or Ann Trow aka Madame Restell. Madame Restell was a brand of birth control products for abortions. Ann did well living it up at 52d St. & 5th Ave.(abortion office in the basement), until busted by Vice dick Anthony Comstock, she slit her throat rather than face another trial.

Sylvia Green - Sylvia Green married Matthew Astor Wilks(minor heir to the Astor fortune) after her mother made hime sign a prenup. Unlike her mother she gave most of her money to 64 charities.

August Belmont, Sr - August was an avid sportsman who married the daughter of Commodore Matthew Perry, he worked for the Rothschild family.

Richard Connolly - Richard Connolly was the city comptroller whose signiture was found on the Tweeds rings paperwork, he fled the country to Paris France to enjoy the stolen loot. One of Tweeds three key cronies, whos signature was needed to pull off the scams.

Peter B Sweeny - Peter B Sweeny, the city chamberlain, head of the Public Parks Department and the the county prosecutor, was certainly a main cog in the wheel of the Tweed ring, he also fled to Paris before coming back to return a small fraction of the loot in exchange for immunity.

Mayor Abraham Oakey Hall - Mayor Abraham Oakey Hall covered up the exploits of the Tweed Ring, and was certainly heavily involved in the ring. After Abraham Oakey Hall was elected mayor, Tweed moved the lunch club from City Hall to his law office on Duane Street.

James H. Ingersoll - Even though he was not part of the top four, James H. Ingersoll was the main bagman for the ring, vouchers for payoffs, kickbacks and extortion were run through Ingersoll & Company. Ingersoll only spent 2 1/2 years in jail, before he was pardoned.

Samuel J. Tilden - Chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee Samuel J. Tilden, helped bring down the Tweed ring. Tilden pardoned J.H. Ingersoll who turned states evidence against Tweed. Presidential hopeful in the 1876 election, Samuel Tilden was the person who put together the audit trail to convict Tweed.

Thomas Nast - Political cartoonist Thomas Nast was the local paparazzi whose well known images helped catch Tweed after he jumped bail. 16 months after the draft riots Thomas Nast in early November 1864 started his famous cartoons in Harper Weekly, when he started working for Harper & Brothers on Pearl street's Franklin Square. He started at Leslie's Illustrated at $4 a week when it was a 16 page weekly. Nast in 1860 moved to the New York Illustrated News, until he rejoined Leslie's Illustrated at $50 per week. He married long time chum Sarah Edwards, and they lived in a small house on West 44th street. They had a girl named Sarah.

Matthew J. O'Rourke - County bookeeper Matthew J. O'Rourke was also a journalist who exposed the frauds of the Tweed ring.

John Kellum - John Kellum was the carpenter (until he died) for the Tweed Courthouse, who also built the Cary Building (105-107 Chambers Street) as well as A. T. Stewart mansion (5th Avenue at 34th Street).

Leopold Eidlitz - In 1876, Leopold Eidlitz was hired as the builder who finished the job at the Tweed Courthouse, he used colorful bricks and added to the buildings south wing and domed ceiling.

Richard Varick - Richard Varick was a Trinity parishioner.

Albert Gallatin - Albert Gallatin was a Trinity parishioner, and one of the founders of NYU. When Jefferson became President, Gallatin was appointed Secretary of the Treasury.

Robert Fulton - Robert Fulton was a Trinity parishioner. Clermont is what history called Robert Fulton's Steamship, not what Fulton named it. The Clermont was Fultons Folly and named by history, Robert Fulton called it the North River Steamboat. Robert Fulton's first steamboat left from the Hudson river off Greenwich Village most likely by Richmond Hill and Minetta water, for his first 150 mile trip to Albany in 1807. Robert Fulton's first steamboat left Monday August 17, 1807 at 1 PM, the first leg went 24 hours to travel to his partners home. After resting and working for 20 hours at Robert Livingstones Clermont NY manor house they traveled 8 more hours to Albany. 52 hours total, taking 32 hours to travel 150 miles. Clermont had its first trial on the Hudson opposite Claremont (where Napoleons elder brother once lived after Waterloo). Demologos was Fultons first steam powered warship, he never lived to see it finished. Nautilus was the name of his diving boat (submarine) that he built in France in 1800. Fulton's first steamboat sailed up the River Seine on August 9, 1803. Fulton produced the first commercially successful steamboat, which opened Americas waterways to commercial development. The first steamboat patent was issued to Briggs & Longstreet on February 1, 1788. Fulton had a 30 year government-granted monopoly on NY steamboat traffic, and was charging $7 until a Supreme Court ruling bankrupted him when he had to match others $3 ticket. Competition against Robert Fulton was forbidden by law until Gibbons vs. Ogden in 1824.

Alexander Hamilton - Alexander Hamilton was a Trinity parishioner. Fla., Ill., Ind., Kan., Neb., N.Y., Ohio and Tenn. all have Hamilton counties named after Alexander Hamilton.

William Seward - NY Governor from 1839-1843. He was a Whig

Hamilton Fish - NY Governor from 1849-1851. He was a Whig

George Clinton - NY Governor from 1777-1795 and 1801-1804. He was a Democratic-Republican

Dewitt Clinton - NY Governor from 1817-1823 and 1825-1828. He was a Democratic-Republican

Abraham Gouverneur - NYC merchant and Leislerian activist who was a French Huguenot refugee. He was a interpreter and translator who became chief justice, and who married the daughter of Governor Jacob Leisler. Gouverneur lane and Gouverneur Slip named after Abraham Gouverneur.

Peter Minuit - Peter Minuit came over to the New World on a ship called Sea Mew. Sea Mew was a Dutch name for Sea Gulls. Peter Minuit sailed in the Sea-Mew (Meeuwken or het Meeutje which in English is Seagull) from Amsterdam on December 19, 1625, and arrived in NYC on May 4th, 1626. Most history books says that Peter Minuit bought NYC for $24 worth of beads, knives, bright cloth and some other trinkets. NYC might have been bought before Minuit came in 1626, according to some historians. The New Netherland was a giant spruce goose like ship, that was financed by Peter Minuit with funds from the Dutch West India Company. The New Netherland displaced 800 tons and had 30 large guns to scare off pirates, its high construction bills helped get Minuit dismissed as director general of NYC. The Kalmar Sleutel or Calmer Sleutel was the ship that Arendt van Curler shared with Peter Minuit in 1627. Peter Minuit left the colony in pitiful condition, he once said, In this country I am my own master and may do as I please. Peter Minuit was recalled to Holland in 1631 for refusing to ban the private fur trade and due to the privileges he awarded patroons at the expense of the Dutch West India Company. Bastiaen Jansz Krol, took over as acting director. When Governor Kieft was dismissed by the company, it opened NYC to Peter Stuyvesant. Minuit opened both diplomatic and commercial relations with Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts in 1627.Peter Minuit established New Sweden, in March 1638, six years later after he was recalled to Holland. Minuit was lost at sea due to a hurricane during his trading trip to Saint Christopher in the West Indies. The first taproom in NYC was located in the first warehouse erected by Governor Minuet. A huge quantity of liquor from the West India Company was sent to NYC from the mother country. When Peter Minuit first encountered NYC (May 4th,1626), this rough trading outpost only had 30 log houses for the 270 citizens. Other structures included a counting house made of stone for the animal pelts, the blockhouse and its palisade walls and the mill. Peter Minuit was a Protestant Walloon from Spanish Netherlands (present-day Belgium). The Dutch West India Company made Peter Minuit the third director general of New Netherland in December 1625. Canarsee Indians on a hunting trip in NYC tricked Peter Minuit on his 20th day in NYC with the sale of lands not owned by the Long Island Canarsees (Native Americans had little concept of European land ownership as well). Peter Minuit was suspended from his post, but soon found New Sweden before being lost in a West Indies hurricane.

Bastiaen Jansz Krol - Peter Minuit was recalled to Holland in 1631 for refusing to ban the private fur trade and due to the privileges he awarded patroons at the expense of the Dutch West India Company. Bastiaen Jansz Krol, took over as acting director.

Arendt van Curler - The Kalmar Sleutel or Calmer Sleutel was the ship that Arendt van Curler shared with Peter Minuit in 1627.

Willem Kieft - Governor Willem Kieft sent 100 men to kill Raritan Indians in 1640. Princess Amelia was the boat that sunk in the Bristol Channel en route to Holland killing Governor Willem Kieft and Pastor Evardus Bogardus. Governor Willem Kieft died without a wife, descendents or memorial, but he did have 400,000 guilders in his pocket when he died on the shipwreck of the Princess Amelia in Bristol Channel. Governor Kieft lived on Hanover Square and in 1648, he got tired of entertaining guests at his house and built NYC first hotel which became the Stadt Huys (NYC's 1st City Hall). After minister Everardus Bogardus denounced Director Kieft from his pulpit: Director Kieft made his soldiers play ninepins close to the church during services; Director Kieft ordered his soldiers to sing and dance by the church during services; Director Kieft ordered his soldiers to beat their drums by the church during services; and Director Kieft ordered his soldiers to fire the cannon during services. The first militia was first formed in 1640, after Kieft aroused the Indians after his first 3 years as director general of the colony, and they seeked revenge. The Raritan Indians were located in New Jersey, and after Governor Kieft's Indian war they destroyed the whole colony in Staten island. Raritan Indians sold Staten Island to the European settlers six times. Dutch Governor William Kieft accused the Raritan Indians of stealing some pigs which started the Pig War of 1640 (followed by the Whisky and Peach wars).

Evardus Bogardus - Princess Amelia was the boat that sunk in the Bristol Channel en route to Holland killing Governor Willem Kieft and Pastor Evardus Bogardus.

Abraham Brower - In 1827, a 12-seat stagecoach called Abraham Browers Accommodation, ran the three B's, from the Battery to Bleecker Street down Broadway. Followed by the Sociable & Omnibus in 1831.

Alfred Beach - Alfred Beach hid building his experimental pneumatic subway car in 1870, it ran for 3 years but only 312 feet (1 block up Broadway).

Jacob Sharp - Owner of Jacob Sharp's Manhattan Railway. Jacob Sharp was the main promoter for the Broadway street railway from 1852 to 1885. On December 1853, NYC's Common Council signed the Broadway Railroad bill, which defeated everything honest A. T. Stewart could muster (he was naive to the fact that deals were signed by criminal bribery).

John Mason - Owner of John Mason's New York and Harlem Railroad. In 1832, John Mason created a street railway using metal wheeled cars running on metal tracks that were pulled by horses. By 1837, the horsecars were pulling passengers up to 27th street, where steam trains took over the rest of the trip.

Rufus Porter - Rufus Porter was the inventor of the portable camera obscura, founded the Scientific American magazine in 1845 , he also painted.

Elijah McCoy - This African American engineer and inventor (over 50 patents) named Elijah McCoy, was the real McCoy, a term that refered to his oiling device for machines.

Thomas Davenport - Thomas Davenport's 1834 electric motor, helped him establish the first commercially successful electric streetcar.

Henry T. Gratacap - In 1836, a lad from Columbia Engine Company No. 14 named Henry T. Gratacap, started a company that became Americas primary source of fire hats. Henry T. Gratacap invented a leather fire helmet that had a long rear brim and an ornamental facade for identification.

Arthur Wynne - In 1913, Journalist Arthur Wynne invented the crossword puzzle, on Sunday December 21, 1913, the New York World printed this first diamond-shaped puzzle crossword.

Edwin Binney - In 1903, NYC Paint company owners Edwin Binney and Harold Smith mixed paraffin wax with pigments (an insoluble powder mixed with a liquid to produce paint), and created the first Crayola Crayons.

Alfred Mosher Butts - In the 1930s, Alfred Mosher Butts from Jackson Heights, NY created Scrabble, he first called his game Lexiko and then Criss-Cross Words.

Francis Lovelace - Governor of New York, Francis Lovelace sent letters up the Boston Post Road aka U.S. Highway 1 from NYC to Boston in 1672, it took 2 weeks. Governor Francis Lovelace announced the NYC to Boston horseback mail run on Dec 10th 1672, it was called monthly but went ever 3 weeks, the first mail was delivered by Jan 22. Francis Lovelace was sent to NYC in 1668. One of his first acts was to clean the streets, and NYC minds by creating a day of fasting and praying. His reform movement was NYC's 1st, he wished to rid NYC of swearing, intemperance and impiety. Francis Lovelace the second governor of NYC created NYC's first reform movement.

Estaban Gomez - born 1478 died spring 1538 . This Black Portuguese navigator Estaban Gomez, was exploring for Charles 5 of Spain in 1525 when he entered the Hudson river, which he called Deer River. He sailed with Magellan in August 1519, and went up the New World's coast from South to North. The Black Portuguese navigator Esteban Gomez was exploring for Charles 5 of Spain in 1525. He reached Florida in August 1525. He filled his boat up with natives which he sold as slaves in San Lucar. Besides San Antonio, what else did Esteban Gomez call the Hudson river ?

Thomas Jefferson - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) the author of the Declaration of Independence was also an architect, naturalist, and linguist. He did raise Christian eyebrows with his bill for religious liberty. His quotes include: Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day; Never spend your money before you have it; Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly; Never trouble another for what you can do yourself; Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom; Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. One of jeffereson's quotes was, The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. While Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State he lived on Maiden Lane, Aaron Burr also lived there before moving to Richmond Hill.

Benjamin Franklin - Benjamin Franklin's greatest quote was guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days. Thomas Jefferson was very enthusiastic about Benjamin Franklin first Declaration of Independence, but it revolted many of the delegates to the Continental Congress. Besides writing, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) a confirmed Deist, was an inventor, a politician, a scientist and a musician. He wrote the Declaration of Independence a year before Jefferson, and helped write the Constitution of the United States. Benjamin Franklin did have an illegitimate son named William. William Franklin was the last Loyalist governor of New Jersey and the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin. But all of Benjamin Franklins pennys saved, made sure that William was not pennyless. Benjamin Franklin said of Americas national symbol, the turkey is a much more respectable bird (than the American Eagle) and a true original native of America. Benjamin Franklin quotes include: Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise; To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals; Energy and persistence conquer all things; Well done is better than well said; But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes; Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for thats the stuff life is made of; Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today; and Benjamin Franklin also said Creditors have better memories than debtors.

Samuel Leggett - The home of the founder of Con Edison (Samuel Leggett), at 7 Cherry Street was the first gas lit house in Manhattan. The home once at 7 Cherry street house was serviced from a gas pipe from the Pearl Street Con Edision headquarters.

George Washington - Born in 1732, George Washington traded his Virginian tobacco roots for a a four-story mansion at 1 Cherry Street that owner Walter Franklin let become the first Executive Mansion of the President of America. His tactic of harassing the British for 6 years set up our freedom today. George Washington's dentures were made of gold, hippopotamus tusk, ivory, lead, and human teeth, his favorite dentist John Greenwood (who invented the dental foot engine in 1790) used ivory for the base of the dentures. Washington started losing his teeth in his 20's and owned many sets of dentures. History often talks about Washington's wooden teeth, which was not true, he owned many sets of dentures, none of which were wooden. George Washington's teeth might have been the source of the many chronic infections he suffered, such as dengue fever, malaria, flu, and many rheumatic complaints. In his latter days he could only eat soft foods. His favorite dentist John Greenwood told him to stop soaking his dentures in Port wine, to avoid their discoloration. Washington landed at Murrays Wharf, right next to the famous Coffeehouse Slip on April 23 1789, to take the Presidency. On July 9, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read in City Hall Park for George Washington and his troops, before the inspired crowd tore down the gold-plated 4,000 pound statue of King George III in Bowling Green. Union Square is known for its equestrian statue of George Washington, but it also has a statue of Abraham Lincoln. 1 Cherry Street at the Southern side of Cherry Street by the old Franklin Square, was the address of George Washington's first Presidential Mansion (April 23, 1789-Feb. 23, 1790). The home was built in 1770 for Walter Franklin, and was torn down in 1856. After George Washington moved from his first Presidential Mansion, he stayed at the 1786 Macomb Mansion at 39-41 Broadway from Feb. 23, 1790, until he left in late August for Philadelphia. Alexander Macomb's Mansion later became a fine hotel. The site at 39-41 Broadway could have been the 1613-1614 site where Adrian Block built 4 small huts for his crew. Adriaen Block's ship supposibly caught fire right off a bay off the Hudson river by the World Trade Center site. A bigger and easier managed bay where his docked boat probably caught fire, was off the East River by the Collect Pond stream. which could be the source for the name Old Wreck Brook. George Washington's Headquarters were at the 1760 Kennedy House at #1 Broadway, at the west side of Bowling Green, in the early days of the 1776 Revolutionary war.

Ulysses S. Grant - Ulysses S. Grant lived in New York City in his later years.

Theodore Roosevelt - Theodore Roosevelt was the only President born (on October 27, 1858) in New York City.

Franklin D. Roosevelt - Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in 1882 at Hyde Park, Long Island. This Harvard/Columbia educated Democrat started in the Senate, and as NY Governor before serving 4 terms as President.

Goovert Loockerman - Goovert Loockerman owned a seven acre cherry orchard in the 1660's which became Cherry Street, after being used as a bowling green by a beer garden.

Henry Rutgers - Rutgers Houses was a 1965, NYCHA housing development (Five, twenty story buildings) sits on the site of Henry Rutgers (1745 - 1830) farm, between Cherry, Madison, Rutgers and Pike. Henry Rutgers funded the first Tammany Hall construction. Rutger's brewery was not on Stone street. A family of brewers, the Rutgers included. Jean Rutgers, their forefather, had a brewery in the early 1650's. Alice, daughter of Anthony Rutgers, married Leonard Lispenard, and one of the latter's sons (Anthony).

Alfred E. Smith - Alfred E. Smith was the only other Irish Catholic besides JFK who ever was nominated for the Presidency. Republican Herbert Hoover's anti-Catholic rants & KKK fear mongering killed this parkland lovers 1928 Presdential chances.

Fiorello LaGuardia - Fiorello LaGuardia was NYC's Mayor from 1934 - 1945. During a dozen year term this NYU law grad, built up NYC interstructure and widened its Parks Department by hiring Robert Moses. John Purroy Mitchel and Fiorello Henry LaGuardia both graduated from New York University Law. Other NY Mayor grads. from New York University Law, were John F. Hylan, Edward I. Koch and Rudolph Giuliani. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia renamed the New York Public Library lions from Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, to Patience and Fortitude, to urge citizens to possess these qualities to make it thru the Great Depression.

James J. Walker - James J. Walker NYC Mayor from 1926 - 1932. Jimmy J. Walker's resignation was forced due to corruption, he often hiked up Variety Newspapers 5th floor show biz speakeasy during Prohibition.

Robert F. Wagner Jr. - Robert F. Wagner Jr. NYC Mayor from 1954 - 1965. Robert F. Wagner Jr. was a Yale man who started in the State Assembly and created CUNY, he opened the door for all races and colors to enter city government

John V. Lindsay - This pro civil rights Yale man, named John V. Lindsay, started his political career in Congress, but during this Republicans term at Mayor he had to deal with Transit, Teachers and Garbage strikes. John V. Lindsay and Robert F. Wagner Jr. were part of Yale Universities Scroll and Key. Other Scroll and Key members included Garry Trudeau, Stone Phillips, Benjamin Spock and Cole Porter

Abraham D. Beame - This Londoner named Abraham D. Beame, grew up on New York and was Mayor frpm Mayor from 1974 - 1977.

John Fitch - John Fitch built the first working Steamboat in the world, where passengers and freight were carried. Fitch built 4 different steamboats between 1785 and 1796 and tested some of them on the Collect Pond. In August 22, 1787 his 45 foot Steamboat took its trial run on the Delaware River A larger ship soon carried passengers with freight. In 1796, Fitch tested his first experimental steamboats in the Collect Pond. This forgotten by history inventor created the first boat propelled by steam with paddle wheels or screw propellers. Robert Fulton and Chancellor Robert Livingston watched and could have been his passengers.

Stephen Foster - Dear friends and gentle hearts was the last thing he wrote, it was found on a scrap of paper in his pockets along with 38 cents at Bellevue Hospital. Stephen Foster died on January 13, 1864.

Edgar Allan Poe - Drunk most likely but broke nevermore, his Penn Magazine was financed from his childhood sweetheart Elmira who he lived comfortably with. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849.

Governor Wouter Van Twiller - Van Twiller bought Nut Island from the Indians in 1637 and used Company laborers to build his Bouwerie on it. Twiller also bought Wards Island in 1637. Twiller was the first non native to live in Greenwich Village (called Bossen Bouwerie in 1633). In 1637, Van Twiller bought Governor's Island (Indians called it Pagganck or Nut Island), he already owned a huge tobacco field in Greenwich village in 1633. It started being called Greenwich Village in 1784. Van Twiller bought Randall's Island in 1637, the Indians called it Minnahanonck. Jonathan Randel bought it in 1784. Van Twiller bought Roosevelt Island (also called Blackwell Island and Wellfare Island), which was bought by Manning in 1668. Van Twiller bought Ward's Island which the Indians called Tenkenas (wild land) in 1637. Ward's Island was also named Buchanan's Island and Great Barn Island. Wouter van Twiller was a nephew of the patroon Kiliaen Van Rensselaer. Director Van Twiller a hard drinking man influenced the drinking habits of the Dutch colonists to such an extent that drunkenness soon became a very common occurrence in the community.Walter Van Twiller came to NYC April, 1633 on the ship the Salt Mountain with over 100 soldiers. He was in NYC in 1629 to help select a place for his relative Van Rensselaer's Patroonship. He stayed in NYC for another year as a spy against Minuit's Colonial Government. Van Twiller's information caused the dismissal of Minuit in 1631.

Governor Richard Nicolls - Richard Nicoll was the first non Dutch Governor in Manhattan, who was put in power when the English first took NYC.

Governor Peter Minuit - Governor Peter Minuit was the one that history says bought Manhattan island from the Indians, which did not include Nut Island (Governors Island). Minuit created the first public beer brewery in 1632. Peter Minuit's six years ran from 1627-1633, things were calm and no militia were needed. His boat the Sea Mew was parked in a sheltered cove (Norumbega) where he, his council and his officers slept until houses suitable to their needs could be built.

John Underwood - Captain John Underwood lead a group of New England mercenaries hired by Governor Kieft to raid Indian villages. these mercenaries were fined, imprisoned, or banished by Governor Stuyvesant.

John Bowne - John Bowne was a famous Quaker. This farmer who held Quaker services in his home was exiled by Peter Stuyvesant.

Cornelius Melyn - Cornelius Melyn 1600-1663. This 3rd Patroon of Staten Island, was the chairman of the 8 man council who advised Governor Willem Kieft to pick the famous Indian fighter John Underwood to lead a group of New England mercenaries to raid Indian villages.

Peter Caesar Alberti - Peter Caesar Alberti was the first Italian resident of NYC, he was a craftsman from Venice who landed in New Amsterdam on May 30, 1635 and was killed with his wife on Nov 9, 1655 by Indians.

Francesco Vigo - Francesco Vigo (1747-1836) was a very successful Midwestern Italian fur trader who helped the Americans acquisition of the Old Northwest Territory.

Philip Mazzei - This Florentine nobleman & medical student Philip Mazzei, came to America in 1773, and inspired the political writings of Thomas Jefferson & Thomas Paine.

Richard Talliaferro - Richard Talliaferro and Ferdinando Finizzi fought with the Americans to gain Independence. Virginia received several Italian craftsmen in 1610, Jamestown in 1622 brought in Venetian glassmakers and vignerons (grape cultivators) from England.

Jeremiah Thompson - Jeremiah Thompson established a cotton trade route that expanded and prolonged southern slavery. In January 1818, Jeremiah Thompson and two other Quakers, established the Black Ball Line to export cotton. This transoceanic and intracoastal shipping service linked New York, southern plantations, and European markets. The New York Manumission Society was created in 1785, at a time when desperate white workers accepted low wages, which made slavery economically obsolete.

Henry Highland Garnett - Henry Highland Garnett was a prominent abolitionist.

John Simmons - Innkeeper John Simmons, hosted the 19 men from the first meeting of the New York Manumission Society in his Inn on January 25, 1785. The 2nd meeting had 31 men (including Alexander Hamilton). The New York Manumission Society urged editors against advertising slave sales and gave free legal help to slaves.

John Jay - John Jay and a few of his closest friends (mostly slave owners), founded the New York State Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves. John Jay was 41 when he helped write the Federalist papers, but he was ill so he didn't contribute as much.

James Madison - James Madison was 36 when he helped write the Federalist papers, besdies Hamilton he was the biggest contributor and collaborator.

James Wilson - James Wilson was 45 when he helped write the Federalist papers.

William Duer - William Duer's three articles were rejected by Hamilton. These Federalist articles which explained the motivation and philosophy of the proposed government and Constitution, were all signed Publius, which was a pseudonym that honored Roman consul Publius.

Louis Auster - Louis Auster from the Lower east side mixed chocolate syrup, ice-cold milk and a quick jet of seltzer to start a soda fountain trend called the Egg cream.

Oscar Tschirky - The NYC Waldorf hotel maitre d from 1893 to 1943, Oscar Tschirky introduced Chicken a la King, and also did a great Lobster Newburg and Eggs Benedict.

Benjamin Franklin - After the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, Benjamin Franklin was tired of British arrogance, and wrote the first Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson was very enthusiastic about this first Declaration of Independence (not his), but it revolted many of the delegates to the Continental Congress. Benjamin Franklin also helped Jefferson with editorial suggestions on the 1776 version.

John Adams - Future President John Adams did defend British Captain Thomas Preston, and the 8 soldiers who committed the Boston Massacre (1770), all but two were acquitted, and those two escaped with branded thumbs after the benefit of clergy provision was used.

Nikola Tesla - Nikola Tesla was an inventor who invented the alternating current (AC). He died penniless on January 7, 1943 in the New Yorker Hotel.

Virginia Woolf - Virginia Woolf was a well known literary writer who always seemed depressed, right up to her suicide in 1941.

Jack London - Jack London was the drunken author of The Call of the Wild (only paid a $2,000 flat fee) and John Barleycorn (semi autobiographical) who was living life wild, he died of an morphine overdose at 40.

John Hertz - Hertz was also the founder of the Yellow Cab taxicab service (Chicago Yellow Cab Company) in Chicago, Illinois on December 1, 1915. He read a University of Chicago study, which found that yellow was the easiest color to spot.

Theodore Roosevelt - The return of Theodore Roosevelt from his safari in Africa, was NYC's fouth ticker-tape parade down Broadway, which occurred on June 18, 1910.

Admiral Dewey - The return of Admiral Dewey, from Manila, was NYC's second ticker-tape parade down Broadway, that happened September 30, 1899.

Jack Binns - The third ticker-tape parade down Broadway (in early 1909), honored SS Republic's radio operator Jack Binns. This 26 year old, turned down a job aboard the maiden voyage of the Titanic, because he had just fallen in love.

Charles Lindbergh - June 13, 1927 was the 21st ticker-tape parade down Broadway. This parade honored Charles Lindbergh, following his solo transatlantic flight. This parade came one year after Richard Byrds flight over the North Pole, and just before Byrds transatlantic flight.

Edna St Vincent Millay - Edna St Vincent Millays mother Cora Lounella (Buzzelle) was a nurse. Saint Vincent Hospital was where Edna St Vincent Millays uncles life was saved just prior to her birth. A few days later, this unconventional, bohemian poet named Edna St Vincent Millay, was born on February 22, 1892. Edna St Vincent Millay married Eugene Jan Boissevain, but that was an open marrage (lucky for poet George Dillon). Edna went both ways, and liked to be called Vincent. Edna St Vincent Millays dad was the one with the last name Millay, her mom divorced him for financial irresponsibility (he was a teacher). She was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1923). Harping about their affairs and their opinions, every day at the San Remo Bar on 92 Macdougal, was like a Seinfeld episode, played by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mable Dodge, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Max Eastman and John Reed.

J. Scott Hartley - The Salmagundi Art Club was originally started in 1871, as the New York Sketch Club by J. Scott Hartley. Salmagundi was a stew with many ingredients. Salmagundi was like NYC a city with many different people, a perfect analogy from Washington Irving. The Salmagundi Art Club moved to 47 Fifth Avenue (between 11th and 12th Streets) in 1917, after meeting in the home of Alice Don Levy.

Edward Albee - Edward Albee interpreted the graffiti he saw in a bathroom at the Ninth Circle theatre, that read Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf, to mean Who's afraid of living life large. Breakfast at Tiffanys was a play written by Edward Albee in 1966. Edward Albee adapted his work called Ballad of the Sad Cafe, from author Carson McCullers in 1963. The play the Man Who Had Three Arms was written by Edward Albee in 1981. Edward Albee wrote What could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it.

e.e. cummings - Poet Edward Estlin Cummings lived at #4 Patchin Place. e.e. cummings favorite comic strip was Krazy Kat. He died in 1962 of a brain hemorrhage.

Djuna Barnes - Djuna Barnes lived at #5 Patchin Place for over forty years. She was known for her novel Nightwood.

John Reed - John Reed wrote Ten Days that Shook the World, and lived with his writer wife feminist Louise Bryant.

T.S. Elliot - T.S. Elliot often visited e.e. cummings at #4 Patchin Place, so did Ezra Pound and Dylan Thomas.

John Masefield - John Masefield was an English poet and writer who lived on Patchin Place. Theodore Dreiser and Marlon Brando also lived on Patchin Place.

Emma Lazarus - Jewish American poet Emma Lazarus wrote The New Colossus in 1883. Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Herman Melville - Born in NYC in 1819, Herman Melville greatest book Moby Dick (1851) became famous after his death. Quotes include Call me Ishmael, Ignorance is the parent of fear and Yea, foolish mortals, Noahs flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.

Mickey Spillane - Brooklyn born Frank Morrison Spillane aka Mickey created the Mike Hammer character. An old quote from I the Jury Im the jury now,and the judge,and I have a promise to keep, I sentence you to death.

Thomas Paine - Thomas Paine (1737-1809) the author of Common Sense in 1776, helped start the American revolution, but was vilified for his atheism.

Thomas Jefferson - Thomas Jefferson the author of the Declaration of Independence, was also an architect, naturalist, and linguist. He did raise Christian eyebrows with his bill for religious liberty.

Herbert Levi Osgood - Herbert Levi Osgood was a historian, George Louis Beer too. Other historians included James Ford Rhodes, Moses Coit Tyler, & Edward Channing.

Lawrence Henry Gipson - Lawrence Henry Gipson was a historian, Charles McLean Andrews too. Other historians included Herbert Baxter Adams, James Harvey Robinson, Frederick Jackson Turner & Charles Austin Beard.

Betty Compton - The mistress of Mayor Jimmy Walker (actress Betty Compton) lived at #12 Gay Street. Jimmy bought the haunted rowhouse for Betty his mistress who became his wife after 1932.

Joseph D. Pistone - The detective who goes undercover as a jewel expert named Donnie Brasco was based on the true story of Joseph D. Pistone. Donnie Brasco had a half million dollar contract on his head from the Mafia.

John Wojtowicz - John Wojtowicz (Littlejohn Basso to his gay pals) ratted out the groups demonstration plans to Mike Umbers (Mafia manager of Christophers End). The famous Stonewall Tavern was also Mafia owned. John lived in Boys Town, a gay boarding house, he was Al Pacino's character from the film Dog Day Afternoon.

Joe Kennedy - Joe Kennedy helped spark the Gay Riots that tried to halt the filming of the Al Pacino film Cruising.

Abraham Lincoln - Abraham Lincoln might have also been illegitimate, like his mother Nancy Hanks, who might have had an affair with Abraham Enloe. Union Square is known for its equestrian statue of George Washington but it also has a statue of Abraham Lincoln.

Robert E. Lee - Robert E. Lee the son of a Virginia governor, was defeated at the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. He ended up becoming the president of Washington College.

Peter Koch - In 1633, Peter Koch built NYC's first house at 1 Broadway, and openned it into a tavern which got great business from the soldiers in the fort next door.

Signor Martini di Arma di Taggia - Signor Martini di Arma di Taggia was a bartender at New Yorks Knickerbocker Hotel, he claims to have invented the dry martini, but Martinis were made in NYC prior to 1912.

David De Vries - David De Vries was a distinguished soldier whose influence helped build a proper stone church (like ones he saw in New England) in the fort in 1642.The 72 foot building in the fort was called the Church of St. Nicholas.

Jacob Leisler - The most famous resident of the Strand (lower Pearl street) was Jacob Leisler who was hanged for treason.

Roger Baker - A painting of King William of Orange, was on a sign that hung over the front door of Roger Baker's establishment called Kings Head Inn, in 1701. The Kings Head Inn was the first English Inn in NYC.

William Beekman (1623-1707) came to NYC on the boat The Princess, with Peter Stuyvesant, he was the Beekman William street was named for. William built his final home on Pearl and Beekman Street. William was one of the two Commissioners that built the Wall street wall. Beekman was the first to build a slip and created land between the high and low water marks in the East River. Gerardus Beekman (1559-1625) had 2 sons named William, the first William died young he never made it to even be 5 years old, a second William (who became a doctor) lived 86 years. Ann Beekman was the wife. William Beekman continued the brewery of George Holmes. William Beekman died in 1707 at the age of 84. The Downtown Ann Street was named for one of Gerardus Beekmans kids.

Stephanus Van Cortlandt - Brewer Stephanus Van Cortlandt, was Mayor of NYC in 1677. Oloff Van Cortlandt too was a brewer who lived on Stone (formerly Brewer) Street, whose wife pushed for the first paved street. Oloft Stevenzen Van Cortlandt owned the brewery that named Brewer street and Stone street. By 1661 most of NYC's main streets had cobblestones.

Jean Vigne - Brewer Jean Vigne had a tavern in Smith's Valley by Wall Street and Pearl. Born in 1614, Jean Vigne was the first white male person born in New Netherland. Jean Vigne was born in 1614 at Block & Christiansen's brewhouse in NYC, making him the first brewer born in the New World.

Harmanus Rutgers - Harmanus Rutgers I,II and III, were brewers who had their family business on top of a hill called Rutgers hill, by the North side of Maiden Lane on Gold street. Rutger's brewery was not on Stone street. A family of brewers, the Rutgers included. Jean Rutgers, their forefather, had a brewery in the early 1650's. Alice, daughter of Anthony Rutgers, married Leonard Lispenard, and one of the latter's sons (Anthony).

Jean Rutgers - Jean Rutgers brewery was built before 1653. Rutger's brewery was not on Stone street. A family of brewers, the Rutgers included. Jean Rutgers, their forefather, had a brewery in the early 1650's. Alice, daughter of Anthony Rutgers, married Leonard Lispenard, and one of the latter's sons (Anthony).

Ann White - 1728, Ann Street was named after Mrs. Ann White, who was married to Capt. Thomas White a developer and merchant. Part of William was named Anne street in 1748, as part of Lafayette was called Ann in the 1790's.

John Heperding - John street was named after a shoemaker John Heperding, who in 1728 and 1729, rented out his home to the Jews of the Congregation Shearith Israel. Shoe maker John Heperdin, also sold these early NYC Jews, the land at 18 South William street for their first real NYC synagogue. John Heperding lived on the corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane, and also on High Street (Stone?) between Broad and William. John left a portion of his land to the Dutch Reformed Church. Many tanneries set up on 16 acres of land that was owned by an association of shoemakers, land which was called shoemaker's pasture. Shoemakers pasture ran on the East side of Broadway from Ann down to Maiden Lane. Just north of this pasture was the Spring Garden resort. With other shoemakers and tanners they bought land from Maiden Lane to Ann street on the East side of Broadway, all the way back to Gold street.

Peter Schermerhorn - Peter Schermerhorn merged several NYC water lots in 1793, to create Schermerhorn Row in 1810-1812.

John Chambers - In 1731, John Chambers got the Common Councils approval for a water lot, a year after the Montgomerie Charter (which allowed the sale of land 400 feet out into the river) was passed.

Governor Dongan - Governor Dongan raised revenue for NYC by starting to sell water lots in 1686, starting NYC landfill craze. Peter Stuyvesant called his mansion at the watery end of Whitehall Street, Government House. The English Governor Dongan named it Whitehall after Stuyvesant's time.

Governor Colonel Benjamin Fletcher - Governor Colonel Benjamin Fletcher had his own special pew built in the first Trinity Church.

William Vesey - Installed by Governor Fletcher, Reverend William Vesey was the first rector of Trinity Church, who started March 13, 1698.

Benjamin Moore - Benjamin Moore was the rector of the second Trinity Church consecrated on March 5. 1801. The first Trinity was built in 1697, and was destroyed by fire in 1776.

Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright - Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright was the rector of the second Trinity Church in 1838. A third Trinity Church was built in 1846, after the winter made the second unsound.

Samuel Provoost - Samuel Provoost was the rector of Trinity Church from 1784 until 1800.

Oceanus Hopkins - Oceanus Hopkins was the first European born in the New World, he was born on the Mayflower to a Pilgrim couple.

Isaac Low - Isaac Low was chairman of the Committees of Correspondence. The Committees of Correspondence (groups of critics formed by colonial assemblies to coordinate action against England) met on May 23, 1774, at the Merchants Coffee House. This was the first existence of papers that created the union of the colonies. The first Committees of Correspondence was in Boston in 1764, to oppose the Currency Act. Handwritten letters about a particular issue of dissatisfaction with the British, were taken aboard ships or delivered by horseback to similar groups in the colonies and even other foriegn powers. In 1765, NYC first Committees of Correspondence was formed to deal with the Stamp Act Crisis. A specific problem was tackled by these committees, who disbanded when a resolution was created. Blogs are todays Committees of Correspondence that will help fight Second American Revolution.

George S. Boutwell - Secretary of the Treasury (1869-1873), George S. Boutwell was a radical congressman from Massachusetts.

William A. Richardson - William A. Richardson took over in 1873, as Secretary of the Treasury, but he was removed (and made a Judge instead) by Grant for his irregular tax collection scheme called Sanborn Contracts.

Benjamin H. Bristow - Benjamin H. Bristow took over as Secretary of the Treasury, after William A. Richardson was ejected (for his irregular tax collection scheme called Sanborn Contracts), Bristow smashed an Internal Revenue conspiracy to steal liquor taxes, that was called the Whiskey Ring.

Orville E. Babcock - President Grant's private secretary and former Civil War aide, Orville E. Babcock, was involved in the Whiskey Ring, but Grant saved his job.

Solon Borglum - The Native Americans on the statue created by Solon Borglum, on St. Marks Church were called Aspiration and Inspiration. Solon Borglum's brother Gutzon carved the heads on Mount Rushmore.

Leonardo Nole - The golden statue of Prometheus, just above the skating rink in Rockefeller Center was called Leaping Looie after its model Leonardo Nole.

Samuel Cox - Samuel Cox (1824—1889) got a statue in the SW corner of Tompkins Square Park for tring to increase salaries and improve postal workers working conditions. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Walter Winchell - Walter Winchell helped plug the Stork Club, on 3 East 53rd Street, in the Daily Mirror with his nationally syndicated column.

Hector Boiardi - Hector Boiardi, phoneticly changed it to (Chef) Boyardee for easier spelling & selling his thick tomato sauce (first in milk bottles). His restaurant Il Giardino d'Italia in Cleveland (1929), merged with American Home Foods.

Fernand Petiot - American bartender, Fernand Petiot invented the Bloody Mary in Paris in 1921, at Harry's New York Bar, but brought it to the States to John Jacob Astor's St. Regis hotel, who called it Red Snapper.

Phineas Taylor Barnum - Barnum's fabrications started in the Fall of 1835, when he bought Joice Heth, George Washingtons 161 year old nurse, for $1000 (she had papers that stated she was 54, and that she was sold to Washingtons father in Feb. 5, 1727), When this slave died, they figured she was really around 80 years old. The Fijee Mermaid was not really a mermaid, this stuffed creature was really two creatures stiched together, it was half monkey (upper) half fish (lower). Barnums Little Woolly Horse was another of his skyrockets or advertisements to attract attention to his real oddities. Phineas Taylor Barnum's biggest attraction was Jumbo the elephant, his impresario gig was Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, his smallest at 25 inches was General Tom Thumb(Charles Stratton), discovered at the age of 5 in 1842, Commodore Nutt was Barnums second midget. Phineas Taylor Barnum also made the Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng famous. P.T. Barnums Traveling Worlds Fair, Great Roman Hippodrome and Greatest Show On Earth opened in April of 1871 (Barnum was over 60 when he went Circus), in Brooklyn (before the show traveled from Maine to Kansas). Phineas Taylor Barnum's circus merged with James A. Bailey ten years later (1881). Phineas Taylor Barnum offered $50,000 for the Cardiff Giant to his competitor David Hannum, but Hannum would not sell. Barnum never said, There's a sucker born every minute, that quote was from Hannum. Barnum once spent time in prison accused of libel when he worked for a country newspaper.

When P.T. Barnum first started out as a showman, one of his earliest exhibits centered around Joice Heth, a blind old African American woman he passed off as George Washington's 161-year-old nurse. Heth claimed to be a slave of Elizabeth Atwood, the half-sister of Washington's father, Augustine Washington. Heth even had a bill of sale dated February 5th, 1727, and signed by Augustine Washington. It was for a 54-year-old Negro woman he sold for 33 English pounds. Barnum bought her for $1,000 from R.W. Lindsay, who bought her from John S. Bowling from Kentucky in June 1835. Barnum only had $500, and originally Lindsay wanted $3,000, but Barnum talked him down and sold off his interest in a grocery business to his partner for the other $500. Barnum first exhibited Heth for several weeks at a coffeehouse with a large hall on Chatham Square at the junction of the Bowery and Division Street. On August 10th, 1835, he moved her up to Niblo's Garden on Broadway where she was bringing in $1,500 per week. After testing Heth out in NYC, Barnum took her on a six-month traveling exhibit from August 1835 to January 1836. Barnum exhibited Heth in Boston, Philadelphia, Albany, and a few other cities. She was on display six days a week, sometimes as long as 12 hours a day. Her long, curling fingernails, paralyzed limbs, sunken eyes and toothless mouth made her look much older. Heth would tell tales of George Washington's childhood, sang the Baptist hymns she said she taught him, and answered questions from the audience. Interested people started to flock in to witness the extremely popular attraction, billed as the oldest woman in the world.

After the novelty wore off, Barnum and his assistant, Levi Lyman, spread a rumor that she wasn’t human but actually a machine. That brought businesses back. Barnum promoted his first attraction until the day she died, February 19th, 1836. Barnum allowed a public autopsy on February 25th, 1836, to determine her age. Between 1,000 and 1,500 interested folk paid admission to the New York City saloon where Dr. David L Rogers determined she was only around 80 years old. Joice Heth was buried in Bethel, Connecticut, the town where P.T. Barnum was born and raised. Barnum died in his sleep April 7th, 1891.

Barnum's first museum opened in 1841, after he took over Scudders Museum, off Ann Street on the SE corner of Broadway. P.T. Barnum's American Museum had America's 1st public aquarium (1856 or 1857), it was called Barnums Ocean and River Gardens. Just after 1861, Barnum presented the first NYC aquarium exhibit of Beluga whales. Living in a brick and cement tank in the American Museums basement. The Belugas died quickly, and more were put in a glass tank on 2nd floor. A roof top garden featured hot-air balloon rides. A small fire hit the Barnum museum on November 25, 1864, but all five floors of P.T. Barnum's American Museum burnt down just after noon on July 13, 1865, due to a fire in the engine room that created steam for the aquarium.

Barnum's second location (539-541 Broadway, between Spring and Prince Streets on the west side of Broadway) which offered daily educational performances, took over the building that once housed the former Chinese Rooms (1851), Broadway Casino (1852), Buckley's Minstrel Hall (1853) and Melodeon Concert Hall (1858-1861).

Barnum also had partnered up with the Van Amburgh Menagerie Company, so even larger animals (like elephants, rhino. lions, tigers, & leopards) could be exhibited. Barnum's New Museum or Barnum and Van Amburgh Museum and Menagerie Company, opened September 6,1865, but like the first, Barnum's New American Museum burned down May 3rd, 1868 (due to a fire in the basement restaurant). Barnum's Circus, Museum and Menagerie on 14th street (across from the Academy of Music, by 3rd Ave.) caught fire at 4:10 AM on December 24, 1872 once again burning all the animals to death.

In April 1874, Barnum's 8000 seat Hippodrome (1st called Barnum's Monster Classical and Geological Hippodrome) was opened on Madison Street between 26 & 27th. (also the site of the 1st Madison Square Garden). This venue included chariot races, Wild West shows, waltzing elephants & circus acts galore. Some of P.T Barnum's live attractions were kept cozy for the winter in the NYC zoo. In 1887, the Barnum & Bailey Circus's Bridgeport, Connecticut property was destroyed by fire. P. T. Barnum died in his sleep April 7, 1891

Phineas Taylor Barnum's first museum opened in 1841 after he took over Scudder’s Museum on the corner of Ann Street and Broadway (before the 315-ft. St. Paul Building was built in 1898). This five- or six-story structure was said to be the first granite building in NYC, but P.T. Barnum's American Museum burned down on July 13th, 1865, after a fire started in the engine room that created steam heat? for the aquarium.

The museum opened America's first public aquarium in1856 or 1857, called Barnum’s Ocean and River Gardens. Just after 1861, Barnum presented the first exhibit of Beluga whales. Housed in a brick and cement tank in the American Museum’s basement, the Belugas quickly died so more were obtained and put in a glass tank on the second floor.

P.T. Barnum's impresario gig was with Jenny Lind. He introduced America to the Swedish Nightingale in 1850 with two sold-out concerts at Castle Garden (formerly the old West Battery and then Castle Clinton). At Sandy Welsh's place in the basement of the American Museum, famous politicians and warhorses Elijah Purdy, Robert Morris, Lorenzo Sheppard, and Rococo Levi met often.

Barnum once spent time in prison after he was accused of libel while working for a country newspaper. Barnum's fabrications started in the fall of 1835 when he bought a slave, Joice Heth, for $1,000 and billed her as George Washington’s 161-year-old nurse. She had papers stating she was 54 when she was sold to Washington’s father on February 5th, 1727). Barnum started a seven-month tour centering on Heth at Niblo's on August 10th, 1835. Barnum made $1,500 a week exhibiting her as the first President’s 161-year-old mammy. After Heth died, an autopsy in front of 1,500 paying customers on February 25th, 1836, revealed she was actually only about 80, just not well preserved.

Another early Barnum fabrication was the Fijee Mermaid, not really a mermaid, but two creatures stuffed and stiched together; half monkey (upper body) and half fish (lower). Barnum's Little Woolly Horse was another one of his skyrockets or advertisements to attract attention to his real oddities. Barnum's biggest attraction was Jumbo the elephant; his smallest at 25 inches was 15-pound General Tom Thumb (Charles Stratton), discovered at the age of 5 in 1842. Commodore Nutt was Barnum’s second midget. Barnum also made Siamese Twins Chang and Eng famous.

During the Draft Riot (July 13-16, 1863), mobs attacked P.T. Barnum’s Museum of Oddities two years before the building on Broadway and Ann Street would burn down completely. After that disastrous fire on July 13th, 1865, P.T. Barnum's American Museum moved to another site at 539–541 Broadway (NW corner of Spring Street), this second location was called Barnum and Van Amburgh Museum and Menagerie Company (539 Broadway, between Spring and Prince Streets).

Barnum's second museum, which offered daily educational performances, took over the building that once housed the former Chinese Rooms (1851), Broadway Casino (1852), Buckley's Minstrel Hall (1853), and Melodeon Concert Hall (1858-1861). Barnum had partnered with the Van Amburgh Menagerie Company to enable even larger animals (elephants, rhinos. lions, tigers, leopards) to be exhibited. Barnum's New Museum, or Barnum and Van Amburgh Museum and Menagerie Company, opened September 6th, 1865, but it also burned down May 3rd, 1868, after a fire in the basement restaurant. Two more Barnum locations followed, one on 14th and 3rd Avenue and then the last by Madison Square Park.

Barnum's Circus, Museum and Menagerie on 14th Street (across from the Academy of Music, by 3rd Ave.) caught fire at 4:10 a.m. December 24th, 1872, once again burning all the animals to death.

P.T. Barnum’s Traveling Worlds Fair, Great Roman Hippodrome and Greatest Show On Earth opened in April 1871 in Brooklyn before traveling from Maine to Kansas. Barnum was over 60 when he went circus. When Grand Central was built in 1871, Barnum took over the previous passenger train depot site, and in April 1874, Barnum's 8,000-seat Hippodrome (first called Barnum's Monster Classical and Geological Hippodrome) opened on Madison Avenue between 26th and 27th Streets. This Barnum venue included chariot races, Wild West shows, waltzing elephants and circus acts galore.

The Hippodrome then became Gilmore's Garden, and in 1879, the site of the first Madison Square Garden, which featured track cycling events. Stanford White opened the second Madison Square Garden, also at 26th and Madison Avenue in 1890, with 17,000 customers on opening night to witness horse shows, a new tower, and classy rooftop garden. Madison Square Garden moved to 50th Street and Eighth Avenue in 1925 and hosted wrestling and boxing matches mostly.

In 1881, Barnum merged his circus business with James A. Bailey. In 1882, Barnum and England's Jumbo the elephant paraded around NYC streets. In 1884, P.T. Barnum took 21 elephants across the Brooklyn Bridge led by the famous Jumbo.

Barnum never said, "There's a sucker born every minute." The line was uttered by one of his competitors named David Hannum. In late 1869, Barnum offered Hannum $50,000 for the Cardiff Giant, but he wouldn’t sell. Barnum carved a giant of his own and proclaimed that Hannum sold him the real giant and was exhibiting a fake. Hannum sued and issued the famous quote to refer to the people who paid to see Barnum's fake giant. In court, George Hull, an archeologist who originally sold Hannum the giant for $30,000, stepped forward and admitted that the giant was a hoax. Barnum could not be sued for calling it a fake when it was a fake after all, and the lawsuit was thrown out of court. Hannum was quickly forgotten, and Barnum was remembered for the famous quote.

NYC's first museum was the Tammany Museum, which first opened in 1783 in a room in the second City Hall (at Wall and Broad Streets). The Tammany Museum featured a live lion, American Indian artifacts, art prints, and farming equipment. The museum moved in 1810 to 39 Park Row (the old 21 Chatham Street) where it became Scudder’s Museum. John Scudder may have originally been a partner of Barnum’s.

The museum moved to the north side of City Hall Park in 1817, taking over the yellow two-story Almshouse building (also called New York Institution) before moving to the NE corner of Broadway and Ann Streets where the first Barnum Museum would locate. Barnum's American Museum opened in 1842 on the corner of Ann Street and Broadway.

Commodore Nutt - Commodore Nutt was a midget who came in 1862, after the famous General Tom Thumb who he discovered in 1842.

Isaac Van Amburgh - The Zoological Institute at 37-39 Bowery, opened in 1821. Isaac Van Amburgh was the first animal trainer to put his head into a lion's mouth. By 1835, the site of America's first permanent zoo became the Bowery Amphitheater where on January 31, 1843, the Virginia Minstrels blackface minstrel shows started.

Robert Moses - Robert Moses built a storybook themed zoo in 1934, where the current zoo in Central Park is now.

Edward Ridley - The pink E.S. Ridley Department Store (mid 1850's-1901) was one of the major retailers on Grand, located at 309-311 Grand, on the SW corner of Orchard (only 4 blocks east of Lord & Taylor). An extension of the Edward Ridley & Sons store was also opened at 58-70 Allen street, but the whole east side of Allen street was demolished to expand Allen street in 1931. Almost 2,000 people were employeed by E.S. Ridley Department Store in NYC.

Mayor C Godfey Gunther - Mayor C Godfey Gunther's 1861 win, brought the end of Fernando Wood, but a new state law also brought the end to Mayor C Godfey Gunther's beloved volunteer fire companies. Volunteer fire companies, were forced into obsolescence by the creation of the five year Metropolitan Fire District and the Metropolitan Fire Department (MFD) (replaced because of the Tweed Charter, by the FDNY). Anti-Tammany and anti-abolitionist groups, as well as Copperheads, and other Peace Democrats made C Godfey Gunther, Mayor of NYC.

Mayor Jimmy Walker - Mayor Jimmy Walker lived close by his birthplace at 110 Leroy Street, until 1932 (when he resigned and hide out in Europe), at 6 St. Lukes Place. James J. Walker Park at St. Lukes Place and Hudson Street, lies on the old Trinity Parish Cemetery, where Edgar Allen Poe liked to wander around for inspiration. Mayor Jimmy Walkers Versailles, was at the Central Park Casino. Jimmy prefered to do business at the Central Park Casino, than down at City Hall. Jimmy was often a visitor to the speakeasy on the 5th floor of the old Variety office on 46th street.

Governor Thomas A. Dewey - Dewey was Governor from 1943-1955, he ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Presidency in 1944 and 1948. Just below the observation deck in the 1930 Bank of Manhattan Trust Building skyscraper at 40 Wall Street, was Governor Dewey illegal pad (zoned for commercial usage only). Rockefeller interests who Dewey protected, made the illegal do-able (NYC's business as usual).

Hendrick Van Dyck - On September 15, 1655, Hendrick Van Dyck shot a young Indian girl who was stealing a Peach from his tree. This caused hundreds of Indians to attack NYC the next day (an arrow wounded Van Dyck), and about 100 women & children were held captive and ransomed due to the Peach Tree War.

Herman Mynderts van den Bogaert - Herman Mynderts van den Bogaert was a ship barber who the West India Company made NYC's first doctor in 1630. The blood red stripes on the barber pole should have given it away.

Hendrick Rycken - Blacksmith's in NYC included Hendrick Rycken (1663).

Johannes La Montagne - Johannes La Montagne was the second Doctor in NYC (1637) and was also a member of the Supreme Council and Vice Director of Fort Orange.

Hans Kierstede - Hans Kierstede was the third Dutch doctor in NYC. Other early NYC surgeons were Jan Croon, Aldart Swatout, Jacob Hughes, Varre Vanger and Jacob Hendrick. Hans Kierstede was the doctor who helped Dr Jacob Hendrickson Varrevanger.

Peter van der Linde - Peter van der Linde was the fourth Dutch doctor in NYC. Other early NYC surgeons were Jan Croon, Aldart Swatout, Jacob Hughes, Varre Vanger and Jacob Hendrick.

John Cabot - John Cabot got England fishing rights, after exploring Newfoundland, Nova Scotia & Labrador. Cabot reached American first, which let England claim the whole east coast of North America. His son Sebastian Cabot was on that boat as well.

Prince Henry - The Navigator called Prince Henry was not English he was a Portuguese dreamer, scholar, monk and crusader.

John Davis - The English navigator named John Davis, looked for the Northwest Passage from 1585 to 1587.

Coenrat Ten Eyck - Coenrat Ten Eyck lived at Coenties Slip, which was named after him and his wife Antye Ten Eyck. Coen and Antye.

Ben Johnson - Ben Johnson was the hangman in 1672, who could not hang himself for robbery, so he was whipped and banished after they cut off one ear.

Adam Roelantsen - Adam Roelantsen was NYC's first teacher (students paid 2 Beaver skins per year), he also had a washing business at the foot of Maiden Lane.

Anthony Van Fees - Around 1642, Anthony Van Fees paid $9.60 for a city lot on Bridge street ( the first recorded city lot sale).

Tryntje Clock - Tryntje Clock lived and worked at the corner of Pearl and Hanover. Tryntje was skilled at the use of herb medicines.

Harry Venn - Ann Street was a favorite street for drinking volunteer firemen, in the 1830's they drank at Harry Venn's Tavern at 13 Ann Street. This tavern was run by old respected fireman (and poet of classics like, Hot Mutton Pie) Harry Venn. Harry Venn died in 1879.

David Provost - Dewitt Clinton and David Provost were regulars of the Shakespeare Tavern, at the Southeast corner of Fulton and Nassau Streets. The 7th Regiment was organized at this Tavern.

Femimore Cooper - Edward Windust's restaurant (1824-1865) on Ann street was NYC's most famous resort in the days of the Park Theatre, customers included Washington Irving and Femimore Cooper.

Sandy Welsh - Sandy Welsh had a resort in the basement of the American Museum on Ann and Broadway, it was frequented by famous politicians.

Isaiah Rynders - Sweeney's restaurant most famous customer was Captain Isaiah Rynders a rich gambler who lead street gangs and created the Empire Club ( the criminal subordinate of Tammany Hall). First located on Ann Street, Sweeney's restaurant moved to 66 Chatham Street by Duane in 1850. Rynders opened the Five Points gang hangout called the Empire Club at 25 Park Row. Captain Isaiah Rynders was an old political boss of the 6th ward and Tammany Hall politician who owned the Empire Club on Park Row. Rynders had helped lead the Astor Place Riots as the leader of the Plug Uglies and the Dead Rabbits.

Evertsen - 4 brothers named Evertsen settled in NYC and Jersey City (then called Pavonia) around 1638, they owned NYC's first tannery.

Adrian Van Laar - Shoemaker and tanner in 1664 that lived on Stone street (Hoogh Straat) between Broad and William.

Arent Isaacksen - Arent Isaacksen was a shoemaker who lived on Stone street (Hoogh Straat) between Broad and William.

Jochem Beekman - Shoemaker who lived on the SE corner of Broad (Heere Graft) and Beaver streets.

Pieter Winster - Pieter Winster was a shoemaker who lived next to the Ten Eyck's. He was one of the shoemakers who set up his tannery in the swamps west of Broad street and north of Beaver street (once called the sheep pasture), who used a small brook for their tanning operations.

Coenraet Ten Eyck - Coenraet Ten Eyck was a shoe dealer and tanner. Coenraet lived on Broad (Heere Graft) between Beaver and Pearl. The Ten Eyck tannery was in the swamps of Beaver street, on the west side of Broad. After Coenraet died in 1680 his 3 sons (Dirck, Tobias and Coenraet Jr.) took over the tannery and other parts of the huge business he had built up since the 1650's.

Abel Hardenbrook - Shoemaker and tanner whose tan pits in 1661, fronted on Exchange Place (then called Prince Graft) by the corner of Broad. He owned a bark mill with other shoemakers, and lived on Stone street, one of the finest blocks in NYC at the time.

Jacob Abrahams - Jacob Abrahams was a tanner who lived on Stone street, one of the finest blocks in NYC at the time.In 1676 no tanner could also be a shoemaker, and visa versa.

Carsten Luerse - One of the original proprietors (along with Coenraet Ten Eyck, John Heperding and Jacob Abrahams) of the 2nd shoemakers tanning operations. This 2nd area was on the North side of Maiden lane, just east of William street. In 1696, three more tanners joined into the Maiden lane tan pits, they were Abraham Santfort, Charles Lodwick and Heiltje Cloppers.

Governor Edmund Andros - In August 1676, Governor Andros and his council gave the monopoly to two tanners, and stopped all others from tanning. Tanners on Broad included Abel Hardenbrook on Exchange Place, Pieter Winster was just North of Beaver, Coenraet Ten Eyck was by Beaver, nearby was tanneries owned by Jacob Abrahams and Adrian Van Laar. The tan pits moved to Collect pond in 1720. On the old outskirts of the old city, beyond the Jews Cemetery, the British prisons dumped cartloads of dead patriotic bodies during the British occupation of NYC. (1776-1783). These trenches off Chatham Square seem to be lost to history.

Dirck Van der Clyff - Between Fulton Street and Maiden lane, east of Gold street was the orchard of Dirck Van der Clyff, that Cliff Street was named after.

Andrew Beekman - Andrew Beekman the son of Gerardus Beekman, was killed in the revolt, his dad Gerardus helped prosecute the slaves of the 1712 and 1741 slave revolts. Just before NYC's first negro uprising (April 7th, 1712 at 1 AM), out of roughly 5,000 African American slaves working in NYC, a few of them gathered in Mr. Cooke's Apple orchard by Maiden lane. After setting Peter Van Tilburgh's house (or outhouse) on fire they killed some of the white people who came to put it out. 2 slaves killed the 3 owners that treated them the worse, Andrew Beekman, Joris Marschalk and Adrian Hoighlandt. The Downtown Ann Street was named for one of Gerardus Beekmans kids.

Joris Marschalk - Just before NYC's first negro uprising (April 7th, 1712 at 1 AM), out of roughly 5,000 African American slaves working in NYC, a few of them gathered in Mr. Cooke's Apple orchard by Maiden lane. After setting Peter Van Tilburgh's house (or outhouse) on fire they killed some of the white people who came to put it out. 2 slaves killed the owners that treated them the worse, Andrew Beekman, Joris Marschalk and Adrian Hoighlandt. Joris Marschalk was baptized on Feb. 27th , 1691, his father was Andries Marschalk, and mother was Elisabeth Van Gelder.

Adrian Hoighlandt - Just before NYC's first negro uprising (April 7th, 1712 at 1 AM), out of roughly 5,000 African American slaves working in NYC, a few of them gathered in Mr. Cooke's Apple orchard by Maiden lane. After setting Peter Van Tilburgh's house (or outhouse) on fire they killed some of the white people who came to put it out. 2 slaves killed the owners that treated them the worse, Andrew Beekman, Joris Marschalk and Adrian Hoighlandt.

Gerardus Beekman - Andrew Beekman the son of Gerardus Beekman, was killed in the revolt, his dad Gerardus helped prosecute the slaves of the 1712 and 1741 slave revolts. Just before NYC's first negro uprising (April 7th, 1712 at 1 AM), out of roughly 5,000 African American slaves working in NYC, a few of them gathered in Mr. Cooke's Apple orchard by Maiden lane. After setting Peter Van Tilburgh's house (or outhouse) on fire they killed some of the white people who came to put it out. 2 slaves killed the 3 owners that treated them the worse, Andrew Beekman, Joris Marschalk and Adrian Hoighlandt. The Downtown Ann Street was named for one of Gerardus Beekmans kids.

Governor Robert Hunter - After hearing gunfire from the 1712 slave rebellion, Governor Robert Hunter called out the militia, and stopped the revolt.

Cryn Frederickz van Lobbrecht (Cryn Fredericks) - In 1625, Military Engineer and Surveyor, Cryn Frederickz van Lobbrecht (Cryn Fredericks) helped Willem Verhulst pick the site of the town, just above the southern tip of Manhattan.

Willem Kieft - Governor Willem Kieft released most of the slaves after 18 or 19 years (which meant some came in 1625), in 1644 after they helped defend the fort from Indians, he gave them farmland in the west side of NYC, in what would be Greenwich Village and SoHo. The parents were freed but their children were not.

Groot Manuel de Gerrit - A slave that survived the hangman's noose 3 times (for a bar room brawl) and pardoned.

Captain Isaiah Rynders - Captain Isaiah Rynders was an old political boss of the 6th ward and Tammany Hall politician who owned the Empire Club on Park Row. Rynders had helped lead the Astor Place Riots as the leader of the Plug Uglies and the Dead Rabbits.

John Kelly - This leader of Tammany Hall was called "Honest John" Kelly, and helped bring down the Tweed ring.

W. T. Havemeyer - Elected NYC mayor in 1845, W. T. Havemeyer completed NYC's waterworks, and helped organize the police department.

Jacob Brown - In 1791 representatives of the Fire Dept met at the house of Jacob Brown on Nassau street to start a fund for sick, indigent and disabled firemen, and their widows and orphans.

Daniel Ludlow - 1st president of Aaron Burr's Manhattan Bank, Aaron Burr was one of its directors.

Andrew Mortier - The 1750, Richmond Hill mansion at the southeast corner of Varick and Charlton streets (about 100 feet east of Varick to be exact). Richmond Hill mansion was built by the Paymaster of the British Army, Andrew Mortier. Before the Battle of Long Island, George Washington slept here.

Sir Guy Carleton - One of the last of the British officers who took over the Richmond Hill mansion was Sir Guy Carleton, the last commander of the British Army. From 1781-1783 he was the Commander in Chief of North America, replacing Sir Henry Clinton, he was replaced by General John Campbell (17th of Strachur).

Thomas Hickey - Legend says, Miss Phoebe Fraunces (mistress of Thomas Hickey) was ordered to add poison to George Washington's favorite pea dish in 1776. Governor Tryons alleged plot was supposibly aided by several Tavern keepers and a guard named Thomas Hickey. Hickey was one of George Washington's bodyguards who was found guilty of treason, mutiny and sedition, and was hung on June 28, 1776, in front of 20,000 spectators at Rutger's farm by Grand and Chrystie streets. Hickey planed to poison Washington's peas, and other American officers (as well as blowing up the towns Magazine), but the plot was revealed by Phoebe the daughter of Sam Francis (the owner of Francis Tavern). Washington according to the story threw the poisoned peas out the window, and watched the chickens eat them and fall over dead. Besides Governor Tryon and Thomas Hickey, David Matthews the Mayor, was also involved in the plot.

General James Wolfe - Monument Lane was named after the Obelisk (monument) to General Wolfe at 15th street and 8th Avenue. Wolfe was a hero of Quebec, who died in the 1759 battle, after rejecting medical attention after being wounded in his hand, groin and chest.

Thomas Downing - African-American owner of Downing's Oyster House who restaurant was part of the Underground Railroad at 23 Wall Street at the SE corner of Nassau and Wall.

Governor Francis Lovelace - Governor Francis Lovelace set up the NYC to Boston monthly mail post in 1672 or 1673, which named the path the Boston Post Road (now Rt 1). Lovelace also created the Merchants Exchange.

Captain John Van Arsdale - Before they left NYC, the British greased the flagpole at Bowling Green, but Captain John Van Arsdale used cleats to replace the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes before the British sailed away.

Mrs Day - The last battle of the Revolutionary war was during the last few hours before British Major Cunningham left NYC. An American flag on Mrs Day's Murray Street boardinghouse/tavern was attacked by Major Cunningham himself around 9 AM on Evacuation day (November 25, 1783). Trying to take down Mrs Day's flag, he got a bloody nose instead, as Mrs. Day's broomstick proved itself a worthy weapon against the British Provost Marshal. Day's Tavern was at 128th Street and Saint Nicholas Avenue.

Henry Clapp - Henry Clapp was the editor of The Saturday Press in 1858. Under an 1850 hotel at 645 Broadway (by Bleecker Street) was Pfaff's (1856), a famous restaurant where Henry Clapp became the first King of Bohemia. Walt Whitman hated to miss a night in Charlie Pfaff's basement cave. The glassed-over vaults in the sidewalks added light to this basement restaurant.

Andrew Carnegie - Andrew Carnegie, the founder of Pittsburgh's Carnegie Steel Company gave away most of his wealth to libraries, schools, and universities across America.

Henry Clay Frick - Partners with Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick is known for his art collection now displayed in his old mansion at Fifth Avenue and 70th Street.

John Morton - The British called John Morton the rebel banker, because he loaned large sums of money to the Continental Congress.

Jay Gould - Jay Gould was an orchid collector and flower-loving botanist who considered himself the most hated man in America. Gould helped create the Black Friday of 1869, which gave him the name the Little Skunk of Wall Street, he was also known as the spider. He died from overwork at the age of 56.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild - The founder of the Rothschild family banking empire, Mayer Amschel Rothschild got rich by managing the immense fortune of Wilhelm IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel during Napoleon's reign.

Isaac Barre - A Member of Parliament named Isaac Barre was a supporter of the American colonists, he first called Americans the Sons of Liberty, who would resist the Stamp Act tax of 1765. The Liberty Boys had no interest in total liberty from England when they first organized. The Liberty Boys originally just wanted for Americans to decide their own taxes. The idea for freedom from religious persecution came afterwards. The Liberty Boys had a small agenda when they first organized.

Mrs Corlear - The Corlear family were 17th century Dutch landowners who owned the land by this once hook shaped hilly marshland by the East River. The hills were flattened and the landfill made great docks for NYC early shipping history. Corlear's Point was a site of an early village called Crown Point.

Hendrick Hendriksen Kip - Kips Bay once a haven for pirates and smugglers, covers the area from 24th to 34th Street between 3rd Avenue and the East River. It was once a small bay off Hendrick Hendriksen Kip's farm, which was next to the Belle Vue Farm (purchased in 1794).

Jean Allefonsce born Jean Fonteneau - Jean Allefonsce visited the French fort of Norumbega in 1542, it could have been off the Hudson, but most think it was the Penobscot River. On Champlains map of 1612, the Penobscot River is called Naranberga. The French fort of Norumbega was on a small island in a fresh water lake, this pinpoints the Collect Pond as its most likely NYC location of the French fur traders village & blockhouse. Arthur James Weise of Troy, has great points about the Hudson being the Norumbega as a corruption of Anormee Berge (Palisades). The village of Norumbega was at the head of the bay into which it emptied, that could have been NYC. Allefonsce claimed that the river of Norumbega was salt for almost 90 miles past its mouth.

Arthur James Weise - Was from Troy, he made great points about the Hudson being the Norumbega as a corruption of Anormee Berge (Palisades).

Casimir Goerck - Casimir Goerck was a surveyor who was commissioned in 1797 with partner Joseph F. Mangin to create an official map of NYC. Goerck died a year later. Mangin finished the plan in 1803. Livingston, Gates and Martha streets were part of the Mangin-Goerck Plan of 1803, but were never built. Other streets in the old Stuyvesant Farm grid were Dow, White Cruger, Dove, Spruce, Rensselaer, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Bruges.

John Bowne - John Bowne let Quakers (blasphemous hereticks) hold religious services in his home, and in 1663 he was banished by Anti-Semitic Peter Stuyvesant.

Resolve Waldron - Peter Stuyvesant's sheriff who on Sept. 1, 1662, arrested John Bowne in his Flushing home for holding Quaker services.

Peter T Curtenius - Ironmonger Peter T Curtenius made Franklin Stoves, kettles & pots in the 1770s. His Ironwork factory caused the 1st unclean air law, this law applied to large manufacturers only, not mom and pops operations.

Asser Levy - Asser Levy came with the Jews escaping Recife, Brazil due to the onslaught of the Inquisition. Asser opened a Kosher butcher shop and dabbled in NYC real estate.

Jacob bar Simson - Jacob bar Simson was an Ashkenazi Jew from Northern Europe who arrived in NYC on August 22, 1654, on the Dutch ship Pereboom (Pear Tree). Jacob bar Simson was the first Jewish settler in NYC. Jacob Bar Simson was summoned to court on his Sabbath, he got away with not responding due to his religion.

Abraham de Lucena - Abraham de Lucena got in trouble for selling goods during the Sunday sermon, but got off for claiming ignorance of the law.

Jacob Cohen - Jacob Cohen helped the formation of the first Jewish Cemetary by Chatham Square.

Aarom Sinsheimer - The Sons of the Covenant (Bnai Brith) was created at Sinsheimers Essex Street Barroom and Cafe owned by Aarom Sinsheimer. Bnai Brith was run by Henry James and his 11 Jewish friends to maintain orphanages and widow/old age homes.

Samuel Lord - The basement of 47 Catherine Street was the first location of Samuel Lord's store in 1826, it became Lord and Taylor right before they moved to Grand Street. The second location of Lord & Taylor was at Grand Street and Chrystie Street in 1853, that was one of the first buildings to turn their facades into arcades (Architect Frederick Diaper skyscraper thinking). It ended up holding most of Lord & Taylors carpets and oil-cloths. Grand Street and Broadway was the third location of Lord and Taylor (which closed in 1903), it became Lord & Taylors headquarters of their wholesale trade. The next store (1906) was at 115 5th Avenue, A later location opened on Great Jones and Lafayette Streets. The Broadway & 20th Street store opened around 1870, Lord & Taylor's last move was in 1914 to 424 5th Avenue between 38th and 39th streets.

Rowland Hussey Macy - Rowland Hussey Macy was the founder of the department store chain R.H. Macy and Company, who's NYC start in 1858, was at Sixth Avenue and 14th Street.

John Wanamaker - John Wanamaker opened his 1st NYC store in New York City in 1896.

Frank Winfield Woolworth - Frank Winfield Woolworth's chain store rival to his 5 and 10, was Sebastian S. Kresge.

Marshall Field - One of Marshall Field's mottos was, Give the lady what she wants. Marshall Field and Company was created in 1881.

Jonas Michaelius - Jonas Michaelius was NYC's first minister.

Jean Mousnier de la Montagne - Jean Mousnier de la Montagne (known as Johannes la Montagne) arrived in the spring of 1637, one of his daughters married Jacob Kip (Kips Bay). He was NYC's first real physician and a retail merchant, he was also one of the founders of Harlem. He took charge of the DeForest tobacco plantation in the North side of what was to become Central Park (but was chased away by the Indians).

Henry Goldfoggle - Henry Goldfoggle was the first Jewish NY congressman, who was elected in 1900.

Hendricksen Varravanger - Hendricksen Varravanger established the first NYC medical office for sick soldiers and the companies negros in 1658, but was not a real physician.

Samuel Staats - Samuel Staats was a great doctor, but not until the 17th Century.

Lord Cornbury - Governor, Lord Cornbury gave the entire Duke's Farm to the English Church (Trinity) in 1705.

Annetje Jans - On the West side of Broadway, the Duke's Farm (formerly the Company's Farm that went from Fulton to Warren) went to Charlton Street, and may have even gone as far as Christopher Street, after heirs of Annetje Jans sold the land in 1670.

Dirck Van Clift - The first ferryman was Dirck Van Clift, who would row passengers across the East River to Brooklyn for 5 cents.

Isaiah Rogers - The site of the old Company farmhouse ( west of Broadway between Vesey and Barclay Streets) was the location of the 1836 Astor House Hotel, (demolished in 1926). The Astor House Hotel was designed by Isaiah Rogers, America's foremost hotel architect. Isaiah Rogers was also the architect the Tremont House in Boston, the first hotel with indoor plumbing. This site was just north of St Paul's Church, right across Broadway (west side) from P.T. Barnum's American Museum which was on the southeast corner of Ann Street.

John Ericsson - John Ericsson statue in Battery Park. In Battery Park a statue of a Swedish inventor who hated the US Navy. This inventor named John Ericson is holding a model of USS Monitor in his hand. Even though John hated the US Navy, Cornelius Scranton Bushnell convinced him to built an iron-clad armored battle ship called the Monitor. In approximately 100 days he built this warship from plans to launch.

Abraham De Peyster - Abraham De Peyster's statue was first in Bowling Green, then Hanover Square, next stop City Hall Park.

Chaplain John Sharpe - The Chaplain John Sharpe gave his 238 book collection to NYC in 1711, it was called the Sharpe Library. The library was housed at the Stadt Huys until the new City Hall on Wall street opened. In 1729, the library in City Hall was called the Corporation Library, and John Sharpe was the Librarian. Chaplain John Sharpe, the Librarian of the Corporation Library allowed customers to keep a book 1 year. Many people came in from other colonies, and only came to NYC once in a while. They had to leave a large deposit to borrow books, but anyone could read them at the Library. In 1754, the name Corporation Library was changed to City Library, and in 1772 changed to the New York Society Library.

Bishop Charles Inglis - The Trinity Parish Library was founded in 1698, by the Bishop of London. 600 to 2000 books (many from Trinity) were found in St Pauls Church in 1802, many were saved from the Trinity fire (1776) by Bishop Charles Inglis who moved them from his Inglis said of Thomas Paine's Common Sense -It was one of the most virulent, artful, and pernicious Pamphlets I ever met with, and perhaps the Wit of man could not devise one better calculated to do Mischief

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham - William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham was an Englishman who supported the colonists of New York, and was well liked by the American patriots. His statue was beheaded by the British (who also amputated the statues right arm) during St. Andrews Day celebration (November 30, 1777). 1708-1788

Captain Manning - British commander, Captain Manning let the Dutch retake NYC in July or August of 1673. When the Dutch retook NYC without firing a shot, Captain Manning was not harmed. When the British retook NYC, he had his day in court, and became the first British sorehead. Captain Manning was court martialed for treachery and cowardice, his sentence was to have his sword broken over his head. Captain Manning was court martialed but never executed for treason.

Scipio Africanus - Scipio Africanus died on December 21, 1720. Born in 1702, he was the servant of Charles William Howard.

Caesar (Vaarck's) - Caesar was executed in the 1741 New York Conspiracy, which thought slaves were plotting to pillage and burn down NYC, and to murder their white owners. Hung on May 11, 1741. Slave of baker John Vaarck, his other slave friends in his gang were Prince and Cuffee. In 1736, the Geneva Gang broke into the basement of Baker's Tavern to steal barrels of Holland gin with the Geneva brand name. Prince and Caesar got caught, labeled professional thieves and were whipped.

Cuffee - Cuffee was executed in the 1741 New York Conspiracy, where many slaves were hung or burned at the stake.

Prince - Prince was executed in the 1741 New York Conspiracy, where mass hysteria took over NYC.

Quack - Quack was not a known part of the Geneva Crowd, but was executed the same time as Cuffee.

Gerardus Comfort - Gerardus Comfort was a Cooper. Comfort's Dock was by Hughson's tavern. Comfort's Tea Water came from a spring off Greenwich between Thames and Cedar streets. Comfort lived just south right across from Hughson's Tavern on lower Stone street which ran just above Trinity Church from Broadway down to the Hudson River. The Hudson formed a dead end which few people went down, most people stopped at Comfort's well at Greenwich (between Thames and Cedar streets).

John Hughson - Hughson's Tavern was fronted by the Hudson River (which would be just west of Washington Street), just north of Trinity Church, between Cedar and Thames streets, just north of Comforts dock (see 1729 Lynn Map). Comfort's Tea Water came from a spring off Greenwich between Thames and Cedar streets.

Fronted by the Hudson River (which would be just west of Washington Street), John Hughson's Tavern opened in 1738 between Cedar and Thames Streets, by Comforts dock and north of Trinity Church (see 1729 Lynn Map). Four black slaves named Caesar, Prince, Cuffee and Quack -- gin-swilling arsonists of the Geneva Club gang -- were pawning stuff at Hughson's tavern, and that started the trail of evidence uncovering the 1741 NY Conspiracy. The Landscapes of Conspiracy map (1741) puts the tavern at Crown (Liberty) Street and the Hudson River, just east of today’s West Side Highway. Other sources place it just west of Greenwich Street by Rector Street.

The Geneva Club’s criminal history included a 1736 break-in at Baker's Tavern basement to steal barrels of Holland gin with the Geneva brand name. Prince and Caesar got caught, labeled professional thieves, and whipped. Caesar (Vaarck) was the slave of baker John Vaarck before the conspiracy and the Negro revolt that led to Caesar's hanging on May 11, 1741. His chain-bound remains were hung less than 10 yards away from the southeast corner of Cherry and Catherine Streets for all to see, from the East River anyway.

Hughson's remains were hung for all on the East River to see at Cherry and Catherine Streets (Ten yards from the SE corner of Cherry and Catherine Streets). Fronted by the Hudson River (which would be just west of Washington Street), Hughson's Tavern next to Comfort’s dock and north of Trinity Church (see 1729 Lynn Map). Comfort's Tea Water came from a spring off Greenwich between Thames and Cedar Streets. Four black slaves named Caesar, Prince, Cuffee and Quack -- gin-swilling arsonists of the Geneva Club gang -- were pawning stuff at Hughson's tavern, and that started the trail of evidence uncovering the 1741 NY Conspiracy. The Landscapes of Conspiracy map (1741) puts the tavern at Crown (Liberty) Street and the Hudson River, just east of today’s West Side Highway. Other sources place it just west of Greenwich Street by Rector Street.

Before that, in 1736, the Geneva Club broke into Baker's Tavern basement and stole barrels of Holland gin with the Geneva brand name. Prince and Caesar got caught, labeled professional thieves, and whipped. Caesar (Vaarck) was the slave of baker John Vaarck before the conspiracy and the Negro revolt that led to Caesar's hanging on May 11, 1741.

Several incidents of arson and theft were led to the Negro Revolt trial that lasted for months. Hughson's 16-year-old-slave Mary Burton testified that her boss and many black slaves were planning to burn NYC, kill all the white people, and take over NYC. Dozens of slaves were burned and hung just south of the Collect Pond, and so were a few whites including the Hughsons. Hughson's chain-bound remains were hung less than 10 yards away from the southeast corner of Cherry and Catherine Streets for all to see, from the East River anyway.

Thomas Adams - Thomas Adams made several products from the chicle from Mexican sapodilla trees like toys, bicycle tires, masks, and rain boots . But the most successful product came after Thomas Adams struck out with his synthetic rubber products idea. In 1869 he discovered he liked the taste of chicle when chewed. Adams New York Gum was born in 1871, priced at 1 cent. The pure chicle gum was his first chewing gum product (1871), it was called Adams New York No. 1. This early gum called Adams New York No. 1, had a picture of NYC City Hall on its box. Thomas Adams in 1888, had his gum in the NYC subway machines on the elevated lines. One of my earliest memories of NYC subways was the gum machines. Black Jack gum, was created by Adams company, but was not the first sold in machines. Greeks chewed mastiche (resin of the mastic tree), Mayans chewed chicle (sapodilla tree sap), American Indians chewed Spruce tree sap. Gum from the White Mountain were made of paraffin wax, State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum was the first gum sold by John B. Curti in 1848. In 1907, the round candy coated gums and gumball machines were introduced.

Frank Henry Fleer - Blibber-Blubber was the first bubble gum sold, it was created by Frank Henry Fleer in 1906. Henry Fleer worked with William Wrigley, Jr. to create a fruity minty gum called Doublemint in 1914.

Walter Diemer - Walter Diemer, created Double Bubble in 1928, perfecting the bubble gum made by the founder of the company where he worked, the Frank H. Fleer Company.

Franklin V. Canning - New York druggist Franklin V. Canning invented Dentyne in 1899.

John Taylor Johnston - New York's first marble mansion (1856) was at 8 Fifth Avenue, it was built by John Taylor Johnston. Built in 1856 for John Taylor Johnston, president of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. John Taylor Johnston was also the founding president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. NYC's first marble mansion was made of white Vermont marble. James Thurber lived in NYC's first marble mansion between 1935-36.

Jacob Steendam - Jacob Steendam was a clerk for the Dutch West India Company, who was writing poetry in 1659, which made him the first poet in NYC.

William Cullen Bryant - William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was the Republican run New York Evening Post's editor for over 50 years, he gave up poetry to lead the people towards abolition and celebrating John Brown as a martyr.

Ralph Waldo Emerson - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was a poet philosopher that fought for social reforms like abolition, temperance, and woman suffrage.

Nathaniel Hawthorne - Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), was a poet writer from Salem, Mass. who found eternal fame with The Scarlet Letter.

Washington Irving - Will the real Diedrich Knickerbocker please stand up? In 1809, Washington Irving's (1783-1859) , A History of New York made fun of the old original Dutch settlers.

Jan Gillisen - Jan Gillisen was the Bell-ringer for the Stadt Huys in Dutch NYC, in those 1690's, Jan was also the court messenger, the village grave digger and sometimes was a schoolmaster.

Benjamin Moore - Benjamin Moore was an assistant minister of Trinity Church and became the British Army chaplain throughout the Revolutionary War, in 1800 he became Rector of Trinity.

Saul Brown - Years after NYC's 1st Rosh Hashanah in 1654, NYC's first Rabbi Saul Brown lead the services at the Shearith Israel synagogue in 1695.

Asser Levy van Swellem - Asser Levy van Swellem was present at the first NYC Rosh Hashanah services in 1654. Judicq de Mereda and Rycke Nounes were two single women who also attended NYC's first Rosh Hashanah service. Moses Ambrosius came to NYC's 1st Rosh Hashanah with Abraham Israel de Piza (or Dias), David Israel Faro, Assar Leeven Asser Levy, Judiq de Merceda (Judith Mercado) and Ricke Nunes.

Jacob Barsimson - Jacob Barsimson was the first Jewish settler in NYC, he would not have missed NYC's 1st Rosh Hashanah. Abraham Israel de Piza was also present. Jacob Barsimson and Solomon Pietersen were both shareholders in the Dutch West India Company.

Gouverneur Morris - Gouverneur Morris created the Erie Canal's grander plan that linked Lake Erie to the Hudson River.

Senator De Witt Clinton - In March, 1810, after the Erie Canal plan was dropped for a year, the soon to be Gouverneur De Witt Clinton worked on it for 7 years making it a legislative act.

Joshua Forman - Joshua Forman brought the Erie Canal project before the Assembly in 1808.

James Geddes - James Geddes was the surveyor on the Erie Canal project that stretched 363 miles, and was 40 feet wide at the surface and 18 feet wide at the bottom.

General Philip Schuyler - General Philip Schuyler was the president of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, who in 1792 first started the project between the Seneca Lake and Lake Ontario.

Captain Peter Warren - Captain Peter Warren was a British naval officer from Ireland that married Susannah Delancey the sister of chief justice and lieutenant governor of New York.

James Jauncey - one of the wealthiest Loyalist merchants, and was pals with James De Lancey, he and his two sons were captured by Washington's men and kept by New Rochelle.

Oliver De Lancey - Oliver De Lancey was the senior loyalist officer of the British army, whose land was forfeited to the State after the American revolution. William Bayard must have lost his land as well.

Samuel & William Bayard - William Bayard must have lost his land as well. Hoboken's founding family will forever be linked with local history, but residents might not know the story of how the noted Stevens family came to buy the land that is modern-day Hoboken.

In 1711, the title to most of what is today's Hoboken was acquired by Samuel Bayard, a successful New York merchant, who built a home on Castle Point for his summer residence. Through an inheritance, the property was passed down to his grandson William Bayard, who owned the land in the days leading up to the Revolutionary War.

William Bayard was a complicated figure who originally supported the revolutionary cause and even joined the Sons of Liberty. But in 1776, when he thought the colonies were going to lose the war, he defected and became a Loyalist Tory. He was even appointed to be a colonel in the English Army. In 1780, according to the New York Gazette, his farm and barn were burned to the ground. Shortly afterwards, his land was confiscated by the Revolutionary government of New Jersey. When the mile-square Bayard property in New Jersey was auctioned off publicly in 1784, Stevens III bought it. he was the treasurer of New Jersey-John Stevens, III

John Stevens, III - When the mile-square Bayard property in New Jersey was auctioned off publicly in 1784, Stevens III bought it. he was the treasurer of New Jersey

General James Wolfe - General Wolfe's Obelisk, 1754. General James Wolfe was an English general who died at the Battle of Montreal during the French and Indian War. Wolfe's remains were taken to England, where a monument to his memory sits in Westminster Abbey. A granite obelisk was created in the city of Quebec, and one in NYC (1754) which disappeared at the end of the Revolutionary war (may have been taken or hidden for safekeeping by the British). The obelisk was around 15th street west of 8th Avenue, at the end of the Monument road (later Greenwich Ave). Greenwich Lane in 1768 had two sections, one section was known as Monument Lane (or Obelisk Lane), the other section was called Art Street (now Astor Place). The two sections meet just west of the arch where Minetta Waters split Washington Square Park.

Gerritsen - Gerritsen Wagon Way was the name of the old Astor Place in 1639. it became Art street in 1768. Art St. was closed between Sixth Avenue and Broadway in 1825, because it interrupted the symmetry of Washington Square Park. It was named Astor Place in 1840, after John Jacob Astor, who had acquired the land in 1803.

Jacob Sperry - Swiss physician Jacob Sperry created the first botanical garden in NYC at Lafayette and Astor Place. Sperry's Gardens lasted until 1804, when Sperry sold the land to John Jacob Astor. Sperry's Gardens was the original name of the gardens that occupied the area where the third and most famous Vauxhill gardens were located (just south of Astor plaza) after 1803.

John Jones - For 20 years this 1750's pleasure resort called Ranelagh Gardens was leased by John Jones, who used Colonel Rutgers 1730 mansion and garden near the west side of Broadway and Thomas Street (between Duane and Worth streets). More accessibile and classier than the original Vauxhill Gardens, which folded due to the elegant Ranelagh Gardens.

The first NY Hospital was built on its old site.

Brannan - Owner of Brannan's Gardens. In 1765, by Hudson and Spring Streets, Brannan's Gardens openned. In the early 1700s, About the year 1765 Brannan's Gardens were established over on the north side of the Meadows, near the present crossing of Hudson and Spring streets. This daytime outlying resort was close to the river side Greenwich Road, and part of a romantic tradition of going on excursions over the kissing bridge on trips to the country.

Barberrie - Barberries Garden was on Crown Street (Liberty).

Byram - In the late 1790's Byram's Garden (which became Corri's and Mount Vernon Gardens) was at Leonard and Broadway. This resort was situated on an old hilltop.

Delacroix - Delacroix was the owner of the second Vauxhill Gardens which opened in 1798 on Bayard's Mound (Centre, Broome, Mott and Grand Streets).

Lorenzo Da Ponte - Lorenzo Da Ponte was the librettist of three Mozart operas, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan Tutte. The National Theatre at the NW corner of Leonard and Church was called the Italian Opera House in 1833. The Italian Opera House was the first Italian Opera House in America. Lorenzo Da Ponte helped open this House of Opera.

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham - Citizens decided to create a marble William Pitt statue in 1766 (which was erected in early September, 1770 in the center of William and Wall Street) for his defense of the American colonies and for his stance on the repeal of the Stamp act. William Pitt's statue was torn down by the British. The statue of William Pitt (in a Roman toga and holding the Magna Carta) was decapitated (and one arm was cut off) and dragged through the mud. It was totally removed in 1788, when Wall Street was paved. Chatham street (which was renamed Park Row in 1886) and Chatham Square was named after William Pitt (the Earl of Chatham). The statue was created by the same London sculptor (Joseph Wilton) who made the equestrian statue of George III that was in Bowling Green.

John Delmonico - Delmonicos, One of Americas oldest restaurants opened in 1827, it was the first fine-dining establishment. In 1823, John Delmonico opened a small bake shop, and was the chef and waiter. Delmonicos first bake shop was on east side of William Street, just a few doors south of Fulton Street. The west side of William Street, just south of Exchange Place was the location of Delmonicos first restaurant, which opened in 1876 or 1832, at 23 William Street. That 23 William street location was destroyed in the fire of 1835. The southeast side of South William and Beaver Streets was Delmonicos third location (which stayed family run until 1917, it reopened in 1934 until the 1970's). This 4 story building had four columns that were excavated from Pompeii, this building was replaced by a 8 story cast iron and steel framed building in 1891. Chambers and Broadway was a later location for Delmonicos, when they expanded up town, opening more restaurants like the one on 14th and 5th Ave. 26th and Broadway was a later Delmonicos restaurant location, the final location (the furthest uptown) was at 44th and Fifth Ave. Locations included Beekman and Pearl Street and at Beekman & Nassau. John's brother Peter, was a pastry chef, they were both Swiss born. Ben Wenberg was a sea captain who wandered into Delmonico in 1876, and created a dish using lobster, cream, rum and cayenne peppers. Delmonico swapped letters on his name as a slap in the face when they parted ways, and the name stuck as Lobster Newburg. The pastries at Delmonico's were as famous as their massive sandwiches.

Philip Embury (1728-1773) - Philip Embury was an Irish Methodist who came to NYC in 1760, with his cousin/wife Barbara Ruckle Heck. In October 1766, he started preaching from his Barrack street home about John Wesley's transforming religious experience. Philip and Barbara first started renting larger space on Barrack Street (Tryon Row), then in 1767 in a 2,400 square foot loft at 120 William Street, that was called The Old Rigging Loft. The Methodist's own building (Wesley Chapel) was dedicated at 44 John Street (between Nassau and William Streets) on October 30, 1768. Wesley Chapel was a barn with a blue stucco roof. In 1817, the John Street Church was torn down to rebuild a larger Church, dedicated in 1818. A smaller John Street Methodist Church was erected in 1841, after John street was widened in 1836. The tobacco merchant Benjamin Aymar's had two slaves that married Peter (John Street Methodist Church's 1st sexton, and an expert cigar maker) and Molly Williams. The slaves got their freedom after taking care of the John Street Methodist Church for many years. A free Peter Williams made a fortune when he went into the tobacco business and used his money and time to form a Negro Methodist Church in 1796. On July 30, 1800, Peter Williams laid the cornerstone for the African Methodist Episcopal Church, at the SW corner of Leonard and Church streets (Zion was added to its name after 1820). The Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church was rebuilt in 1820, but burnt down in 1839. Rebuilt in 1840, the African Methodist Episcopal Church moved in 1864, to Bleecker street, on the corner of Tenth Street.

Benjamin Aymar - The tobacco merchant Benjamin Aymar's had two slaves that married, Peter (John Street Methodist Church's 1st sexton, and an expert cigar maker) and Molly Williams (the first woman firefighter). The two slaves got their freedom after taking care of the chapel for many years. A free Peter Williams made a fortune when he went into the tobacco business and used his money and time to form a Negro Methodist Church in 1796. For the first meetings of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, they rented a house on Cross street (now Mosco) between Mulberry and Orange (now Baxter) streets. That section of Cross street is now part of Columbus Park. Besides Peter Williams and Molly, the founders included James Varick; Abraham Thompson, June Scott, Francis Jacobs, William Brown, William Miller and William Hamilton. On July 30, 1800, Peter Williams laid the cornerstone for the Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, at the southwest corner of Leonard and Church streets. By 1807, NYC would not let the African Methodist Episcopal Church bury their dead in the church grounds, so they used the Potter's Field located in the Parade Grounds in Washington Square Park, and then Seneca Village between 85th and 86th Streets (until 1852). In 1813, the second African Methodist Episcopal church was built as Asbury Church, on Elizabeth Street near Pump (Canal) Street. In 1820 the word Zion was added to the Churches names. In 1823, the Asbury Church on Elizabeth Street burnt.

William Hamilton edited The Anglo-African, the first newspaper established in the A. M. E. Zion Church.

John Scudder - Dr. John Scudder was once a traveling organ-grinder who collected oddities from the road. The first NYC museum was the Tammany Museum (featuring a live lion, Indian artifacts, art prints, and farming equipment). The Tammany Museum opened in 1810, around 37 or 39 Park Row (the old 21 Chatham Street), it quickly became the Chatham Museum also called Scudder's Museum, also in 1810 (run by Scudder's son?). It featured stuffed animals, a live anaconda and an alligator. The next version of Scudder's Museum opened on the North side of City Hall Park off Chambers street, in 1816 or 1817. Located in the New York Institution building (the old Almshouse), before it moved to a 5 story building at the SE corner of Broadway & Ann Streets in 1824. The American Museum was the first marble fronted structure built since the third (and present) City Hall. For $12,000, P.T. Barnum became the proprietor of the American Museum after signing a 10 year lease with the owner of the museum building, Mr. Francis W. Olmsted on Dec. 27, 1841, and agreeing to buy the entire failing collection from Scudder's daughters in 1840. Barnum's American Museum opened in 1842 (with John Scudder as a partner?) on the corner of Ann Street and Broadway (before the 315 foot, St. Paul Building). Barnum's American Museum burnt down in July 13, 1865 (during the NY Draft Riots), due to a fire in the engine room that created steam for the aquarium. Famous politicians Elijah Purdy, Robert Morris, Lorenzo Sheppard, Rococo Levi were warhorses that often met at Sandy Welsh's place in the basement of the American Museum.

Francis W. Olmsted - Mr. Francis W. Olmsted on Dec. 27, 1841, and agreeing to buy the entire failing collection from Scudder's daughters in 1840.

Sandy Welsh - Sandy Welsh's place in the basement of the American Museum.

Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) - Peale's 1784 or 1786 or 1788 Museum was a hybrid between a zoo and an art, history, and natural history museum. It featured Peale's portraits of Revolutionary War heroes (including his famous portraits of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin), Native American artifacts, as well as fossils, animal, mineral and natural history specimens that highlighted American nature. The highlight was the giant 11 feet high and 17 feet long Mammoth skeleton. A a live grizzly bear escaped from his museum and had to be shot. P.T Barnum bought his Philadelphia Museum in 1849 and collection in 1854 and divided it with Moses Kimball. Peale's Museum was founded in Philadelphia in 1786, but the NYC museum (on Broadway opposite City Hall Park and the Park Theatre) called Peale's Museum and Portrait Gallery or the New York Museum (opened by Ruben the son of Charles Willson Peale) opened in 1825, it went out of business before 1843. Hard Times Tokens were sold for $10 by the NYC Peale's Museum in 1825 to admit the bearer for annual family attendance subscriptions. P.T. Barnum bought all the exhibits of the Peale's Museum on Jan. 2, 1843 for $7,000.

Edward Delafield (May 17, 1794 - Feb. 13 1875) - Born May 7, 1794, one of 14 kids (7 boys, 7 girls) , Edward graduated Yale in 1812. The War of 1812 interrupted his studies and while the British blockaded NY harbor in 1814, Edward joined The Iron Grays. Delafield and John Kearney Rodgers went to London in 1817 and visited what was to become the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital (then called London infirmary for curing diseases of the eye). Overall, in their first year of operation the Black Ball Line averaged 43 days westbound (to Liverpool England) and 25 days eastbound (to South Street, NYC). On August 14, 1820, two small rooms on the second floor of 45 or 65 Chatham Street (45 is now 83 Park Row, 65 Chatham was opposite Chambers Street), a house located diagonally across from City Hall became the first Infirmary of Edward Delafield, M.D., and John Kearney Rodgers, M.D.. They paid for this first office out of their own pockets. Their first hours were 12:00 to 1:00PM on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. They did the first congenital cataract operation in America. The second office for the two eye doctors at the New York Eye Infirmary opened on March 22, 1822, off Murray street by Broadway across from Columbia College. In 1822, the Infirmary was chartered by NY State, and it started to florish. The first employee was hired as both an apothecary and custodian of the medical instruments, he also applied the leeches. 139 Duane Street was the third location of the Infirmary after they leased a building from New York Hospital in 1824-1826. The Infirmary moved a few times from 1826-1840, and then rented a building off Broadway at 47 Howard Street, from 1840-1845. The first permenant home of the New York Eye Infirmary was at a building they finally bought (instead of renting since 1820) at 97 Mercer Street, where they saw patients from 1845 - 1856. On April 25, 1856, the Thirteenth Street and Second Avenue New York Eye Infirmary building was dedicated and opened. Edward Delafield himself gave the dedication address of this 4 story brownstone. 40-50 patients could now be treated and bedded on its top 3 floors, the ground floor was used for out patient department. In 1864, it became known as the New York Eye & Ear Infirmary (the Doctors also treated ear problems almost from the beginning of their practice). In 1873, the New York Eye & Ear Infirmary added a throat department, and in 1890, the School of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology was founded (even though they had been teaching and giving lectures since 1821). Three floors were added in 1890, and its remodeling was handled by Stanford White. The New York Eye & Ear Infirmary's Schermerhorn pavilion is one of the few Stanford White structures in NYC that are left standing (others include both Washington Square Arch's - Wooden and then Stone (1889 & 1892); Century Club, and the University Club). The North building opened in 1968 on Fourteenth Street and Second Avenue, adjoining the 1856 building. Edward Delafield died of pneumonia on Feb. 13th, 1875 at the age of 81, after being sick for a year and a half.

John Kearney Rodgers (1793-1851)- John Kearney Rodgers was the son of physician and obstetrics professor Dr. John RB Rodgers. Grads from NY Hospital, went to England for 2 years to train with Edward Delafield. John Kearney Rodgers became famous in 1846, when he tied the left subelavian artery between the scaleni muscles. On August 14, 1820, two small rooms on the second floor of 45 Chatham Street (now 83 Park Row), a house across from City Hall became the first Infirmary of Edward Delafield, M.D., and John Kearney Rodgers, M.D. Their first hours were 12:00 to 1:00PM on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. They did the first congenital cataract operation in America. The 2nd office for the Infirmary opened across from Columbia College on March 22, 1822, off Murray street. by Broadway. The first employee was hired as both an apothecary and custodian of the medical instruments, he also applied the leeches. 139 Duane Street was the third location of the Infirmary after they leased a building from New York Hospital in 1824-1826. The Infirmary moved a few times from 1826-1840, and then rented a building off Broadway at 47 Howard Street, from 1840-1845. The first permenant home of the New York Eye Infirmary was at a building they finally bought (instead of renting since 1820) at 97 Mercer Street, where they saw patients from 1845 - 1856. On April 25, 1856, the Thirteenth Street and Second Avenue New York Eye Infirmary building was dedicated and opened. Edward Delafield himself gave the dedication address of this 4 story brownstone. 40-50 patients could now be treated and bedded on its top 3 floors, the ground floor was used for out patient department. In 1864, it became known as the New York Eye & Ear Infirmary (the Doctors also treated ear problems almost from the beginning of their practice). In 1873, the New York Eye & Ear Infirmary added a throat department, and in 1890, the School of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology was founded (even though they had been teaching and giving lectures since 1821). Three floors were added in 1890, and its remodeling was handled by Stanford White. The New York Eye & Ear Infirmary's Schermerhorn pavilion is one of the few Stanford White structures in NYC that are left standing (others include both Washington Square Arch's - Wooden and then Stone (1889 & 1892); Century Club, and the University Club). The North building opened in 1968 on Fourteenth Street and Second Avenue, adjoining the 1856 building.

Monroe Rosenfeld - Monroe Rosenfeld was a newspaper writer who coined Tin Pot Alley after the sound of many pianos being played in demo rooms at once which sounded to him like people were pounding on tin pans. Tin Pan Alley, was a city district where music composers and publishers worked, it was on 28th street between 5th Avenue (then 6th avenue) and Broadway. The Brill Building was the Tin Pan Alley of the 50's and 60's.There could have been a first alley that was off East 14th Street near 3rd Avenue called Tin Pot Alley as well.

Asser Levy - Congregation Shearith Israel was at 18 South William street, which was then called Mill street. John street was named after a shoemaker John Heperding, who in 1728 and 1729 rented out his home to the Jews of the Congregation Shearith Israel. Shoe maker John Heperdin, also sold these early NYC Jews, the land at 18 South William street for their first real NYC synagogue. The Congregation Shearith Israel (Spanish and Portuguese Jews) started with 23 Jews in 1654. Peter Stuyvesant granted the Jews a little hook of land situated outside of this city for a burial place in 1656. The hook and Asser Levy's grave were never found. Congregation Shearith Israel purchased a location after 1683, that was just South of Chatham Square at 55 St. James Place, it is the 1st known Jewish cemetery, but not the first. The Jewish cemetery at 76 W. 11th Street just east of 6th Avenue, was active from 1805 to 1829. The Jewish cemetery at 21st Street between 6th and 7th Avenues was active from 1829 to 1851.

Irving Bacheller - President of the Lantern Club (club of writers and journalists), whose first clubhouse was on the top of Monkey Hill, over an old William street ironmonger's shop. The 1893 clubhouse moved to Captain Kidd's old home at 126 William street (56 Wall Street, or 119-121 Pearl) after William Randolph Hearst bought up Monkey Hill sometime before 1898. Monkey Hill was on William street by Printing House Square on Park Row, which was once called Newspaper Row. That area is now under, and just north of the Brooklyn Bridge.

William Brown - owner of the Pewter Mug a tavern also called Wigwam that started on Frankfort street, and then moved to 162 Nassau Street off Printing House Square. Hanover Square was the old Printing House Square. The Pewter Mug was a meeting place for Democrats.

Burger Jorrison - Burgers Path ran to William street from the East River up Old Slip. It was named for Burger Jorrison who lived at the south side of Hanover Square off Stone street. The path went from his house to the waterfront on the East River. Hanover Square was named in honor of King George of Hanover. Hanover Square was the old Printing House Square. Helprin located the old Printing House Square at the junction of Dark Willow, Breasted, Tillinghast, and Pine Streets, to far south for the 2nd Printing House Square.

Albert De Groot (1813 - 1884)- Hudson Valley steamboat captain who commissioned a statue of Benjamin Franklin in Printing House Square as a gift to the City. German-born sculptor Ernst Plassman (1823-1877) created the bronze statue of Benjamin Franklin in 1872. It stands at Park Row and Spruce street.

Walt Whitman - Walt Whitman was editor of the New York Aurora at 162 Nassau Street. From May-September, 1842, he was the editor of The Evening Tattler at 27 Ann Street. In January and September, 1842. Whitman worked at The Evening Mirror (where some of his poems were published when Walt was 15 years old) at 4 Ann Street, in 1844 (Edgar Allen Poe worked there in 1845). Whitman wrote stories for John O'Sullivan's The Democratic Review at 136 Nassau street. The American Whig Review also on Nassau street published Whitman's 1845 story Richard Parker's Widow. Whitman's editorials made him seem part of the Native American Party, made up of Nativists who were anti-Catholic. Walt Whitman wasn't anti Catholic, but believed in the Jeffersonian principle of the separation of church and state. Walt Whitman hated to miss a night in Charlie Pfaff's basement cave.

Horace Greeley - Started his New York Tribune in 1841 from 30 Ann Street.

Park Benjamin - Editor and Publisher of The New World at 26 Ann Street, who gave Walt Whitman a job writing a temperance novel. The story appeared in the November 1842 edition of The New World, under A Tale of the Times. It was so bad Whitman used the name Franklin Evans to hide his authorship.

Gennaro Lombardi - Gennaro Lombardi opened his pizza store at 53 1/2 Spring street, (now at 32 Spring Street), but pizza's back then were called tomato pies. Lomabardi's opened in 1905, and is considered Americas first pizzeria. Lombardi came from Naples with his recipe in 1897. His pizza maker Antonio Totonno Pero left Lombardi's in 1924 to open up his own pizza place in Coney Island, the yummy Totonno's.

Antonio Totonno Pero - Gennaro Lombardi opened his pizza store at 53 1/2 Spring street, (now at 32 Spring Street), but pizza's back then were called tomato pies. Lomabardi's opened in 1905, and is considered Americas first pizzeria. Lombardi came from Naples with his recipe in 1897. His pizza maker Antonio Totonno Pero left Lombardi's in 1924 to open up his own pizza place in Coney Island, the yummy Totonno's.

Richard Sackett owned the Cherry Gardens

Isaac de Rasiere - The Arms of Amsterdam was the ship that brought Director Minuit's Secretary of the Province and Chief Commissary, Isaac de Rasiere.

Adriaen Jorise Theinpont - Captain Adriaen Jorise Theinpont left Amsterdam, January 25th, 1623 to bring the first settlers to NYC where they started off at Noten Eylant aka Nutten Island (Governors Island). He sailed on the ship Unity (Endracht). On April 1625, the Horse (Paert) sailed with the Cow (Koe) and the Sheep (Schaer). and 45 more settlers which included 6 families traveled with 103 head of cattle, stallions, mares, steers and cows.

Theyebdabegea - A Mohawk chief named Theyebdabegea, was called Joseph Brant by the white man. He sided with the British during the Revolutionary War. The Oneidas and Tuscaroras stuck by the Americans helping them at Valley Forge.

Deganawidah - Deganawidah and Hiawatha united the 5 tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy in 1570. The Iroquois had 6 festivals every year. The women of the Iroquois tribes chose the chief. The name Iroquois translates to Rattlesnake. The Tuscarora, Mohawk, Oneida Onondaga, Seneca and Cayuga tribes were part of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Hiawatha - Deganawidah and Hiawatha united the 5 tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy in 1570. The Iroquois had 6 festivals every year. The women of the Iroquois tribes chose the chief. The name Iroquois translates to Rattlesnake. The Tuscarora, Mohawk, Oneida Onondaga, Seneca and Cayuga tribes were part of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Gerrit Jansen - NYC's first murder, Gerrit Jansen on May 15, 1638, was stabbed at the gate of the fort south of Bowling Green. After this knife fight was over, Jan Gybertsen was NYC's first murderer.

Jan Gybertsen - NYC's first murder, Gerrit Jansen on May 15, 1638, was stabbed at the gate of the fort south of Bowling Green. After this knife fight was over, Jan Gybertsen was NYC's first murderer.

Bowdoin Hendrick (Boudewijn Hendricksz) - Dutch General Bowdoin Hendrick (Boudewijn Hendricksz) occupied the governor's mansion La Fortaleza (Palacio de Santa Catalina), a 1533 fortress on San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1625. Spanish resistance at El Morro stopped the Dutch West India Company from taking the island, but before leaving the Dutch torched and ransacked the city. La Fortaleza survived the Dutch fire, and a bell used in a tower for NYC's first mill, a horse mill for flour built and owned by Francois Molemacker in Lower Manhattan during 1626, was seized from San Juan by the Dutch before they left.

Francois Molemacker - NYC's first mill, was a Lower Manhattan horse mill for flour. This horse mill was built and owned by Francois Molemacker in 1626, the bell in its tower was seized from San Juan, Puerto Rico by the Dutch before they left. Kryn Frederick, who also that year staked out the downtown fort, was the engineer on this 1626 horse mill structure that was located on the north side of Mill street Lane (now South William street) by the NW corner of Broad street.

Alonso de Ojeda - A compatriot of Columbus, Alonso de Ojeda, claimed Aruba for Spain in 1499, the Dutch did not seize Aruba until 1636. In 1824, gold was discovered, other Aruba industries included the production of aloe. Bonaire was claimed for the Spanish by Amerigo Vespucci and Alonso de Ojeda in 1499. accompanied Columbus in his second voyage to the New World. he kidnapped several hundred bahamas Indians and sold them as slaves in Cadiz

Losing St. Martin to the Spanish caused the Dutch to retaliate by taking Bonaire in 1633, as well as Curaçao and Aruba as consolation prizes. Bonaire after it was depopulated (natives turned to slaves and shipped to Hispaniola) by 1526, was made into a slave run plantation of the Dutch West India Company. Before the Dutch took Bonaire it was a prison colony run by the Spanish for South American convicts.

Curaçao emerged as a center of the slave trade, and was the most valuable of the 3 islands (due to its deep water harbor) the Dutch seized in 1633. In 1638, Peter Stuyvesant became the governor of Curacao.

Amerigo Vespucci - Used a latinized version of his name Americus Vespucius. The publication and widespread circulation of letters about Vespucci, that informed the European public of the New World.

Martin Waldseemuller - named the new continent America on his world map of 1507 after the publication and widespread circulation of letters about Vespucci, that informed the European public of the New World.

Provost Marshal William Cunningham - The New Gaol (New Jail) opened on the NE side of City Hall Park in 1759, this three story structure was NYC's first real jail. Provost Marshal Cunningham's office was in the New Gaol, so it got nicknamed Provost prison. American army officers and the top local well known patriots found their way to be held prisoners in the Provost. Many Americans starved (Cunningham confessed on his deathbed to starving 2,000 American to death), others were poisoned or executed (275 people approximately).O'Keefe was Cunningham's jailor and sergeant. After the Revolutionary War it went back to being a debtor's prison. In 1830 remodeling started and to make it fireproof the third floor was cut off, and a copper roof was added. Mrs Day's Murray Street (or Day's Tavern could have been at 128th Street and Saint Nicholas Avenue.) boardinghouse/tavern whose flag was attacked by Major Cunningham himself around 9 AM on Evacuation day (November 25, 1783).

O'Keefe - O'Keefe was Cunningham's jailor at the Provost prison and served as his sergeant

Jan de Wit - In 1663-1664, Jan de Wit (not the author of the computer worm) and Denys Hartogveldt built a windmill to grind wheat, just south of where City Hall now sits, it was the first structure in City Hall Park (called the Commons at the time). Another windmill was built on the Commons between 1692-1695. Common festivals in the Commons were African Pentecostal revivals, bonfires celebrating the English Guy Fawkes Day, and public executions.

John Sebring - John Sebring ran the 1st almshouse in the commons which opened in May of 1736. The almshouse was 2 stories and a basement that were 65 feet long and 24 feet wide. Mayor Paul Richards appointed John Sebring Keeper of the House of Correction, Master of the Workhouse and Master of the Poorhouse. The six bed infirmary ward that took up the second-floor room on the west side became Bellevue Hospital (the oldest hospital in America). The west room in the basement had shackles, and a whipping post and was used to incarcerate disorderly persons, parents of Bastard Children, Beggars, Servants running away or otherwise misbehaving themselves, Trespassers, Rogues, Vagabonds, [and] poor persons refusing to work. Moderate Whipping was seen as a correction for these social problems. Poor was synonymous with being wayward.

Edward Breuwen -In 1736, Edward Breuwen was the Public Whipper, he died in 1751.

Richard Ingoldsby - Richard Ingoldsby replaced the Governor who died drunk after 6 months on the job, until the new Royal governor came to the colony.

Henry Sloughter - Royal governor Henry Sloughter died in 1691, after a drunken spree after 6 months on the job.

Nathaniel Pitcher - Nathaniel Pitcher was an one year pitch hitter after Governor Dewitt Clinton died in office in 1828, sober I believe.

Colen Donck - Colen Donck was the name of a less successful patroonship estate that was North of Manhattan in the Bronx and South Westchester. By January 1630, only five patroonships were registered and only one was really successful. Other patroons were Frederick Philipse in Sleepy Hollow, and Stephanus Van Cortlandt from Northern Westchester County by Croton-on-Hudson, another patroon was Jochem Kuyter.

Cornelis Melyn - Cornelis Melyn had a patroonship on Staten Island. Patroons had to establish settlements of at least 50 persons within four years.

Adriaen van der Donck - Adriaen van der Donck was called Jonkheer (young gentleman or squire) because his estate was so large, it became known as Yonkers.

Kiliaen Van Rensselaer - Kiliaen Van Rensselaer was a Dutch diamond merchant who was a Dutch West Indian member who settled both sides of the Hudson by Albany (which he called Rensselaerswyck).

Isaac Jogues - When Isaac Jogues escaped from being a 13 month slave to the Mohawks, he became the first Catholic priest who ever came to Manhattan Island. The Mohawks called him a sorcerer, and killed him. This martyr's feast day is October 19. Isaac Jogues was a French missionary who was decapitated by the Mohawks in 1646, he was canonized by Pope Pius XI on June 29, 1930.

Jean de Brebeuf - Jean de Brebeuf was a Jesuit missionary who was killed by Iroquois Indians using a red-hot iron which was thrust down his throat. The Indians even ate his heart, and his head was kept and is on display at Hotel-Dieu in Quebec.

Pierre-Joseph Chaumonot - Pierre-Joseph Chaumonot was a Jesuit missionary who worked the missions of Lake Huron until Jean de Brebeuf was murdered. Pierre-Joseph Chaumonot helped organize a mission among the Onondaga Indians which lasted only 2 years.

Simon Le Moyne - Simon Le Moyne was a Jesuit missionary who was the first European to penetrate among the Onondaga Indians. He was tortured by the Cayuga Iroquois Indians, but saved by Indian chief Garakontie.

Francesco Giuseppe Bressani - Francesco Giuseppe Bressani was an Indian missionary who was tortured by the Iroquois for 2 months before being ransomed by the Dutch.

Claes Groen - In Dutch times, the sheep and goat pasture in lower NYC was off Broad Street just North of Exchange Place. The goats were dangerous because they could do much damage to the town, so they had to be kept within strict boundaries. The guardians for the sheep and goats were Claes Groen and Pieter Lieresen.

Pieter Lieresen - In Dutch times, the sheep and goat pasture in lower NYC was off Broad Street just North of Exchange Place. The goats were dangerous because they could do much damage to the town, so they had to be kept within strict boundaries. The guardians for the sheep and goats were Claes Groen and Pieter Lieresen.

Dirck Storm - Dirck Storm's tavern was on the north east corner of Broadway and Beaver.

Cornelis Dircksen - Cornelis Dircksen's farm was just North of the Water Gate at Pearl and Wall. A horn hung on his tree at Pearl and Dover, citizens hinked the horn to call the ferry. Cornelis Dircksen would take one person over the river, no minimum on passengers. 6 beads of wampum was the fare for a one way voyage per person, the director, councilors and other officials rode free. NYC ferryboat operator Cornelis Dircksen, canceled the ferry across the East River during big storms when the wind was very strong. When the sails on the windmill were brought inside, that was the signal to cancel the ferry. This was made into a law. Cornelis Dircksen would make the trip until big cakes of ice blocked the river.

David Duffore (also spelled Deffore, Devore, Devoor and De Voor the spelling of the name is changed in each successive deed on record.)- Devoor's Mill stream flowed through David Duffore's 60 acre farm (that Governor Andros granted him in 1677). The Bolting Act of 1678, made David Duffore's flour grist mill very successful. His house stood at the north side of 53rd street between 1st Avenue and the East River, right right to the Bell Brothers Lumber yard to his east (who expanded by tearing down this old landmark). George Youle's old shot tower from 1821, was also on the Bell Brothers Lumber yard property. The winding stream which passed by 54th street between 2nd and 3rd, was diverted to a sewer that ran into the East River at 49th street. The oldest farmhouse in NYC was used after David Duffore by members of the Brevoort, Arden, Odell and Leroy families, who called it the Spring Valley farm.

Othmar Ammann - Othmar Ammann built the Hell Gate Bridge in 1916 and went on to build the Bayonne Bridge, Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, Throgs Neck Bridge and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

Brain Babbitt - Gateway Plaza (the only building in Battery Park City not designed under the Master Plan) was the first building built at Battery Park City and it first 1,712 units. Gateway Plaza was finished and fully occupied in 1983. The opening day of the building the 1st tenant of these three 34 - story buildings was Brain Babbitt, and he is still there with his cute wife Jackie.

Abraham Oakey Hall - Republican Mayor Abraham Oakey Hall was part of Tweeds ring. Boss Tweed engineered Hall into office in 1868, to provide himself with a free hand to steal from NYC. Abraham Oakey Hall was NYC Mayor from 1869&1872.

Richard Nicolls - Richard Nicolls was NYC's 1st mayor in 1664 - 1665 (as British Colonial Governor of New York).

William Havemeyer - William Havemeyer was a Democratic Mayor (not to be confused with William F. Havemeyer-Republican) who was in office 1848 - 1849.

William F. Havemeyer - William F. Havemeyer took over after the Mayor in question left office in 1872. William F. Havemeyer was the Republican NYC mayor from 1873 - 1874.

Fernando Wood - Fernando Wood was NYC's Mayor twice from 1855 - 1858 and 1860 - 1862.

Thomas F Byrnes - To protect the financial district, Fulton street in NYC was the dead line, over which any wanted criminal could be arrested on sight. Inspector Thomas F Byrnes created the dead line and kept tabs on every criminal he could add to his Rouges Gallery while he was Chief of Detectives for NYC. Thomas F Byrnes was fired by Teddy Roosevelt. He lived at 318 West Seventy-seventh Street, until May 7th 1910 when he died of stomach cancer. Many old police stories and yarns started with, in Tom Byrnes days. Tom Byrnes from his office on Wall street established the dead line at Fulton street to keep the sneak thieves zones of operation away from the financial district. If any one of these known criminals would try, they were arrested immediately. Thomas F Byrnes kept a list, and kept track of every criminal who entered the city limits. In return many rich people from the financial district who his Dead Line protected gave him information which made him a rich man. Tom started as a Patrolman at the Mercer Street Station in 1863, and became Captain on July 1, 1870. Criticized by many for his often use of stool pigeons, he rationalized that as part of the job cracking the underworld.

John McComb Jr. - This 1811, fort (construction started in 1808) first called West Battery (or South West Battery), was on a small island about 200 feet off Battery Parks west side. It was supposedly constructed on top of an old Indian Village by architects John McComb Jr. and Jonathan Williams.

Jonathan Williams - This 1811, fort (construction started in 1808) first called West Battery (or South West Battery), was on a small island about 200 feet off Battery Parks west side. It was supposedly constructed on top of an old Indian fishing village, by architects John McComb Jr. and Jonathan Williams. Landfill has made this island a part of modern day NYC.

King George - A British tax on sugar, paper and legal documents (the Stamp Act) came after the French Wars. The French wars ended in 1763, and the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March 1765. The funds were to support the British soldiers protecting the American colonies. British colonial troops attacked French Canada in 1748 (British colonial forces captured the French stronghold of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia) in this third part of the four French and Indian Wars which was called King George's War.

President Ronald Reagan - President Reagan hosted an U.S.-U.S.S.R. summit with Mikhail Gorbachev on Governors Island, in 1988. President Ronald Reagan also used Governors Island during the relighting of the newly refurbished Statue of Liberty.

David Abercrombie - Abercrombie & Fitch was founded in 1892, it outfitted Ernest Hemingway and Teddy Roosevelt for safaris.

Ezra Fitch - Abercrombie & Fitch was founded in 1892, it outfitted Ernest Hemingway and Teddy Roosevelt for safaris.

John Jacob Astor 1V - John Jacob Astor 1V died April 15th 1912, on the Titanic. A single first-class ticket was $4,700, 1,503 people total died on the Titanic, 705 people survived and 2 dogs. All 6 ice warnings received by Titanic were ignored by the wireless operator who was too preoccupied with transmitting passenger messages. The boat hit an blackberg, which is similar to the black ice found on cold icy roads, not white but clear with a mirror like surface which made it look black at 11:40 P.M. on Sunday, April 14, 1912. One of the last songs the band played (no members survived) was Songe d'Automne. The water was at 31 degrees, and Charles Joughin who was drinking heavy was the only one to survive the icy waters.

Daniel Buckley - Daniel Buckley, disguised himself as a woman to sneak aboard a Titanic lifeboat.

Frederic Kimber Seward - A corporation lawyer named Frederic Kimber Seward was playing cards with his church friend Dorothy Gibson in the Titanic's first class lounge, she helped him escape with her in lifeboat # 7.

Dorothy Gibson - A corporation lawyer named Frederic Kimber Seward was playing cards with his church friend Dorothy Gibson in the Titanic's first class lounge, she helped him escape with her in lifeboat # 7.

Benjamin Guggenheim - Benjamin Guggenheim died April 15th 1912, on the Titanic. A single first-class ticket was $4,700, 1,503 people total died on the Titanic, 705 people survived and 2 dogs. All 6 ice warnings received by Titanic were ignored by the wireless operator who was too preoccupied with transmitting passenger messages. The boat hit an blackberg, which is similar to the black ice found on cold icy roads, not white but clear with a mirror like surface which made it look black at 11:40 P.M. on Sunday, April 14, 1912. One of the last songs the band played (no members survived) was Songe d'Automne. The water was at 31 degrees, and Charles Joughin who was drinking heavy was the only one to survive the icy waters. Daniel Buckley, disguised himself as a woman to sneak aboard a Titanic lifeboat. A corporation lawyer named Frederic Kimber Seward was playing cards with his church friend Dorothy Gibson in the Titanic's first class lounge, she helped him escape with her in lifeboat # 7.

Charles Joughin - The water was at 31 degrees, and Charles Joughin who was drinking heavy was the only one to survive the icy waters after the Titanic sunk on April 15th 1912. A single first-class ticket was $4,700, 1,503 people total died on the Titanic, 705 people survived and 2 dogs. All 6 ice warnings received by Titanic were ignored by the wireless operator who was too preoccupied with transmitting passenger messages. The boat hit an blackberg, which is similar to the black ice found on cold icy roads, not white but clear with a mirror like surface which made it look black at 11:40 P.M. on Sunday, April 14, 1912. One of the last songs the band played (no members survived) was Songe d'Automne. Daniel Buckley, disguised himself as a woman to sneak aboard a Titanic lifeboat. A corporation lawyer named Frederic Kimber Seward was playing cards with his church friend Dorothy Gibson in the Titanic's first class lounge, she helped him escape with her in lifeboat # 7.

Isidor Straus - Isidor Straus died April 15th 1912, on the Titanic. A single first-class ticket was $4,700, 1,503 people total died on the Titanic, 705 people survived and 2 dogs. All 6 ice warnings received by Titanic were ignored by the wireless operator who was too preoccupied with transmitting passenger messages. The boat hit an blackberg, which is similar to the black ice found on cold icy roads, not white but clear with a mirror like surface which made it look black at 11:40 P.M. on Sunday, April 14, 1912. One of the last songs the band played (no members survived) was Songe d'Automne. The water was at 31 degrees, and Charles Joughin who was drinking heavy was the only one to survive the icy waters. Daniel Buckley, disguised himself as a woman to sneak aboard a Titanic lifeboat. A corporation lawyer named Frederic Kimber Seward was playing cards with his church friend Dorothy Gibson in the Titanic's first class lounge, she helped him escape with her in lifeboat # 7.

Ida Straus - Ida Straus died April 15th 1912, on the Titanic. A single first-class ticket was $4,700, 1,503 people total died on the Titanic, 705 people survived and 2 dogs. All 6 ice warnings received by Titanic were ignored by the wireless operator who was too preoccupied with transmitting passenger messages. The boat hit an blackberg, which is similar to the black ice found on cold icy roads, not white but clear with a mirror like surface which made it look black at 11:40 P.M. on Sunday, April 14, 1912. One of the last songs the band played (no members survived) was Songe d'Automne. The water was at 31 degrees, and Charles Joughin who was drinking heavy was the only one to survive the icy waters. Daniel Buckley, disguised himself as a woman to sneak aboard a Titanic lifeboat. A corporation lawyer named Frederic Kimber Seward was playing cards with his church friend Dorothy Gibson in the Titanic's first class lounge, she helped him escape with her in lifeboat # 7.

Daniel Buckley - Daniel Buckley, disguised himself as a woman to sneak aboard a Titanic lifeboat. A single first-class ticket was $4,700, 1,503 people total died on the Titanic, 705 people survived and 2 dogs. All 6 ice warnings received by Titanic were ignored by the wireless operator who was too preoccupied with transmitting passenger messages. The boat hit an blackberg, which is similar to the black ice found on cold icy roads, not white but clear with a mirror like surface which made it look black at 11:40 P.M. on Sunday, April 14, 1912. One of the last songs the band played (no members survived) was Songe d'Automne. The water was at 31 degrees, and Charles Joughin who was drinking heavy was the only one to survive the icy waters. A corporation lawyer named Frederic Kimber Seward was playing cards with his church friend Dorothy Gibson in the Titanic's first class lounge, she helped him escape with her in lifeboat # 7.

Frederic Kimber Seward - A corporation lawyer named Frederic Kimber Seward was playing cards with his church friend Dorothy Gibson in the Titanic's first class lounge, she helped him escape with her in lifeboat #7. A single first-class ticket was $4,700, 1,503 people total died on the Titanic, 705 people survived and 2 dogs. All 6 ice warnings received by Titanic were ignored by the wireless operator who was too preoccupied with transmitting passenger messages. The boat hit an blackberg, which is similar to the black ice found on cold icy roads, not white but clear with a mirror like surface which made it look black at 11:40 P.M. on Sunday, April 14, 1912. One of the last songs the band played (no members survived) was Songe d'Automne. The water was at 31 degrees, and Charles Joughin who was drinking heavy was the only one to survive the icy waters. Daniel Buckley, disguised himself as a woman to sneak aboard a Titanic lifeboat.

Maurice Levin - Maurice Levin and Jacob M. Kaplan bought and saved Hearn's Department store in 1932 after the Depression and younger stores crippled the old Hearn's business (since 1827). Maurice Levin made his fortune exporting molasses from Santo Domingo, and ran Hearn's without a salary.

Jacob M. Kaplan - Maurice Levin and Jacob M. Kaplan bought and saved Hearn's Department store in 1932 after the Depression and younger stores crippled the old Hearn's business (since 1827). Maurice Levin made his fortune exporting molasses from Santo Domingo, and ran Hearn's without a salary.

William Niblo - Niblo's opened in 1828, and held over 1750 people. The jovial Irishman William Niblo lived until the age of 89 years old. lived till he was 89. His first NYC coffee house, called the Bank Coffee House was an eatery at 43 Pine Street. Niblo's Garden was formerly called the Colombian Gardens, and also had a circus called The Stadium on the site at the NE corner of Broadway and Prince Street. The 1866 musical comedy, The Black Crook was a 5 1/2 hour play which featured a hundred dancing gypsies. It was created by William Wheatley and made Niblo's Garden the home of the first Broadway Musical. Once a part of the Bayard farm, the Columbian Garden opened as the Sans Souci Theatre in 1823. Niblo's was built in 1828, and destroyed in a 1846 fire. Niblo's was rebuilt three years later and reopened in July 1849, and was demolished in 1895.

Alfred Ochs - Alfred Ochs, a German, Jewish Immigrant was the man responsible for the first Times Square Party. Before New Years Eve became a Times Square tradition, in front of Trinity Church at Broadway and Wall was the most popular gathering spot in NYC. The midnight chimes of Trinity Church was the old highlight of New Years Eve in NYC after the 1890's, and before 1904, when the NY Times moved from 41 Park Row (where it was for 32 years) to one Times Square (9 years later the Times moved to 229 West 43rd Street, where it stayed for almost 95 years). 200,000 people came to the all-day party that marked Times Square first New Years Eve in 1904. The first New Year's ball was introduced in 1907, the third year of the Times Square tradition, that year fireworks were discontinued from the celebration. The first Times Square ball (1907) was made from wood and iron and weighed 700 pounds. The 1909 New Years was the first time a lighted ball was used.

Founded on September 18, 1851, as the New York Daily Times (even though it didn't publish on Sunday until during the Civil War), it switched to the current title (The New York Times) in 1857. The New York Times was nicknamed the Grey Lady, and its motto still is All the News That's Fit to Print, which started in 1897 as a jab of the yellow journalism tactics of The New York World and New York Journal American. The Times articles about Tweed helped destroy the Tweed Ring. Until the 1880's the Times supported only Republican candidates, before they became a politically independent paper. In 1896, when circulation hit 9,000, the Times was bought by Alfred Ochs for $75,000 who moved it uptown to a bigger building at one Times Square. By 1897, circulation hit 26,000, when Alfred Ochs lowered the price to a penny circulation soared to 76,000 in 1898 (ad revenues started to soar).

The Times old 41 Park Row building was built on the site of the old Brick Presbyterian Church.

Pat Matthews - Leader of one of the factions of the Bowery Boys in 1857, he also was a saloonkeeper.

General Sandford - The 5 point riot gave gang members the excuse to loot many stores on those two days of rioting, which was broken up by General Sandford's military at 9 PM. A two day riot during the summer of 1857, greeted the newly established state run Metropolitan Police squad. The old Municipal Police just sat back and watched. On July 4, 1857, the 5 Points Riot started when two gang members from the Roach Guards/Dead Rabbits (an Irish Catholic gang from 5 points), assaulted two native born American policemen. The policeman sought refuge from their assaulters by ducking into the tavern of Pat Matthews, who was a leader of one of the factions of the Bowery Boys. Soon the Bayard street area became crowded by almost 1,000 young gang members, some of them just kids. During the first day of the riot, the Roach Guards/Dead Rabbits attacked the Bowery Boy clubhouse at 40-42 Bowery. The next day of the riot the numbers got bigger, thousands of gang members from various 5 point gangs marched to the Bowery and met an equal number of gangsters from the Bowery gangs. The Roach Guards/Dead Rabbits looted the Green Dragon, smashing its furniture, tearing up its floorboards while drinking all their liquor. The 5 Point gangs met the Bowery Boys and the Atlantic Guards by the intersection of Bayard and Bowery, and the fighting began. Only several bodies were found, because many of the dead were buried in secret by their fellow gang members. Hundreds were injured including many policemen who both sides of the gangs united against.

Mose Humphries - Mose Humphries was the leader of the Bowery Boys in the 1820's. Mose was a huge legend who feats were the talk of the town for decades. Mostly myth, Mose was the first celebrated criminal in NYC's history. His exploits were expanded into stories and plays.

Jacob Riis - Jacob Riis was known for his 5 point photos.

Herbert Asbury - Herbert Asbury wrote the 1927 book The Gangs of New York.

Franchoys Fezard - Windmill maker Franchoys Fezard build the first windmill (sawmill) in 1624-1625 it was on Governor's Island. The original 1624 settlers lived on Noten Eylant (Governor's Island-1784).

Captain Edmund Fanning - Captain Edmund Fanning sailed the 90 ton merchant brig Betsy out of Old Slip by Hanover Square in 1792 which carried the American flag around the world.

William M Tweed - William M Tweed, Zophar Mills, Samuel Willets and William B Wood were firemen.

Zophar Mills - William M Tweed, Zophar Mills, Samuel Willets and William B Wood were firemen.

Samuel Willets - William M Tweed, Zophar Mills, Samuel Willets and William B Wood were firemen.

William B Wood - William M Tweed, Zophar Mills, Samuel Willets and William B Wood were firemen.

Walter Bowne - 7 former Mayors were volunteer firemen: Walter Bowne (1829 - 1833), Cornelius Van Wyck Lawrence (1834 - 1837), Stephen Allen (1821 - 1824), Isaac L Varian (1839 - 1841), Daniel F Tiemann (1858 - 1860), C Godfrey Gunther (1864 - 1866) and William H Wickman (1875 - 1876).

Cornelius Van Wyck Lawrence - 7 former Mayors were volunteer firemen: Walter Bowne (1829 - 1833), Cornelius Van Wyck Lawrence (1834 - 1837), Stephen Allen (1821 - 1824), Isaac L Varian (1839 - 1841), Daniel F Tiemann (1858 - 1860), C Godfrey Gunther (1864 - 1866) and William H Wickman (1875 - 1876).

Stephen Allen - 7 former Mayors were volunteer firemen: Walter Bowne (1829 - 1833), Cornelius Van Wyck Lawrence (1834 - 1837), Stephen Allen (1821 - 1824), Isaac L Varian (1839 - 1841), Daniel F Tiemann (1858 - 1860), C Godfrey Gunther (1864&1866) and William H Wickman (1875&1876).

Isaac L Varian - 7 former Mayors were volunteer firemen: Walter Bowne (1829&1833), Cornelius Van Wyck Lawrence (1834&1837), Stephen Allen (1821&1824), Isaac L Varian (1839&1841), Daniel F Tiemann (1858&1860), C Godfrey Gunther (1864&1866) and William H Wickman (1875&1876).

Elijah Purdy - Famous politicians Elijah Purdy, Robert Morris, Lorenzo Sheppard, Rococo Levi were warhorses that often met at Sandy Welsh's place in the basement of the American Museum.

Robert Morris - Famous politicians Elijah Purdy, Robert Morris, Lorenzo Sheppard, Rococo Levi were warhorses that often met at Sandy Welsh's place in the basement of the American Museum.

Lorenzo Sheppard - Famous politicians Elijah Purdy, Robert Morris, Lorenzo Sheppard, Rococo Levi were warhorses that often met at Sandy Welsh's place in the basement of the American Museum.

Rococo Levi - Famous politicians Elijah Purdy, Robert Morris, Lorenzo Sheppard, Rococo Levi were warhorses that often met at Sandy Welsh's place in the basement of the American Museum.

Thomas Willett - Thomas Willett (1665&1666 & 1667&1668), Nicholas Bayard (1685&1686), Abraham DePeyster (1692 - 1694), David Provost (1699&1700) were former NYC Mayors but I'm not sure if any of them were Volunteer firemen.

Nicholas Bayard - Thomas Willett (1665&1666 & 1667&1668), Nicholas Bayard (1685&1686), Abraham DePeyster (1692&1694), David Provost (1699&1700) were former NYC Mayors but I'm not sure if any of them were Volunteer firemen.

Abraham DePeyster - Thomas Willett (1665 - 1666 & 1667 - 1668), Nicholas Bayard (1685 - 1686), Abraham DePeyster (1692 - 1694), David Provost (1699 - 1700) were former NYC Mayors but I'm not sure if any of them were Volunteer firemen.

David Provost - Thomas Willett (1665 - 1666 & 1667 - 1668), Nicholas Bayard (1685 - 1686), Abraham DePeyster (1692 - 1694), David Provost (1699 - 1700) were former NYC Mayors but I'm not sure if any of them were Volunteer firemen.

Fiorello H. LaGuardia - Fiorello H. LaGuardia (1934-1945), James J. Walker (1926-1932), George B. McClellan Jr. (1904-1909), Robert F. Wagner Jr. (1954-1965) were NYC Mayors, but not in the days of volunteer firemen.

James J. Walker - Fiorello H. LaGuardia (1934-1945), James J. Walker (1926-1932), George B. McClellan Jr. (1904-1909), Robert F. Wagner Jr. (1954-1965) were NYC Mayors, but not in the days of volunteer firemen.

George B. McClellan Jr. - Fiorello H. LaGuardia (1934-1945), James J. Walker (1926-1932), George B. McClellan Jr. (1904-1909), Robert F. Wagner Jr. (1954-1965) were NYC Mayors, but not in the days of volunteer firemen.

Robert F. Wagner Jr. - Fiorello H. LaGuardia (1934-1945), James J. Walker (1926-1932), George B. McClellan Jr. (1904-1909), Robert F. Wagner Jr. (1954-1965) were NYC Mayors, but not in the days of volunteer firemen.

Andrew Beekman - Andrew Beekman the son of Gerardus Beekman, was killed in the revolt, his dad Gerardus helped prosecute the slaves of the 1712 and 1741 slave revolts. Just before NYC's first negro uprising (April 7th, 1712 at 1 AM), out of roughly 5,000 African American slaves working in NYC, a few of them gathered in Mr. Cooke's Apple orchard by Maiden lane. After setting Peter Van Tilburgh's house (or outhouse) on fire they killed some of the white people who came to put it out. 2 slaves killed the 3 owners that treated them the worse, Andrew Beekman, Joris Marschalk and Adrian Hoighlandt.

Joris Marschalk - Just before NYC's first negro uprising (April 7th, 1712 at 1 AM), out of roughly 5,000 African American slaves working in NYC, a few of them gathered in Mr. Cooke's Apple orchard by Maiden lane. After setting Peter Van Tilburgh's house (or outhouse) on fire they killed some of the white people who came to put it out. 2 slaves killed the owners that treated them the worse, Andrew Beekman, Joris Marschalk and Adrian Hoighlandt. Joris Marschalk was baptized on Feb. 27th , 1691, his father was Andries Marschalk, and mother was Elisabeth Van Gelder.

Adrian Hoighlandt - Just before NYC's first negro uprising (April 7th, 1712 at 1 AM), out of roughly 5,000 African American slaves working in NYC, a few of them gathered in Mr. Cooke's Apple orchard by Maiden lane. After setting Peter Van Tilburgh's house (or outhouse) on fire they killed some of the white people who came to put it out. 2 slaves killed the owners that treated them the worse, Andrew Beekman, Joris Marschalk and Adrian Hoighlandt.

Gerardus Beekman - Andrew Beekman the son of Gerardus Beekman, was killed in the revolt, his dad Gerardus helped prosecute the slaves of the 1712 and 1741 slave revolts. Just before NYC's first negro uprising (April 7th, 1712 at 1 AM), out of roughly 5,000 African American slaves working in NYC, a few of them gathered in Mr. Cooke's Apple orchard by Maiden lane. After setting Peter Van Tilburgh's house (or outhouse) on fire they killed some of the white people who came to put it out. 2 slaves killed the 3 owners that treated them the worse, Andrew Beekman, Joris Marschalk and Adrian Hoighlandt.

Governor Robert Hunter - After hearing gunfire from the 1712 slave rebellion, he called out the militia, and stopped the revolt.

Molly Williams - Molly Williams was the first female firefighter . Bucket brigader Molly Williams was a slave to member James Aymar. In 1818, when fireman were sick, she helped pull the old engine through the snow.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church was first organized as the Zion Church (later referred to as Mother AME Zion Church). Peter Williams Sr. laid the cornerstone for the 1800 construction at the SW corner of Church and Leonard Streets. The first Zion Church was 35 ft. wide and 45 ft. deep, and in 1820 when they purchased the lot next door, it was rebuilt to 75-by-75 ft. The church burned down in 1839, rebuilt the following year, but later moved to Bleecker Street on the corner of 10th Street. Zion Church served as a stop on the Underground Railroad and became known as the cradle of freedom or the Freedom Church.

In 1813, a branch of the Zion Church formed the Asbury Church on Elizabeth Street near Pump Street (now Canal Street) between Walker and Hester Streets. In 1820, the Asbury Church formed a better union with the Zion Church and they were rejoined on Church and Leonard (after the Zion Church was rebuilt in 1840). In 1822, the Zion Church separated again forming the Asbury Church. The Elizabeth Street church burned in 1823.

Tobacco merchant Benjamin Aymar owned two married slaves Peter and Molly Williams, who won their freedom after taking care of the John Street Methodist Church for many years. Peter was an expert cigar maker who became John Street Methodist Church's first sexton. A free Peter Williams made a fortune when he went into the tobacco business, using his money and time to form NYC's first Negro Methodist Church in 1796. The site for the Mother African Methodist Episcopal Church had been a stable, and on July 30th, 1800, Peter Williams laid the cornerstone for the church at the SW corner of Leonard and Church Streets. Zion was added to the church name after 1820. A larger Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1820, but burnt down in 1839, and rebuilt again the following year as a brick building. The African Methodist Episcopal Church moved to Bleecker Street, on the corner of Tenth Street, in 1864.

Christopher Colles - In 1774, Christopher Colles created NYC's first log pipeline, reservoir and pumping station on White Street, just East of Broadway. Christopher Colles built a sterm engine in 1787, for a steamboat in the Collect Pond, but it was to big. Christopher Colles arrived from Ireland on these shores about the time Fulton was born. In (1705). In 1772, he delivered a series of lectures "on the subject of Lock Navigation," at Philadelphia. "He was the first person," says De Witt Clinton, "who suggested to the government of the state (New York) the canals and improvements on the Ontario route. Unfortunately for him, and, perhaps, for the public," adds the same authority, "he was generally considered as a visionary projector, and his plans were sometimes treated with ridicule, and frequently viewed with distrust."[1] In 1784, 1785, 1786, and for several successive years, he petitioned the Legislature of that state, on the importance and practicability of uniting the western lakes to the Atlantic. He was, probably, the author of the letters signed "Hibernicus," on the same subject, which were published at New York about the beginning of this century. In 1774, he proposed to supply New York with water by aqueducts, such as now bring in the Croton, and of which he exhibited models at public lectures. During the war, of 1812 he was "the projector and attendant of the telegraph erected on Castle Clinton." He died in obscurity and poverty, while others were growing famous and wealthy upon the stolen ideas of his failing intellect.

By the end of 1774, Christopher Colles’ visionary project called New York Waterworks began (but never finished) construction on a system to pipe water down Broadway between White and Pearl Streets. Public money financed a pumping station and a 165-sq.-ft. reservoir just east of Broadway on White Street on the Van Cortlandt-owned high grounds just outside the town. The public funds also paid for a well (30 feet across and 28 feet deep) that would have brought 2 million gallons of Collect Pond water up into the 1ľ-acre White Street reservoir. Colles’ pump moved 200 gallons a minute and 300,000 gallons in a one-day test. Water Works enlisted Elisha Gallaudet to design red and black ink notes that in August 1774 became the first paper currency used in an American city.

The pumping station, a 40-by-12-by-6-ft. brick and stone structure erected on the former hill between Broadway and Cortlandt Alley, was to have been equipped with a large network of pipes made from hollow logs that would distribute water to NYC. By February 1775, a seven-foot steam engine was built, intended for pumping water from Broadway and Leonard Street down the east side of Broadway. The Revolutionary War put a hold on the New York Water Works project, and in 1776, Colles’ work was destroyed by the British in a strike against colonial ingenuity. Colles stayed active in NYC water search for the next 25 years.

Before Colles’ project, a small Moravian community in Bethlehem, PA, had the first pumped water supply in the U .S. in 1755. In 1772, Providence, RI, became the only other colonial town with a piped water supply.

An Irish-born engineer, Colles created the first U.S. road map and guide book in 1789, but quit that business in 1792 because of few subscribers. His atlas covered 1,000 miles from Albany to Williamsburg, an invaluable record of our nation's earliest roadway network. Colles came to America in 1765, and made money lecturing on scientific subjects. He also invented an early steam engine for a distiller in Pennsylvania. Also an early pioneer of canal development, Colles petitioned the Legislature in 1774 to build a canal through the Mohawk Valley connecting the Lake Ontario with the Hudson River. The Erie Canal opened 27 years later. Colles even created a semaphoric telegraph between NYC's Battery and Sandy Hook, NJ, for use during the War of 1812. Early almanac makers relied on Colles’ astronomical observations.

In his later years, Colles was superintendent for the newly organized Academy of Fine Arts at the old Government House below Bowling Green. He died in 1821 at age 84 and was buried in the old St. John's cemetery that became Hudson Park. Colles was always poor, and his plans were often ridiculed by the public, who displayed a distrust and prejudice that only ended up hurting NYC's progress

Aaron Burr - Aaron Burr ended up penny-less, he did not start his life that way. Born in Newark, New Jersey, on February 6, 1756. In 1769, Burr schooled at the College of New Jersey (Princeton University). His parents both died when he was 2 years old in 1758, his older sister (2 years older) Sally and Aaron lived with his grandparents who also died of yellow fever in 1758.

At 19 years old he was fighting in the the Continental Army at the 1775 Battle of Quebec. The winter was deadly for the 1,100 men crossing Maine, living on dogs, reptiles and their own shoes.

Burr's first law practice was in Albany in 1782.

When Burr was only 20 years old, he worked writing letters for George Washington, but after 6 weeks of working with the Commander in Chief he resigned to go back to the front lines of the war. Washington never trusted him again.

Burr married his first widow, Theodosia Prevost who gave birth to his daughter Theodosia Bartow Burr in 1783. Theodosia Prevost died in 1794.

While Thomas Jefferson was Secretary of State he lived on Maiden Lane, Aaron Burr also lived on Maiden Lane before in 1797.

When Burr defeated General Philip Schuyler for Senator (1791-1797), he started the snowball rolling with Schuyler's son in law Alexander Hamilton.

While Burr was a Senator from NY, he wanted access to historical archives to write the History of the Revolutionary War of America, George Washington had Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson block his access to this restricted library. Aaron Burr's journalist urges were calmed after he started the New York Morning Chronicle on October 1, 1802, which had articles by Washington Irving, and was edited by his brother Peter Irving.

Burr had two duels with John Church in 1799.

Aaron Burr's 1799 Manhattan Company's reservoir was located on the north side of Chambers between Elk and Centre, in front of its well (on the west side of Centre Street between Reade & Duane) by the southern side of the Little Collect Pond.

The duel with Hamilton was due to multiple reasons; they were longstanding political rivals and personal enemies for years; Hamilton was angered by Burrs using the towns fresh water supply to start a rival bank in 1799; When Burr ran for Governor of New York in 1804 as an independent candidate, and Hamilton opposed his candidacy (using rumors and slander in the press, Hamilton attacked and ruined Burrs bid, which made Morgan Lewis governor of New York from 1804-1807; Hamilton's interference prevented Burr from being President, instead of a Vice President (1801-1805).

Burr moved up to the 1750 or 1760 Richmond Hill mansion at the southeast corner of Varick and Charlton streets (about 100 feet east of Varick to be exact). He widened part of an offshoot of Manetta stream that ran down Charlton street, into a fine waterway known as Burrs pond.

After 7 years of leasing the Richmond Hill from the Episcopal Trinity Church (for peanuts), and dueling Alexander Hamilton, Burr transfered the 69 year lease of Richmond Hill to the original John Jacob Astor (who made a killing when real estate in the neighborhood boomed).

Richmond Hill mansion was built between Varick, Charlton, MacDougal, and King streets by the Paymaster of the British Army, Andrew Mortier. Before the Battle of Long Island, George Washington slept here, it was his NYC residence starting on April 13th, 1776. Washington used the mansion at #1 Broadway as his headquarters as well. Between June 1789 until August 1790, Richmond Hill was the official residence of John Adams when he was Vice President. Burr rescued General Knox's brigade on September 16, 1776. Burr was an aide to George Washington, and met him time to time at Richmond Hill, he must of fell in love with the palatial mansion. Burr then became the aide-de-camp to General Israel Putnam. Washington left Richmond Hill before he retreated to Harlem Heights around September 13, 1776, when he moved uptown to the Roger Morris mansion (later called the Jumel Mansion). One of the last of the British officers who took over the Richmond Hill mansion was Sir Guy Carleton, the last commander of the British Army. After 1783 when the British left NYC, the Richmond Hill mansion was left abandoned. In 1831 the mansion was converted to a fashionable theatre, but before it was torn down in 1849 it ended its historic journey as a cheap tavern.

Hamilton opened his 1783 law office at his home at 33 Wall Street then at 58 or 67 Wall Street from 1783-1790. Burr found one nearby at 10 Cedar street, and lived upstairs. Burr had numerous law office locations on Nassau Street, at 9, 23 or 73 Nassau Street (many just cubbyholes in size). A later Burr law office location was by the Collect Pond, at 11 Reade street, just west of Centre street, this location was right across from the main water pump of his Manhattan Company.

In 1799, when Burr started the Manhattan Company scheme to open up a bank (which opened 6 months later) that opposed Hamilton's Federalist Bank of New York (which only gave loans to Federalist's), he was a member of the New York Assembly. Using the scare of yellow fever, Burr pushed his own companies water bill through the Legislature through political manipulation which got the approval of Governor Jay. Citizens became angered when they realized the real purpose of the Manhattan Company, and many never trusted him again (he was defeated at the following election). By 1840, the Manhattan Company had 25 miles of wooden pipes and fourteen miles of iron pipes, working 3 feet under street level. The water was raised from underground wells and springs by a steam pump, and stored 15 feet above the level of nearby Broadway. The huge water tank took up 3/4 of a building that was formerly on the corner of Reade and Center streets. Smaller lateral pipes ran from the main water pipes to the houses that paid the $10 fee (besides the monthly water bills). The supply was far from pure or wholesome, often polluted water from the Collect pond contaminated the water, whose pipes were often leaking or totally offline. Croton water came to NYC's rescue in 1842.

Burr's trial for treason in 1807

Burr was broke and exiled in Paris until he was 55 years old.

Aaron Burr re-opened up his NYC law offices at the age of 55, after returning from exile in 1812. His daughter Theodosia, who sailed on the schooner Patriot from Georgetown South Carolina was lost at sea to the storms or the pirates.

When he was 77, Burr's old friends moved him to the Jay House on Bowling Green, after his health and spirit were broken after his 4 month marriage to Madame Jumel (July 1st, 1833 - Oct 1833). The last years of Burr's life, he spent in poverty. Shortly after the Jay House was torn down in 1836, Burr died obscure and pennyless. Burr's final days were in Port Richmond (then called Mersereau's Ferry), Staten Island, he died on September 14th, 1836, at the ripe old age of 80. Aaron Burr was buried in the college grounds in Princeton, NJ.

Hendrick (Harman) Rutgers - The Rutgers homestead occupied the block bounded by Clinton, Jefferson, Madison, and Cherry Streets. Division Street divides the Rutgers and DeLancey farms. Hendrick (Harman) Rutgers named Catherine Street and Catherine Slip in memory of his wife Catherine (1711-1779) whom he married in 1732. Catherine was the daughter of NYC Mayor Johannes De Peyster (1666–1711) and niece of Abraham DePeyster, who donated the Wall Street land for the second City Hall. Catherine Rutgers had seven children; four of them died young and one son was Henry Rutgers whom Henry Street was named after. Henry Street runs parallel to what was then Harman Street, named after his father, Harman Rutgers. (It’s been called East Broadway since the 1820s.) Henry Rutgers gave $5,000 to reorganize the old Queens College in New Brunswick, New Jersey, which was renamed Rutgers College in his honor. Henry Rutgers died in 1830 in NYC at the age of 85. He may have first been buried at the Dutch Reform Church cemetery in Belleville, New Jersey, but after a few unknown NYC cemeteries Henry was re-interred in 1865, somewhere within the Dutch Reformed Church's plot at Green Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Unfortunately Henry is buried in an unmarked grave.

The triangular open space at East Broadway, Rutgers and Canal Streets, now known as Nathan Strauss Square, used to be Rutgers Square and, for a time during the 1870s was known as Tweed Plaza. The Sun Newspaper joked about erecting a Boss Tweed statue at this location after his crimes were discovered. Thieves Alley was off Rutgers Square between tenements in the Lower East Side where Seward Park Playground is today. In front of this square, the Bread Riot started with 50 women near the Forward Building on February 20th, 1917. They made speeches in Rutgers Square and marched to City Hall led by noted anarchist Marie Ganz (“Sweet Marie,” the only one arrested).

Legend says, Miss Phoebe Fraunces (mistress of Washington's bodyguard Thomas Hickey) was ordered to poison George Washington's favorite pea dish in 1776. Governor Tryon’s alleged plot was aided by several tavern keepers and Thomas Hickey. Hickey was found guilty of treason, mutiny and sedition, and was hanged on June 28, 1776, by the Delancey and Rutgers farms, at the intersection of Grand and Chrystie Streets in front of 20,000 spectators. Hickey planned to poison Washington's peas and other American officers (as well as blow up the town’s Magazine (do you mean a magazine or an ammunition storage place?), but the plot was revealed by Phoebe, the daughter (or enslaved/employed person) of Sam Francis (the owner of Francis Tavern known as Black Sam). Washington, according to the story, threw the poisoned peas out the window and watched the chickens eat and fall over. Besides Governor Tryon and Thomas Hickey, Mayor David Matthews was also involved in the plot hidden in history.

The cornerstone of the 5,395-sq.-ft. (64 ft. x 86 ft.) Rutgers Street Church was dedicated on May 13th, 1798. The congregation was the third unit of the Collegiate Presbyterian Church of NYC. The Reverend Dr. John Rodgers was the senior pastor. In 1809, the Reverend Dr. Philip Milledolar was assigned pastor to the Rutgers Street Church. This, the third Presbyterian Church in NYC, was built in a frame building, topped by a cupola complete with clock and bell. By 1830, Rutgers Street Church had 1,157 members and had become the largest Presbyterian church in NYC. In 1841 to 1843 a stone building was built for the Rutgers Presbyterian Church that was used until the congregation fled uptown away from the changing neighborhood. The Church of St. Teresa took over the church at 141 Henry Street on the NW corner of Rutgers Street.

Believe it or not, in the early 1840s the Lower East Side was once a middle-class Protestant neighborhood. The local dock at the East River and Rutgers’ influence made the area prosperous. Later in the 1840s, potato famine-stricken waves of Irish and German immigrants started to come onto the scene, more or less flooding the neighborhood. Houses were split up and converted to tenant houses. When the tenements were built up around the area, the transformation to a slum was complete.

Alfred E. Smith - The first Roman Catholic candidate for U.S. President, Alfred E. Smith lived near the church at 25 Oliver Street. Alfred Emanuel Smith was born December 30th, 1873, at 174 South Street, near Dover Street. He worked as a newsboy and went to grammar school at St. James Church's Parochial School. Around age 12, Alfred dropped out to become a fishmonger at Fulton Fish Market to help support his family after his father died. An altar boy at the Church of St. James long before he became the first Irish Catholic governor of New York State (serving two terms), Smith always fought for social reform to protect the poor living in the Lower East Side, a place he called the old neighborhood.

Al ? - Al's Bar, at 108 Bowery between Hester and Grand Streets, is known as the last no-frills rummy dive bar on the Bowery. Al's bar, a gathering place for the many old Bowery flophouse residents, closed in December 1993 because it couldn’t afford the terms of a new lease.

William Kramer - In 1858, William Kramer established what became the largest of the Bowery German beer halls just south of Canal Street at 50-54 Bowery. The Atlantic Garden was patronized mostly by the Irish, who lived to the east, and the German locals to the northeast. Located on the west side of Bowery between Canal and Bayard Streets (overlooking the Manhattan Bridge), stretching all the way back to 20-22 Elizabeth Street, this was NYC's most famous German beer and entertainment hall. The Atlantic Garden was across the street from the German Winter Garden.

The barroom was situated in front of the hall and a large concert hall was in the rear. The Atlantic Garden had its own brewery, shooting gallery, movie screens, and a giant mechanical music box. The concert hall had a large stage and many tables where patrons ate, drank and sat down to enjoy the shows. Before the term “vaudeville” emerged, this kind of entertainment was called variety, and the Atlantic Garden was the first place in town to present this novelty to the public.

Many times over 40 years, the Atlantic Garden was raided for serving liquor on Sundays, leading to the arrest of bartenders, waiters, and William Kramer himself.

Providing entertainment never before seen in NYC, Negro performers first took the stage at the Atlantic Garden, and in 1884, Charles Eschert joined the Atlantic Garden as its musical director and brought with him the first ladies orchestra. In 1879, Kramer added a venue to the south that adjoined the Atlantic Garden for a Yiddish playhouse, which became the Thalia Theatre to accommodate the neighborhood’s new Jewish immigrants.

As the Germans moved uptown to Yorkville, the Atlantic Garden lost its customer base, and adding motion pictures didn’t seem to keep the hall full. After 52 years of groundbreaking entertainment, the Atlantic Garden closed on October 3rd, 1910.

The Atlantic Garden was situated on an old coal yard and stove factory site. Part of the structure of the main building of the Atlantic Garden was left over from the old Bull’s Head Tavern, one of George Washington's old headquarters.

A different Atlantic Gardens, at 9-11 Broadway, was first run by Martin Cregier and lasted from 1643 to 1860. By 1649, the city had 17 taphouses.

Big Tim Sullivan - Considered the dictator of the Bowery, Big Tim Sullivan had his headquarters at the Comanche Club at 207 Bowery, near the SE corner of Rivington Street. The Comanche Club opened in 1892. Timothy Daniel Sullivan was a Tammany Hall politician who rose from poverty to control the Bowery and the Lower East Side. Using the Whyos gang as a springboard, Big Tim was one of the first Tammany Hall ward representatives to control the street gangs to protect the organization’s hold on NYC's vice and the Irish hold on Tammany Hall. The political machine known as Big Tim survived on kickbacks. His other nicknames were “Dry Dollar” and “Big Feller.” The County of Kerry, Ireland, where Big Tim’s parents came from, provided the origin of Kenmare Street’s name.

Big Tim worked his way up from Park Row newspaper boy to owning several saloons, and that brought him to the attention of a Tammany Hall ward leader named Thomas “Fatty” Walsh. Big Tim was a NY State Senator from 1894 to 1903, and again from 1909 to 1912. In between, he served as a Congressman from 1903 to 1906. Big Tim owned part of Dreamland in Coney Island, profiting from prizefights and leading to his campaign to legalize boxing in 1896.

The 1911 Sullivan Act requiring people to buy a $3 permit to carry a concealed gun was made a state law thanks to Big Tim Sullivan. He also pushed for women's right to vote, and after the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he helped limit by law the working week of women to 54 hours a week.

Tammany was originally created as a nativist organization, but after the Irish immigration saw a way to elevate its control by using the desperate masses entering NYC. Big Tim was a master at politics for the masses (an early form of populism), which fashioned neighborhood loyalty into gratitude voting. His tenement constituents were treated to steamboat trips, amusement park outings, and picnics in warm weather, and food and clothing during the colder periods. Big Tim helped protect Jewish gang leaders like Monk Eastman, Big Jack Zelig and Arnold Rothstein, and rival Italian gangs like Paul Kelly Five Points Gang, which helped the Tammany election fraud that perpetuated its power and rule. He also helped set up Herman Rosenthal in the gambling world and sustain Charles Becker’s police career.

Tammany politicians created grand scale public works projects to create jobs for NYC's immigrant population while they siphoned off funds to line their pockets. Boss Tweed went too far and sent the Tammany machine crashing down around him. Anti-Tammany mayors Seth Low and William J. Gaynor finally got the police to tackle vice and corruption in old Tammany NYC. Police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt regarded Big Tim as a symbol of the morals of another era, and The New York Times called him the most disreputable predatory politician in Tammany.

The Lexow Committee exposed the lengths to which Big Tim and other Tammany figures profited from prostitution, gambling, extortion and even white slavery. Syphilis fueled Tim’s guilty paranoid delusions and expanded his craziness until he was committed in January 1913. Big Tim may have been killed and his body was placed on Bronx railroad tracks. His family did not report him missing for more than a week. His mangled body went unidentified and was almost buried in Potter's Field on Hart's Island. A police officer on morgue detail recognized Big Tim, so on September 15th, 1913, he was given a grand funeral at the old St. Patrick's Cathedral and a funeral procession across the Williamsburg Bridge for his burial at Calvary Cemetery in Queens.

Boss William Marcy Tweed - Cherry Street and Pearl Street is no longer an intersection, due to the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, but it was near Tweeds birthplace. Tweed was a fireman, a member of the Big Six, but he became a corrupt politician. For six year after 1865, Tweed stole almost $200,000,000, starting the Panic of 1873. What a cover. Tweed was born on Cherry street, close to where the Brooklyn Bridge is today. Boss William Marcy Tweed built hospitals and orphanages, widened Broadway and got land for Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tweed's mansion at 45th and Fifth avenue had a near by stable full of horses. John Jacob Astor and other rich New Yorkers signed a baseless certificate of character supporting Tweed (who was the third largest owner of Manhattan real estate). Tweed owned two yachts, and a race horse, he could afford them his organization raked in 1-4 billion in todays dollars. Tweed's stickpin was ten and a half carats, he also wore a blue-white gem in his shirt. Some called him the Santa Claus with a diamond pin. Almost 6 foot tall, Tweed was a 300 pound non smoking non drinking ringleader of corrupt city officials, law makers and contractors. Tweed's City Hall lunch club fed his organization using fraud, money-laundering and profit sharing. The Tweed Ring pillaged approximately $13 million in city funds and used the construction of the county courthouse as a pretext to embezzle millions of dollars. Commissioner of Public Works was one of Tweed's titles. Tweed controlled every office in the city government. Tweeds ring controlled the courts, legislature, treasury and the ballot boxes. Peter Sweeny, head of the Department of Parks was part of Tweeds City Hall lunch club that started his Ring of corruption called the Tammany Ring. Tweeds organization used money-laundering, and profit sharing to commit fraud with the help of Comptroller Richard Connolly. Upstate Republicans were bribed to maintain Tweeds system of honest graft, which also applied to Mayor A. Oakey Hall. Tweeds illicit profits made him the third biggest owner of NYC real estate, and a pal of Mayor John Hoffman. After the prosecutors immense legal costs, Tweed alone became the scapegoat, but he was not the only one of the Ring that served time in jail (James H. Ingersoll spent 2 1/2 years in jail). Other Tweed Ring members were Sheriff Matthew Brennan, John Hoffman, James Kelso, and James O'Brien.

Referring to Thomas Nasts cartoon images of himself, Tweed said My constituents do not know how to read, but they can not help seeing them damned pictures. Other quotes included: Nine men out of ten either know me or I know them; and As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it? Boss Tweeds last words around noon on April 12, 1878 were I hope they are satisfied now. Tweeds last words were said right after he said Well, Tilden (Samuel Jones Tilden, the New York governor) and Fairchild (Charles Fairchild, the New York State attorney general) have killed me. Tweed died April 12 of the same year (1878) in a debtors prison on Ludlow street, and was buried in Brooklyns Green-Wood Cemetery.

Tweed said If I could have bought newspapermen as easily as I did members of the Legislature, I wouldn't be in the fix I am now. The Evening Post, tried to aid the Tweed ring, but it was too late. Tweed underestimated his enemies, and made a full confession (even admiting to things he was not even involved in). Ironically, Tweed was convicted in the structure (now called Tweed Courthouse at 52 Chambers) that he was responsible for building, on the south side of Chambers Street just west of Centre Street. $250,000 was the amount of the original budget of the Tweed Courthouse, it ended up almost costing twice what United States spent to purchase Alaska in 1867. It took 11 years (1861 -1872) to finish the Tweed Courthouse. During renovations of the Tweed Courthouse, in 1999 they removed the cast iron and 18 layers of paint as well as putting in new floors and roof. The triangular open space at East Broadway and Canal Street, now known as Nathan Strauss square, was once called Rutgers square, but it also had Tweed's name on the space as well, when it was called Tweed Plaza. Henry Street and Gouverneur Street was the location of Engine #6, the fire station Tweed was in charge of.

An 1854 or 1844? three-story brownstone at 269 Henry Street on December 11th, 1848?, was turned into a volunteer firehouse called Americus Engine Company 6, run by William Marcy Tweed. The famous Boss Tweed became foreman of the Big Six in 1849. His famous tiger emblem was first painted on one of the double-decker fire engines by Joseph H Johnson. In the 1890s, NYC’s most elaborate firehouse became home to Engine Company 15.

The All Saints Free Episcopal Church was built with the only slave gallery that still exists in a NYC church. It is the Georgian Gothic-windowed church where Edgar Allan Poe worshipped in the back where he could meditate. Begun as a mission near the old Grand Street Ferry in 1819, the All Saints Free Episcopal Church was led by Marinus Willet, a pal of General Lafayette and an early leader in the American Revolution. The church at 290 Henry Street was built between 1827 and1829 in the federal style out of fieldstone from the 60-foot high Mount Pitt quarry. The church was built in the same manner and during the same period as the church that became the Bialystocker Synagogue. The All Saints Free Episcopal Church was built in one of the poorest areas of NYC.

Established in 1869, St Augustine Episcopal Church (built in 1828) had upstairs hidden slave galleries (like the Old South Church in Boston) where slaves could sit for Sunday services in small, dark, unventilated rooms with wooden benches and pray (for freedom no doubt). The rear of the church’s balcony flanking the organ were narrow twisting stairs that led to the slave galleries, just two tiny enclosed rooms. The 1830s organ, made by Henry Erben & Company, was a mechanical action instrument with 2 manuel, 15 stops, and 17 ranks. Services were held at the church in 1876 for Boss Tweed’s mom, Eliza Magear Tweed (born April 30th, 1793). Tweed, at this point a fugitive on the lam from Ludlow Street Jail, was hiding in the slave gallery observing all, who could not see him.

The slave galleries didn’t make total sense because the last slave in NYC should have freed on July 4th, 1827. Children of slaves born after July 4th, 1799, were freed, and slaves born before July 4th, 1799 would be free at 24 years old (women) or 28 years old (men). Though slavery was outlawed, it still persisted through legislated segregation and your average bigots. New Yorkers owned more slaves per slaveholder than any other state north of Virginia. The church and its slave galleries might have part of the Underground Railroad that did use the nearby Bialystocker Synagogue.

The church’s name was changed St Augustine Episcopal Chapel when it turned into a chapel of Trinity Church in 1949. The All Saints Church was on the corner of Henry and Madison and Scammel Streets (until Scammel was obliterated by a housing development), so now the chapel is located between Jefferson and Montgomery Streets. All Saints Church started in 1825 on the corner of Grand and Columbia Streets.

In 1966, the All Saint's Episcopal Church was granted NYC Landmark status.

The Tweed Courthouse at 52 Chambers now sits on the site of the second City Hall Park Almshouse. Ironically, Tweed was convicted in the structure that he was responsible for building, on the south side of Chambers Street just west of Centre Street. Originally budgeted at $250,000, the Criminal Courts Building (Tweed Courthouse), after over a decade of construction, ended up almost costing twice what U.S. spent to purchase Alaska in 1867. One carpenter nailed the NYC budget for $361,000 for one month’s work. It took 11 years (1861-1872) to finish the Tweed Courthouse with three quarters of the funds lining the pockets of the Tweed ring. During renovations of the Tweed Courthouse in 1999, they removed the cast iron and 18 layers of paint and put in new floors and roof. The Tweed Courthouse renovations bring its total cost close to $100 million.

Republican Mayor Abraham Oakey Hall was part of Tweed’s ring; he was NYC mayor from 1869–1872. Boss Tweed engineered Hall into office in 1868 to provide himself with a free hand to steal from NYC. In 1871 Tweed got a hard time from his nemesis Thomas Nast, who drew political cartoons for Harper's Weekly to stir up the public (he also created the donkey and elephant political symbols). The New York Times joined in with the using ink as weapons to bring down the Boss. Boss Tweed also profited heavily on the construction of the old post office on the south side of City Hall Park.

Jacob Van Corlaer - The original location of Corlaer's Hook was around the present east end of Corlaer’s Hook Parks pedestrian bridge now crossing the FDR Highway east of Cherry Street. East River shoreline landfill obscures the old land mass that once had the shape of a hook.

In the 19th century, Lower Manhattan had more than 200 brothels. The Corlaer's Hook area was notorious for its prostitution trade and its bawdy houses for the lower class. “Hooker” was a name given to the streetwalkers working the Corlaer's Hook neighborhood. (The name stuck!) Even though prostitution was illegal under vagrancy statutes, the law was not well enforced by NYC police. The madam and brothel owner would pay off the local cops and other city officials to keep their dens of inequity safe and continuously profitable. One byproduct of the police’s inactivity combined with the brothels’ activity was that 75% of the city’s men had some “social disease.”

Long before that, on February 25th, 1643, Willem Kieft, the fifth Dutch governor of New Netherland, had his militia murder about 40 Lenape Indians living in Corlaer's Hook. The native village on the heavy marshlands (perfect for landing their canoes) was called Nechtanc or Naig-ia-nac (sand lands or sandy point), and the trail to it ran on the hilly line of Grand Street, connecting up to their village of Sappokanican (Greenwich Village).

Kieft's militia also killed more than 100 Wappinger Indians living in Jersey City (then called Pavonia), which the Indians called Hobokan-Hacking, this New Jersey Indian village was named Lapinikan. Kieft's soldiers played kickball with the heads of some of the slaughtered Indians back at Fort Amsterdam. These bloody acts united about 20 tribes of Indians who attacked the Dutch settlements for years.

In 1644, Kieft hired the famous Indian fighter and English-Connecticut mercenary, John Underhill, for 25 thousand guilders. Underhill and his men killed more than 1,200 Indians; 120 at Massapequa, Long Island, 700 in Stamford, Connecticut, and hundreds more throughout Long Island. The united Native American Indian tribes struck back, and by August 1645, only around 100 white settlers were left in NYC. Kieft's response was, "In this country, I am my own master and may do as I please". Kieft was fired on July 28th, 1646, and replaced on May 11th, 1647, by Pieter Stuyvesant.

A 17th century farmer named Jacob Van Corlaer became the first white man to own Corlaer's Hook. The graded coastal inclines of this hilly area were often used by early Dutch vessels. When the English conquered the Dutch, Corlaer's Hook became Crown Point, named after an English fort on its hills. During the Revolutionary War, the wretched remains of 12-15 battalions (shattered by sickness, fatigue and desertion) sailed from Lake Champlain in leaky boats without awnings and landed at Crown Point. These 5,200 men, under the leadership of General Benedict Arnold, were all that remained of the American army; 2,800 of these troops were sick and dying, and on July 10th the sick were moved to Fort George.

Corlaer's Hook Market, originally called the Grand Street Market, had a fire bell on its cupola. It was located on Grand Street at Goerck Street from 1806 to 1819. In 1814, Irish immigrants leveled the hills to make landfill for the coastline that would help in dock building.

After the Delancey estate was forfeited because of Delancey’s loyalty to the British, Charles Brownne had his shipyards at Corlaer's Hook, which was also where Robert Fulton's Clermont, the world’s first successful steamboat, was built in 1807. Fulton the First, a steam frigate designed by Robert Fulton and also built by Charles Brownne (in 1814), was launched at Corlaer’s Hook. Another Corlaer's Hook shipyard was the Allaire Works, which was located there for 40 years. The Fickett and Crockett shipyards were situated in Corlaer's Hook in the early 1800s. In 1818, a 98-foot packet ship called the Savannah was built there by Francis Fickett for $50 thousand. The Savannah was launched from Corlaer's Hook on August 22nd, 1818. After a trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, the Savannah sank on November 5th, 1821, off Bellport, Long Island by Great South Beach. The steam cylinder of her engine was exhibited at the Crystal Palace Fair, held in 1832 at Bryant Park, NYC.

In 1893, NYC bought 4.4 acres off the East River and turned it into Corlaer’s Hook Park, which became one of the first municipal parks when it was completed in 1905. In 1941, the Cherry Street area of Corlaer’s Hook was used for NYC's first superdevelopment, the Vladeck Houses. Vladeck's 24 six-story buildings started the public housing trend. In 1998, a $50 million renovation of the Vladeck Houses was started.

Samuel Oakly - Black Horse Inn was just south of Canal Street at 52-54 Bowery. It was opened in 1802 by Samuel Oakly and lasted until 1811 The Black Horse Tavern was originally an elite tavern run by Robert Todd in the early half of the 1700s. The original location for the sign of the Black Horse hung on a tavern on William Street (then called Smith Street) between Cedar and Pine Streets. When Robert Todd died, Jonathan Ogden moved it to Queen Street (Pearl Street) and in 1750, it was moved to the Boston Post Road (52-54 Bowery) just south of Canal Street. When Jonathan Ogden died in 1753, the Black Horse Inn was purchased by John Halstead. By 1802, it was owned by Samuel Oakly who owned it until 1811; the Black Horse Inn was known to feature bull-baiting as entertainment.

Old Matt Carey - Founded by wealthy families to compete with the Park Theatre on the south side of City Hall Park, this famous theatre opened in October 1826 as the New York Theatre. It was located over the old Astor Tavern between Elizabeth, Canal, and Bayard Streets. The Bowery Theatre was the first theatre in NYC lit by gas. The first production was aptly named The Road to Ruin (New York Theatre - 10/22/1826), foreshadowing the future of the Bowery as a skid road and reflecting the theatre’s destruction by six fires (it was rebuilt five times). This original play could have been the earliest to be staged at the fiery theatre. It became the famous Bowery Theatre in March 1828, opening with the play The Spoiled Child. The Bowery Theatre at 46 Bowery was the biggest theatre in the United States (3,500 seats), and it burnt down five times in its first 17 years (1828, 1830, 1836, 1838, 1845). It started off with high drama, ballet and opera presentations.

During one of the fires at the Bowery Theatre, Old Matt Carey conceived the idea of using wet carpets, blankets and, yes, mats to stop the spread of fire. By 1845, the wet matt, er, mat was the fire patrols’ primary tool to protect property during fires.

Some of the plays staged at the Bowery Theatre included Norman Leslie (January 11th, 1836), Macbeth (May 1849), Romeo and Juliet (1850), The Bohemian Girl (December 22nd, 1852), and Medea (December 4th, 1858).

America's leading Shakespearean actor, Edwin Forrest blamed English tragedian William Charles Macready for bombing out during his 1846 European tour (booed off the stage). When the Astor Place Opera House announced the Macready Macbeth dates (May 7th, 1849 and May 10, 1849, the night of the The Astor Place Riot), the Bowery Theatre decided to stage Macbeth as well, but with Edwin Forrest.

During the Civil War, the military occupied the theatre, and later its stage was used by a circus. The theater’s name was changed to the American Theatre, Bowery, to capitalize on the anti-British nativist sentiment in that part of town. It then capitalized on the burlesque craze until it closed in 1878. It offered lower class entertainment like animal acts, blackface minstrel shows, and what became known as Bowery melodrama.

It was replaced by the Thalia Theatre after Germans converted the old Bowery Theatre in 1879, but it, too, burned down in 1923. The Thalia Theatre staged mostly German-language plays and soon ventured into Yiddish productions. Featured plays included The Life That Kills (August 21st, 1905), On Dangerous Ground (August 13th, 1906), The Avenger (1907), Kate Baron's Temptation (1908), and the last play, The Spell (1908). Afterwards the Thalia presented mostly Italian and Chinese vaudeville acts.

Under Chinese management on June 5th, 1929, as Fay's Bowery Theatre, it burned down for the last time. At this point tenements surrounded the theatre, and no further attempt was made to rebuild it.

Tom Hyer - Tom Hyer's Nativist bar called the Branch was the base for protestant gamblers, fighters, and Bowery Boy gang members. Hyer was the proprietor of the Branch Hotel at 36 Bowery, on the NE corner of Bayard Street. Tom Hyer was a bare-knuckle boxer from 1841-1851. At 6-ft.-3, he became America’s first boxing champion in 1849 after winning a 15-round match against Irish Catholic Yankee Sullivan at Roach's Point, a Maryland farm. America's first heavyweight bout became the subject of the first telegraphic transmission of a major sporting event. New York Herald's Uncle Joe Elliot made it a national story. (The electric telegraph was launched on May 25th, 1844, with Samuel Morse’s first message from Washington D.C to his assistant in Baltimore: “What has God wrought?”).

A bar fight between young American Hyer and an ex-cop named Lewis Baker led to Baker killing the infamous Bowery Boy, Bill the Butcher (Bill Poole), on February 24th 1855 (eight years before the Draft Riots). After Poole fought Baker for being rude to Hyer, Baker shot Poole in the heart at the Stanwix Hall bar on Broadway near Prince Street. Tom Hyer died of dropsy on June 26th, 1864, and is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. Tom Hyer's bar was the Bowery Boys’ headquarters between Canal and Bayard Streets, and the Atlantic Guards would also hang out there.

Another old Bowery Boy hangout was the Green Dragon saloon, which was either across the street at 47 Bowery or (more likely) on Broome Street just west of the Bowery. Tom Hyer's saloon was also the scene of the historic July 4th, 1837, attack by Irish gangs from 5 Points, such as the Dead Rabbits. This two-day riot during the summer of 1857 greeted the newly established state-run Metropolitan Police squad. The old Municipal Police just sat back and watched.

On July 4, 1857, the 5 Points Riot started when two gang members from the Roach Guards/Dead Rabbits assaulted two native born American policemen. Seeking refuge from their assaulters, the policeman ducked into the tavern of Pat Matthews, who was a leader of one of the factions of the Bowery Boys.

Soon almost 1,000 young gang members, some of them just kids, stormed the Bayard Street area. During the first day of the riot, the Roach Guards/Dead Rabbits attacked the Bowery Boy clubhouse at 40-42 Bowery. The next day, the numbers grew and thousands of gang members from various 5 Points gangs marched to the Bowery and met an equal number of gangsters from the Bowery gangs. The Roach Guards/Dead Rabbits looted the Green Dragon, smashing the furniture, tearing up its floorboards and drinking all their liquor.

The 5 Points gangs met the Bowery Boys and the Atlantic Guards by the intersection of Bayard and Bowery, and the fighting began. Only several bodies were found because many of the dead were buried in secret by their fellow gang members. Hundreds were injured including many policemen targeted by both sides of the gangs. The 5 Points riot gave gang members the excuse to loot many stores on those two days of rioting, which was broken up by General Sandford's military at 9 p.m. Even political gang boss Isaiah Rynders could not get his minions to stop the riot.

Stephen Foster - Across Bayard street from Tom Hyer's Bar on the NW corner of Bowery and Bayard was the former North American Hotel, that was called the Moss Hotel after 1855, where 37 year old songwriter Stephen Foster had his fatal accident. Foster hit his head on a sink during a persistent fever or another drunken tizzy, and a few days after writing his most well known song “Beautiful Dreamer,” he died at Bellevue Hospital broke (38 cents in his pocket) and desolate on January 13, 1864 in charity ward #11.

George Bewerton - The Boston Post Road, America’s first mail route, started in 1673, following an old Indian trail that the Dutch followed northward to the country towns of Greenwich and New Haarlem. After the Dutch era, the DeLanceys owned most of the land east of the Bowery and the Bayards owned much of the west side of the Bowery. After 1755, the Bulls Head Inn was first opened on the Boston Post Road (which later became the Bowery) by George Bewerton just south of Pump (now Canal) Street and north of Bayard Street.

This famous tavern (two stories tall with an attic) started as the last stagecoach stop on the Boston Post Road before entering NYC. It soon became the main tavern and restaurant where drovers (cattle sellers), farmers and merchants met and swapped stories in 18th century NYC. Located just east of the Collect Ponds and beyond the towns walls, it was where the townsfolk from the south mixed business and pleasure with the butchers, farmers and cattle salesmen from the north.

Almost all NYC meat selling and rendering business took place at the Bulls Head Tavern. Farmers would herd their best livestock into pens that adjoined the Bull Head's main building and made deals inside the tavern to sell their wares. Pens surrounded the tavern for the droves of cattle, sheep, calves, horses and other animals that sold at the market there. Thus, the Bulls Head contributed to the Collect Ponds pollution after they became taken over by the slaughterhouses and tanneries industries. The stables and livestock yards in the area used the Collect Ponds to water their animals before they were slaughtered and their hides were tanned along its banks.

Most taverns also had various forms of gambling on and around their premises. The Bulls Head was renowned for dog fights, bear baiting, dice games and “crack loo,” which was pitching coins upward so they fell close to a certain crack in the floor. In 1788, NYC laws (enforced with fines and jail time) prohibited gambling on dice games, billiards, card-playing, and shuffleboard, and banned cockfighting outright.

On Evacuation Day, November 25th, 1783, the British left NYC and General George Washhington was received by his triumphant army where they shared food and a few ales. His entourage of 800 soldiers used the Bulls Head to organize themselves before marching into town to retake NYC. Most of what was left of NYC's townsfolk waited outside and just south of the tavern to observe the long-awaited procession.

In 1785, John Jacob Astor's older brother, Henry, became the new owner of the Bulls Head Inn, and it could then have been also called the Astor Tavern. Henry Astor was a noted butcher known to pay the most for the best cattle that came to the market. John Jacob Astor would travel north up the Boston Post Road to meet the drovers heading for the Bull's Head early to make deals for the best cows first. When the other butchers caught on, they also wandered up the Boston Post Road to meet them. This may have caused the cattle market and the Bull's Head Inn to move uptown in 1826 to Third Avenue and 24th Street. But more likely it was due to the closing and draining of the badly polluted Collect Ponds in 1811.

By 1830, the newly located Bull's Head Tavern was owned by a rancher named Daniel Drew, who later in life became a steamboat mogul. Daniel Drew transformed the famous tavern into a social club for cattlemen and developed the meat marketplace into a cross between a stock market and a bank. Because there were no banks above City Hall Park at that time, most of the money from his customers were deposited in his Bull's Head bank. In 1850, the cattle market moved to 42nd Street, and afterwards to 94th Street. In 1853, drovers were banned during the day south of 42nd Street.

After the Collect Ponds were drained, the stockyards, slaughterhouses, tanning operations, breweries and local factories closed down as NYC started expanding uptown. The site of the original Bull's Head became the Bowery Theatre. The Old Bowery Theatre was on the former site of the two-story (plus attic) Bulls Head Tavern on the west side of the Bowery between St. Nicholas (Canal) and Bayard Street.

In early NYC, Broadway was just a short road running from City Hall Park to the Fort by the Battery; the Bowery was a much more substantial road. Great families such as the Bayards, Beekmans, DeLanceys, Depeysters, Roosevelts and Stuyvesants lived just off the Bowery. Before the Civil War, the Bowery was called the Thief's Highway, it soon became full of beer halls, slop joints, burlesque theaters, brothels, circuses, lottery agencies, dance halls, dime museums, freak shows, tattoo parlors, rigged auctions, shooting galleries, summer gardens, gospel missions, concert halls, dime-a-dance establishments, flophouses, pawn shops, gin mills, fortune telling parlors and opium dens.

Emanuel de Groot - Catiemuts was located on an old hill south of Chatham Square, east of Shell Point (Collect Pond) and north of the east end of City Hall Park. A castle or fort stood atop this great hill called Catiemuts, and it was also called Indian Lookout.

The prefix Cata signified great or principal, but it could have described a woman's name such as Kaatjes (Katy). Niuts meant hat or bonnet. So Catiemuts could have been describing a hill that looked like a woman's hat.

Early NYC travelers had to go around the hill called Catiemuts instead of continuing on the straight path it has today. After 1886, this old road once called Chatham Street was named Park Row. Catiemuts Hill was located just south of NYC's first kissing bridge over the Old Wreck Brook. This bridge was referred to as the Kissing Bridge because in the 1700's gentleman would kiss the lady in his company as they crossed it.

The first non-American Indian to live on Catiemuts Hill was Emanuel de Groot, a gigantic freed slave who lived there with ten other freed slaves. They were allowed to settle on Catiemuts Hill for a payment of 22 bushels of grain and a fat hog each year they stayed. Captain John Brown lived in a house on the site of an old windmill that once operated on top of Catiemuts hill. This old windmill from the mid-1600s was named the Garrison Mill because it had to grind grain toll free for the government. Lightening struck and destroyed the windmill in 1689. Captain Brown's house became known as Catiemuts in the mid-1700s, and the hill got the name Windmill Hill.

Jasper's Windmill was off the road to Boston (Park Row), just south of the Collect Pond and northeast of City Hall. It was a grist mill owned by the baker Jasper Nessepat, who had another windmill on Duane Street once owned by de Meyer. Nessepat was a widower who married the widow of Nicholas Governeur in 1655. This made Jasper the stepfather of Abraham Governeur, who was an associate of Jacob Leisler. Governor Slaughter, who put Leisler to death, punished Jasper by forcing him to rebuild the old Garrison Windmill on top of Catiemuts Hill in 1693. Jasper also had to grind 25 skepfuls ( a skep was a round farm basket of wicker or wood) of wheat per week for free for two years for the government. Jasper died in September 1702.

NYC’s first windmill was located on the SW corner of Greenwich and State Streets of. Another early windmill was just west of Broadway (Church Street) on Cortlandt Street. The early mill on Mill Street between Pearl and William Streets was driven by horse, not wind.

When the windmill sails were set square, with one arm pointing to the sky and the opposite one set to the earth, that was the signal for an invasion from hostile forces, and usually when the windmills were not grinding corn in the hopper.

Edward Mooney - The Edward Mooney House on the SW corner of Bowery and Pell Street is the oldest rowhouse in NYC; it is also one of the oldest townhouses in NYC. Edward Mooney was a racehorse breeder and a butcher who wholesaled meat. This wealthy merchant built his Georgian and early federal style townhouse in 1785 after the Revolutionary War. In the 1820s was a tavern, in the 1830s and 40s it was a brothel, in the early 20th century it became a store and hotel. Then the Mooney House turned into a pool parlor, a restaurant, a Chinese club, an OTB office, and finally the bank headquarters of Summit Associates. The Edward Mooney House still contains its original hand-hewn timbers. Chinatown started to move over Canal Street after 1985, into what was once Little Italy. Chinatown’s largest restaurant is Jing Fong at 18-20 Elizabeth Street where the specialty is dim sum.

Patrick Farley - Next to the old Pig and Whistle Tavern between Broome and Grand Streets was the Hauser Beer Garden at 133 Bowery, owned by Patrick Farley.

Harry Miner - London Theatre at 235 Bowery was a variety theatre that became a burlesque house and later a Yiddish theater. It opened November 25th, 1876, and was managed by Harry Miner, and closed down in 1909. That was when a series of Yiddish theatres moved in and out; the last named Lipzin's Theatre.

Polly Hopkins - McKeon's Saloon, at 20 Bowery on the NW corner Pell Street, was first kept by Polly Hopkins. It was a Bowery Boy hangout, and Irving Berlin worked there as a 16-year-old singing waiter.

George Washington “Chuck” Connors - Barney Flynn's Old Tree House on the corner of Bowery and Pell Street was George Washington “Chuck” Connors’ tavern office. The Old Tree House was around the corner from Professor O'Reilly's Tattoo Shop. Connors, who coined the term “under the table,” was called the mayor of Chinatown. Connors set up fake opium dens and then staged walking tours so folks could witness Bowery's depravity.

Owney Geoghegan - Owney Geoghegan's Burnt Rag, a.k.a. Owney Geoghegan's Night House, was a dive bar at 103-105 Bowery between Hester and Grand Streets, in business from 1864 to the 1890s. This two-story building, often called the Bastille of the Bowery, featured 12-ft.-square prize rings on both floors that catered to the disorderly fight crowd and offered a $5 prize. Owney Geoghegan, a short guy who was the Lightweight Champion of America from 1861 to 1864, would often put himself in one of the rings as well, and he was known for cheating. Once in the ring with black wrestler Viro Small, he was taking a bad beating in his own establishment and had one of his men hold a gun to the referee's head to win the match.

The fight crowd would also frequent Harry Hill's and Kit Burns Sportsmen's Hall on Water Street. The bar was raided at least seven times by the 10th precinct before 1877. In September 1877, police were stationed outside the bar to warn greenhorns from entering. Owney had the bar put under the name Matthew Coyle, license revoked on January 14th, 1879, but it was soon re-opened with Dave Kelly as the new owner. Samuel Hadley, a wrestler known as Black Sam, was shot in the neck at the back of the bar at 9 a.m. on September 3rd, 1882. In the 1890s it added women's wrestling to the renowned Bowery bar that attracted the lowest element of NYC.

Hilly Kristal - Palace Bar and its flophouse hotel at 315 Bowery, opposite Bleecker Street, was famous for its later establishment as CBGB's. This “country bluegrass bar” opened in December 1973, replacing Hilly's on the Bowery, which was also owned by Hilly Kristal from 1969 to 1972. The Palace Hotel was one of the largest flophouse hotels on the Bowery, and its 165-ft. bar was the longest in NYC. The legendary CBGBs shuttered October 15th, 2006 After a brief stint in the Marines, Hilly was regularly singing on the stage of Radio City Music Hall. Between 1959 and 1964, he managed the Village Vanguard and booked musicians (Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson) and comedians (Lenny Bruce). He opened Hilly's on Ninth Street between 5th and 6th Avenues in 1966, and had Bette Midler playing there regularly as well as comedians Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Also in 1966, Hilly partnered with Ron Delsener to launch rock concerts in Central Park sponsored by Rheingold Beer. In December 1969, Hilly's on the Bowery took over a bar owned by an ex-prizefighter until 1972. He also owned Hilly's on 13th Street until he started CBGB's in December 1973. Hilly also drove a beer truck and a cab to survive expensive of NYC.

CBGBs’ original rent was a mere $600 per month, and Hilly was paying $19,000 per month up until it closed. What closed the legendary club was his landlords’ (or money lords as Cheetah Chrome of The Dead Boys put it) demand for $35,000 - $40,000 per month. His landlords became the homeless-services provider called the BRC, CBGBs had to use electric heaters for three years when the building had no furnace. If he had the money in the early 1990s he could have bought the whole building for $4 million. The bands played for the money at the door, CBGB’s made its money from selling drinks at the bar. The whole name was CBGB & Omfug, Omfug stands for Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers (Gormandizers were “voracious eaters”). Wayne County's Queen Elizabeth (named after the American Revolutionary War General Mad Anthony Wayne, who Batman's alter ego was named after) and Suicide were the first rock bands to play CBGB's shortly after it opened, the last was Patti Smith. Sunday night concerts by Television started on March 31, 1974. The Police, played their first American concerts at CBGB's on October 20 and 21, 1978. To help CBGBs avoid paying ASCAP royalties, Hilly demanded that most bands play original music, and no cover songs. Starting in 1975, Hilly advised and then managed the Brooklyn band called the Shirts. This 3,300-sq- ft. space is now a menswear boutique owned by John Varvatos.

Samuel F O'Reilly - The first electric tattoo machine was patented in 1891 (Patent No. 464801) by an Irish immigrant working at 11 Chatham Square. Owner Samuel F. O'Reilly used the autographic printing pen newly invented by Thomas Edison to electrify the colorful tattoo trend. O'Reilly first arrived in America in 1875, opened and operated his first shop on Broadway, but it wasn’t until he moved to the small shop at 11 Chatham Square behind a barbershop that he became a sensation. O'Reilly also worked summers on Stillwell Avenue at Coney Island. In 1898, one of Samuel F O'Reilly's apprentices was Charlie Wagner, who later created the first modern tattoo at 4 Chatham Square. Wagner also patented his version of an electric tattoo machine in 1904. In 1911, Charlie moved to the 11 Chatham Square location that Samuel F O'Reilly made famous, until his death on January 1st, 1953. Charlie Wagner was fined in 1944 for using dirty needles in violation of NYC's Sanitary Code. Charlie was the first tattoo artist to perfect designs on women's lips, cheeks and eyebrows. When Charlie died all his equipment and designs from his studio at 11 Chatham Square was hauled off to the city dump. Samuel F O'Reilly and Charlie Wagner both became known for their work on sideshow performers. After Samuel F O'Reilly died in 1908 from a fall while painting his Brooklyn home, Electric Elmer Getchell took over the shop at 11 Chatham. Lew the Jew also found tattoo fame at 11 Chatham Square.

Steve Brodie -Steve Brodie's Bar, at 114 Bowery between Hester and Grand Streets, had silver dollars inlaid into the floor. Irving Berlin may have once sung at the three-room bar. On July 23rd 1883, Brodie, then a newsboy, jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge on a $100 bet. He most likely cheated as no impartial witnesses observed the feat, and word was that Brodie jumped out of a nearby rowboat after a dummy was dropped. After appearing at Alexander's Museum, Brodie staged a few more feats, but soon the NYC newspapers stopped giving him ink. He moved to Buffalo to swim Niagara's rapids and fake a plunge down Niagara Falls in 1888 or 1889. Brodie tried opening up a bar in Buffalo, but it didn't work like spicy wings would many decades later. So Brodie came back to NYC, where he was backed by East Side liquor dealer Moritz Herzberg for a new a Bowery bar, which opened in 1890. Behind the bar hung a signed affidavit from the boat captain who pulled him out of the East River and a large oil painting of the supposed event. For the price of a drink, Brodie would retell his feat, and sometimes he wore beat-up clothes, claiming it was the outfit he was wearing when he jumped. After turning his tale into a musical performance that played Philadelphia and Brooklyn under the title “On the Bowery” in 1894, Brodie moved to San Antonio and died of diabetes in 1901 at 38. The Bowery bar stayed open some years after his death, a period that included banning sailors and pickpockets from admittance. Evolving into a tourist trap, buses would stop in front of the bar for the remaining years of operation.

Father Felix Varela -The Church of St. James is a Roman Catholic Church at 32 James Street. Father Felix Varela converted an old Protestant Episcopal Church on Ann Street into a Catholic church in 1827. The church was declared unsafe in 1833, and Father Varela found other temporary locations. In 1835, he purchased property for a new church on James Street and built St. James Church between 1835 and 1837, out of fieldstone. The first American branch of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Irish fraternal organization, was formed in the Church of St. James. The Hibernians began in response to the burning of St. Mary's Church on Sheriff Street (before it moved to Grand Street). The Hibernians paid for St. James Church’s restoration in 1983, ensuring that NYC's second oldest Roman Catholic church continued. In 1966, the Church of St. James was designated a NYC landmark.

Peter Conkling -Volks Garten Music Hall (at 231-233 Bowery until it closed in mid-1895) was managed by George Kraus until 1893. The building was taken over by Conkling's Museum of the Late War for a week before being destroyed by fire on November 23rd, 1895. Peter Conkling, a former clown in Barnum's Circus, had his museum open to the public for only two or three days when gas company meter inspector James Hagan, investigating a gas leak in the basement, tried to read the meter with the help of a lit candle.

Wolfert Webber - Wolfert Webber bought the land around the Collect Ponds in 1670 after buying up the Negro farms further north. Wolfert Webber’s tavern was at the top of the hill now occupied by Chatham Square off the Bowery, which was the road to Harlem and Boston. Native American Indians called the hill on Chatham Square Werpoes or Warpoes, or small hills. Chatham Square was named after William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. In 1776, the British toppled the statue of William Pitt erected on Wall Street.

Webber's house and tavern was built on the hill in 1648. Wolfert was one of the first settlers that made his home outside the downtown settlement. Wolfert came to New Amsterdam in 1633 along with Governor Van Twiller. He started out living on 62 acres off Broadway between Duane and Warren Streets. A tall 1662 windmill stood just behind the tavern on the northwestern side of Chatham Squares high hill. Wolfert Webber built his tavern on the hill near the present Chatham Square in 1664, it was the place to drink some schnapps and feel merry. In 1788, NYC laws (enforced with fines and jail time) stopped tavern patrons from gambling at dice, billiards, cards, and shuffleboard, as well as banning cockfighting.

Isaac Van Amburgh -America's first permanent zoo, the Zoological Institute at 37-47 Bowery, opened across the street from the Bowery Theatre in 1821. At this venue, one of America's first wild animal trainers, Isaac Van Amburgh, got his start, later becoming the first circus entertainer to wow the crowds by putting his head into a lion's mouth. The Zoological Institute started as a menagerie (1833), turned into a circus (1835), became a minstrel theatre (1843), and ended up an armory (1866).

The Zoological Institute was a joint stock company that was formed when all nine menagerie companies in America merged on January 14th, 1835. This for-profit venture was created to spread the knowledge of natural history. About 125 investors owned the Zoological Institute, which was valued with all the equipment and animals at $329,325.

Also known as the Flatfoots, the Zoological Institute built the menagerie in 1833 with an amphitheater, stage and ring added in 1835. The name was changed to the Bowery Amphitheater, and it featured a horse show. For a short period before 1841, it was called the Bowery Theatre.

The Zoological Institute syndicate was based in Somers, NY, and controlled all 13 menageries that toured in 1835. It all began when Hachaliah Bailey bought and exhibited an African elephant, started traveling, and collected other exotic animals to create a traveling menagerie. Soon other farmers from Somers entered the menagerie business. Some traveled solo, others traveled with circus companies. The first giraffe seen in America was imported in 1835 and billed as the stupendous giraffe or camelopard.

In 1836, the Zoological Institute sold booklets describing the exhibited animals. The Panic of 1837 and depression in the 1840s caused caring and feeding of the animals to cut into profits and the novelty also started to wear off. Many big wild animal shows failed, and others just concentrated on the circus business, and offered the circus and animal attractions together on one ticket. In 1841, the circus became the New York Circus at the Bowery Theatre. The name changed again in November 1842 to the Amphitheater of the Republic where the first Virginia Minstrels blackface minstrel shows started on January 31st, 1843. It then featured mainly minstrel shows and was renamed again in 1844 to the New Knickerbocker Theatre.

In 1849, the structure was taken over by June & Titus and again featured a menagerie. In 1851, it transformed back into a showcase for various circuses. It failed in early 1854 because the speculators did not work with the shareholders and pocketed the profits too quickly. On October 20th, 1854, the venue became a German theatre called the Stadt Theatre, but it also staged English-speaking plays; then in 1871, opera.

As of September 3rd, 1864, the largest theatre in America located at the rear of a five-story hotel began another life as the Varieties, or the New Stadt Theatre, and an early form of vaudeville was launched. This 3,500-seat, three-tiered theatre in October 1865 became Montpelier's Opera House but still presented variety and melodramatic shows in addition to opera. As of November 20th, 1865, it lived its last six weeks as an entertainment venue named the New National Circus. In 1866, it was converted into an armory.

On September 16th, 1878, it became the City Theatre, but by November 11th, 1878, it was the Windsor Theatre. On November 29th, 1883, the theatre was destroyed by fire. Two years later a smaller theatre was built by the owner Mr. Martin and leased to Frank Murtha. It opened on February 8th, 1886, as the Madison Square Theatre. On March 27th, 1893, the structure became a Hebrew theatre.

Elias Degruthe - In the 1760s and 1770s, Elias Degruthe owned a extensive ropewalk on the eastern side of Montgomery Street, which in 1766, was known as Little Division Street. It was just a lane running alongside DeGrushe's Rope Walk. Little Division Street was the boundary separating Rutgers and DeLancey farms (as well as Division Street). In 1797, Little Division Street was renamed Montgomery Street. Montgomery Street was in the vicinity of Jones Hill, also known as Mount Pitt, a large hill that was fortified during the Revolutionary War. After the military abandoned the area in late 1783, Little Division Street became developed.

Lillian Wald -The Henry Street Settlement is a non-profit organization located in three federal townhouses at 263 through 267 Henry Street, just off Montgomery Street where the Degruthe's Rope Walk once ran through. The New York Times in 1922 named Henry Street Settlement's founder Lillian Wald, one of the 12 greatest living American women. “Nursing was love,” Lillian said, and her life reflected the sentiment.

Lillian Wald was born March 10th, 1867, in Cincinnati, Ohio, but never felt like she had a hometown until her family moved to Rochester, New York, in 1878. Lillian was educated in Rochester at Miss Cruttenden’s English-French Boarding and Day School for Young Ladies and Little Girls. Because she was only 16, Vassar made the mistake of rejecting this amazing soul. Lillian became inspired about nursing after watching her sister Julia's baby in the cared of the attending nurse.

Lillian moved to NYC in 1889 to attend the nursing program at New York Hospital Training School. After graduating in 1891, she became a nurse at an orphanage called the New York Juvenile Asylum. In 1892, she enrolled at the Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary. Luckily for millions of New Yorkers, one of her college assignments was to design a community-based plan of care for poor immigrant families. In 1893, after she earned her nursing degree at the age of 22, Lillian and a friend and colleague named Mary Brewster founded the Visiting Nurse Service. Lillian started teaching a hygiene and home nursing class in the Lower East Side in 1893, where she coined the term “public health nurse” for those who worked in poor neighborhoods.

Lillian came from a wealthy Jewish family from Germany but never had any formal religious training. In the summer of 1895, she gave up her life of privilege, determined to live among the poor. She regarded the Lower East Side as a foreign city within NYC and regarded the world as a larger, more culturally diverse version of the Lower East Side. To be close to the community they assisted, Lillian and Mary moved into a fifth floor walk-up apartment at 27 Jefferson Street, just two blocks away from her future settlement location. By 1894, the pair had visited 125 tenement families, reinforcing Lillian's idea of neighborhood service. Mary Brewster fell into poor health and couldn't take being overworked, so she decided to leave Lillian's Visiting Nurse Service.

Lillian started to solicit Lower East Side German Jewish community leaders for financial aid, using the line “Have you ever seen a starving child cry?” Philanthropist Jacob Schiff recognized her mission of public health nursing and helped her start the Henry Street Settlement from the three converted federal style houses he owned since the spring of 1895. Lillian hired a staff of six nurses piad $15 a month, and they moved into one of Jacob Schiff's Lower East Side houses at 265 Henry Street. Lillian Wald always tried to charm the rich in an attempt to enlarge her programs to improve tenement dwellers’ living conditions.

Lillian's first project was to create one of NYC's first playgrounds in the small backyard. The first playground in NYC was opened in 1890 by the University Settlement. An 1895 NY State law decreed that no schoolhouse could be constructed in NYC without an attached or nearby open-air playground. Lillian helped start the Outdoor Recreation League, which pushed to organize public playgrounds and parks. The League raised money for Seward Park, which in 1903 became America's first permanent public municipal playground.

In 1902, the Henry Street Settlement added three more buildings to the fold, 299, 301 and 303 Henry Street, and one of them included a gymnasium. Henry Street Settlement offered English classes for new immigrants, vocational training, public lectures, a library and activities for children of all ages. The settlement also established various clubs and a savings bank, and help launched a NYC playground building boom.

Henry Street Settlement wasn’t designed for just the poor and families beset with problems; it was created to be a place everyone could attend. Visitors were not called clients, but simply neighbors. Providing quality services was not all the Henry Street Settlement wanted to accomplish; they sought to be involved in social change as well.

In 1909, Lillian offered the Henry Street Settlement to the National Negro Conference, which became the founding meeting for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The settlement also used its facilities for union meetings (after the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory fire), drafted Child Labor Laws, created the Mobilization for Youth, and helped develop public housing. Lillian Wald was an early feminist who became very active in the campaigning for women’s suffrage and fought for better conditions for pregnant workers. She was also very involved in antiwar activism. On August 29th, 1914, Lillian led between 1,200 and 1,500 women protesters down Fifth Avenue during a women’s peace parade to draw attention to their disgust with the 1st World War. This, combined with her endorsement of socialist candidates and association with radicals such as Emma Goldman, made her a target of the 1919 Red Scare campaign that labeled her an undesirable citizen.

In 1902, Henry Street Settlement influenced NYC's Board of Education to pay the salary of Lina L. Rogers, the first public school nurse. After that nudge, the Board of Education and NYC's Board of Health started their own program to pay for 12 school nurses (the first such service in the world). Lillian also lobbied for free lunches for all children in the public school system and helped push the Board of Education to create the first Department of Special Education. Henry Street Settlement had a staff of 11 full-time workers by 1898, nine of whom were nurses. By 1906, the Henry Street Settlement had a team of 27 nurses aiding the Lower East Side. By 1914, the Henry Street Settlement had 100 nurses onboard. By the year of her death in 1940, nearly 300 nurses worked out of 20 branches around NYC.

In 1908, Henry Street Settlement opened two summer camps, Camp Henry for boys and Echo Hill Farm for girls. The Lewisohn sisters build the Neighborhood Playhouse (now called Harry De Jur Playhouse) in 1915, still used for Henry Street Settlement art programs. The Henry Street Music School opened in 1927.

After Lillian Wald retired in 1930, she was succeeded by Helen Hall. In 1940, the settlement started the Homeplanning Workshop to help the community make and mend clothing and repair their broken appliances and furniture.

When Wald turned 70 in 1937, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia presented her with the key to the city and an honorary degree. Lillian also created the Federal Children's Bureau, working with President Theodore Roosevelt, and she was instrumental in creating the Women's Trade Union League, the National Organization for Public Health Nursing, and Columbia University's School of Nursing.

Lillian Wald suffered a stroke in 1933 and died at her Westport, Connecticut, home on September 1st, 1940. She was 73 and had remained unmarried. On her headstone is the Japanese insignia she designed while traveling abroad in 1910. It says “universal brotherhood” or “we are all one family.”

The three Henry Street buildings still standing are the original buildings started by Lillian Wald, and they are America's oldest existing settlement houses. In 1989, the three original Henry Street Settlement buildings were given National Historic Landmark status. The Carnegie Corporation made the Henry Street Settlement part of the 530 NYC arts and social service institutions that divided up a $30 million grant in 2007.

The first social settlement, Toynbee Hall, opened in the East End of London in 1884. Two years later in 1886, America’s first settlement house, the Neighborhood Guild or the University Settlement, was opened by Stanton Coit on the Lower East Side. America’s next settlement house was the Hull House in Chicago, which Ellen Gates and Jane Addams opened in 1889. By 1900, more than 100 settlement houses nationwide were helping the urban poor and tackling the forces of poverty.

Another Lower East Side visiting nurse was Margaret Sanger, whose work starting the world’s first family planning clinic got her arrested in 1916.

Peter Williams -The African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded by Peter Williams Senior, who was one of ten children born to George and Diana Williams. Peter's parents were slaves of James Aymar, a loyalist tobacconist who lived on Beekman Street. Aymar encouraged Peter (expert cigar maker) to attend services at Wesley Chapel, the first Methodist Episcopal Church. Sitting in the church's slave gallery, he became a devout Methodist and the first sexton of the Wesley Chapel. Peter met and married another slave who belong to Aymar, Mary (Molly) Durham, who later became famous as the first woman firefighter. Molly was originally from St. Kitts, in the West Indies. They were married at the Wesley Chapel.

James Aymar sold the Williams family to the John Street Methodist Church in 1783. The two slaves got their freedom after taking care of the John Street chapel for many years. A free Peter Williams made a fortune when he went into the tobacco business and saved for his dream of starting a Negro church. A son, Peter Williams Jr., attended the New York African Free School (destroyed by fire in December 1813) run by the Manumission Society, at 65 Cliff Street (NW corner of Fulton), before becoming the first rector of St. Philip's Church. In 1795, Peter Williams Sr. led many African Americans away from John Street Church because they weren’t treated with the same consideration and respect as white members.

James Varick, the first superintendent of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, led religious meetings for his people as early as 1780. Varick, Francis Jacobs, and the elder Peter Williams established the African Methodist Episcopal Church in October 1796. Bishop Asbury gave permission on August 1796 to start in a makeshift church what would become the Zion Church. The first location for Zion Church was at William Miller's cabinet maker's shop (a former stable) on Cross Street (once Park Street, currently Mosco Street) between Mulberry and Orange (now Baxter) Streets. That section of Cross Street is now part of Columbus Park.

NYC church members who were licensed preachers included June Scott, Abraham Thompson, Thomas Miller (treasurer), and William Miller. Other free black members included William Brown, Samuel Pointer, William Hamilton, George E Moore, David Bias, George White, George Collins, Thomas Cook, John Teesman, and Thomas Sipkins. Sipkins was eventually expelled for insubordination and started the Asbury Church on Elizabeth Street with William Miller.

On July 30, 1800, Peter Williams laid the cornerstone for the African Methodist Episcopal Church, at Leonard and Church Streets. By 1807, NYC prohibited burials in the church grounds so they used the Potter's Field located in the Parade Grounds in Washington Square Park, and then at Seneca Village between 85th and 86th Streets (until 1852). After 1852, when NYC became off limits to burials, the church used Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn.

In 1813, the second African Methodist Episcopal church was built on Elizabeth Street; it was named Asbury Church. In 1820, the word Zion was added to the church’s names. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church became organized as a national body in 1821. William Hamilton edited The Anglo-African, the first newspaper established in 1860 by the A. M. E. Zion Church.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church was first organized as the Zion Church (later referred to as Mother AME Zion Church). Peter Williams Sr. laid the cornerstone for the 1800 construction at the SW corner of Church and Leonard Streets. The first Zion Church was 35 ft. wide and 45 ft. deep, and in 1820 when they purchased the lot next door, it was rebuilt to 75-by-75 ft. The church burned down in 1839, rebuilt the following year, but later moved to Bleecker Street on the corner of 10th Street. Zion Church served as a stop on the Underground Railroad and became known as the cradle of freedom or the Freedom Church.

In 1813, a branch of the Zion Church formed the Asbury Church on Elizabeth Street near Pump Street (now Canal Street) between Walker and Hester Streets. In 1820, the Asbury Church formed a better union with the Zion Church and they were rejoined on Church and Leonard (after the Zion Church was rebuilt in 1840). In 1822, the Zion Church separated again forming the Asbury Church. The Elizabeth Street church burned in 1823.

Tobacco merchant Benjamin Aymar owned two married slaves Peter and Molly Williams, who won their freedom after taking care of the John Street Methodist Church for many years. Peter was an expert cigar maker who became John Street Methodist Church's first sexton. A free Peter Williams made a fortune when he went into the tobacco business, using his money and time to form NYC's first Negro Methodist Church in 1796. The site for the Mother African Methodist Episcopal Church had been a stable, and on July 30th, 1800, Peter Williams laid the cornerstone for the church at the SW corner of Leonard and Church Streets. Zion was added to the church name after 1820. A larger Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1820, but burnt down in 1839, and rebuilt again the following year as a brick building. The African Methodist Episcopal Church moved to Bleecker Street, on the corner of Tenth Street, in 1864.

Frank Mosco - Bandits Roost sat on the bend at 59 1/2 Mulberry Street between Bayard, Cross (now called Mosco), Mulberry and Orange (now called Baxter) Streets. The whole west side of Mulberry between Anthony (Worth) and Bayard was torn down in 1896.

Mosco was named in 1982 after neighborhood leader Frank Mosco. Only one block remains of Cross Street (now Mosco, also called Park before 1982), but it used to run through Columbus Park and crossed Anthony (now Worth) to the middle of the Courthouse, where it turned south towards City Hall Park.

In 1850, Worth Street was named after the mason General William Jenkins Worth, who fought in the Florida Seminole War, the War of 1812, and the Mexican-American War. Also the namesake of Fort Worth, Texas, Worth raised the flag over Mexico City himself when it fell to the American forces, adding California, Arizona and New Mexico to the U.S. Worth died in 1849 and was temporarily buried at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn until a fitting monument was erected close to Madison Square Park at the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, just north of 24th Street. Worth was buried there on November 25th, 1857. Besides Grants Tomb in Riverside Park, the Worth Monument is the only grave of the military kind in NYC.

Bandits Roost inspired a D.W. Griffith's two-reel film made in 1912, “The Musketeers of Pig Alley.” This Griffith two-reeler is considered the very first gangster film. Martin Scorsese's “Gangs of New York” also recreated Bandits Alley as a visual reference to the famous Jacob Riis photo used on some versions of the same-named Herbert Asbury book.

Henry Petty -The stomping grounds of the Whyó Gang, Bottle Alley was a courtyard east of where Baxter Street still bends, between two old tenements numbered 47 and 49. On the eastern end of Bottle Alley was the notorious Mulberry Bend. Between the 1840s and 1880s, murderers, thieves and alcoholics haunted Bottle Alley. Police were afraid to tread in this dark alley where immigrants from Sligo (the northwestern coast of Ireland) were concentrated. According to the marriage register from the Church of Transfiguration, more Irish residents in Five Points were born in the tiny county of Sligo than any other part of Ireland (Cork and Kerry counties followed close behind).

The potato blight (which started in 1845) was most severe in the western part of Ireland so the highest numbers of immigrants came from there. About three-quarters of NYC's Irish Catholics were from western Ireland, about 44% from Sligo, Cork and Kerry alone. This high concentration from these western Irish counties was also because three workhouse landlords there (Sligo's Robert Gore Booth, Lord Palmerston, and Kerry's Third Marquis of Lansdowne) paid for the ocean passage of 6,500 rather than try to feed them. The Marquis of Lansdowne estate alone was home to 13,000 poverty-stricken farmers and laborers. The trip was in December 1850, and unfortunately these poor and wretched were not dressed for a winter voyage.

Henry Petty, the third marquis of Lansdowne, was an English nobleman who financed a massive Irish emigration program. He took 3,500 starving paupers out of the poorhouses in Ireland, and by 1851, had spent Ł9,500 (slightly more than $1 million today) on emigration. That was cheaper than supporting them in the Lansdowne estate Kenmare workhouse/poorhouse for a single year. Two-hundred people a week made the 60-mile journey to Cork, where they caught the ship to America (mainly NYC) and Quebec. There was some indignation because Lansdowne sent entire families; so instead of vigorous young men, half the Irish immigrants were women and many were gray-haired and aged. In 1855, out of 14,000 residents of Five Points, two-thirds of them were Irish. The dominant Irish subgroups were from Sligo, Cork, and Kerry. 84% of the Irish from Kerry, lived on Orange Street (Baxter) from Anthony (Worth) to Leonard and Anthony Street from Centre to Orange. Seventy-nine percent of these Kerry natives were emigrates from the Lansdowne estate.

Sligo immigrants lived in the northern section of Five Points since 1810, way before the Great Famine. These Irish immigrants were the first to send money for food and passage to starving Sligo relatives and friends who moved in close to their countrymen in Five Points, in many cases right into their homes. Most Irish residents withdrew their money from the Emigrant Savings Bank, founded around 1852 by and for Irish emigrants.

The Bend district was between Broadway and the Bowery, south of Canal, and northwest of Chatham Street (now Park Row). This small overcrowded neighborhood once had 4,376 apartments. The main block of the Bend was between Bayard, Mulberry, Baxter and Park Street (now Mosco). Another Irish-inhabited location around the maze of narrow Mulberry Bend passageways was called Maloney's Allley. Close by was a ramshackle Mulberry Street tenement that was aptly named the House of Blazes because of the fire hazard risk due to illegal overcrowding.

A.H. Purdy -Windmill Hill was the site of the old Chatham Theatre located a few blocks south of the Bowery’s starting point, on the east side of Chatham Street between James Street and the old Roosevelt Street. (Chatham Street is now Park Row, which runs east of the original Chatham Street.) The Chatham Theatre opened September 11th, 1839, with noted actors performing dramatic and comedic plays, but closed in January 1840. In 1844, the theatre was featuring blackface minstrel shows, and by 1847 it was a circus before becoming a low-class playhouse. For two years the venue was known as Chanfrau's National Theatre starting on February 28th, 1848, and became the famous Purdy's National Theatre, opening April 19th, 1852.

On August 23rd, 1852, America’s first non-comedic version of Uncle Tom's Cabin opened at Purdy's National Theatre and ran for 11 nights. A more successful version of Uncle Tom's Cabin ran between July 18th, 1853, and April 19th, 1854. A special section with a separate entrance for African Americans was created at Purdy's on August 15th and enlarged on October 29th. Purdy spent too much on advertising and gifts for the star, Cordelia Howard, so he ended up losing money. During Purdy's sixth season he erected a statue of George Washington on top of the old Chatham Theatre.

The Chatham Theatre was managed by A.H. Purdy until the Panic of 1857. After a fire, it reopened as the Chatham Amphitheatre on November 14th, 1859, to feature circuses, and became the National Concert Saloon on March 8th, 1860. By July 3rd, 1860, the old Chatham Theatre switched to a playhouse for melodrama called the National Theatre. It switched back to a concert saloon, then became home to a German troupe. The last restoration of the old Chatham Theatre, as the National Music Hall, opened to the public November 16th, 1861. Most of it was torn down in October 1862 and remaining structures became shops.

John Fitch - A country retreat for picnics, fishing, swimming, boating and ice skating for NYC's earliest settlers, the Collect Pond evolved into a polluted garbage dump that also ended up as NYC's most notorious slum, Five Points. The name Collect Pond derived from the Dutch “Kolch” (pronounced colicked), which means small body of water. Deep mica schist bedrock trapped the tidal waters that created Collect Pond. The northern heights of NYC have bedrock at almost ground level, while at Washington Square Park this bedrock dropped a hundred feet. On the south side of Chambers Street, the bedrock rises again to about a hundred feet under the ground and rises to the top again by the end of Manhattan. Before lower hilly NYC was leveled, glacial boulders once covered the many gravel drift hills around what was to become the Collect Pond.

In 1613, explorer Adriaen Block got shipwrecked in NYC, and his boat supposedly caught fire as it sat right off a bay by the Hudson River, either near the future World Trade Center site or Battery Park. Most historians insist that the Tiger burned just the area of the Trade Towers, and that Block’s shipmates built huts by 39-41 Broadway, but I disagree. A bigger and more navigable bay where he probably docked the boat that caught fire was off the quieter East River by a stream that flowed from the Collect Pond. This old boat could be the source of the water’s name, the Old Wreck Brook. A large bay off the East River, between Dover and James Streets, it existed before NYC widened its coast with landfill. Reports had Block's boat catching fire when it was anchored in a large bay. This bay by the eastern outlet of the Collect Pond was the largest downtown bay, and close to the Collect Fresh Water pond, which would have been the perfect place to survive. Block stayed the winter in NYC in 1613 and 1614, but he wasn’t the first non-native to live in NYC. In 1612, a black Hispanic merchant (written out of history books) named Juan (Jan) Rodriguese (or Jan Rodriguez) was the first new New Yorker. Born in Santo Domingo, he stayed with the Indians for a year without the support of a ship in the harbor. Sadly, NYC has no plaque, statue or any real recognition of Jan Rodriguez. My insight blames NYC's racist attitude for this oversight of New York City's first real immigrant citizen.

After 1664, a free black community was allowed to settle around the Collect Pond as a northern buffer between downtown settlers and American Indians to the north. Once the town’s slaughterhouses set up shop at this freshwater source, the Collect Ponds started its downward turn. The town’s slaughterhouses moved to the Collect Ponds’ eastern shore next to a tannery associated with the Bayard family, and the combination of these two industries began the pollution of the fresh waters. Joining in were George and Jacob Shaw Tanners in 1785, whose operations were just east of the Collect Pond, off Magazine Street (Pearl Street). Other polluters followed: a gunpowder factory, potters, glue factory, turpentine distillery, brewery (Coulter's), and even a rope walk. The African American cemetery soon crossed the southern perimeter of the Little Collect Pond (south of the Collect Pond, separated by an island).

Before it was filled in, the Collect Pond was the site for a test run of the world’s first working steamboat. And it was built by John Fitch, not Robert Fulton. Fitch was the original inventor of the screw propeller and its combination with paddle wheels for propelling steamboats. Between 1785 and 1796, Fitch built four different steamboats designed to carry both passengers and freight. In 1785, he ran an experimental steamboat in Philadelphia. The model boat ran from Market Street up the Schuylkill river at 7 or 8 miles per hour) to Gray's Ferry (Robert Fulton and R.R. Livingston were on board). In 1787, he sketched in pencil and ink an amazing jet-powered steamboat. On August 22, 1787, his 45-foot steamboat took its trial run on the Delaware River, a larger ship soon carried passengers with freight.

Fitch, who was born January 21st, 1743, in Windsor, Connecticut and raised by his poor dad (his mother died when he was only four years old), successfully received a patent for the application of steam to navigation in 1788; Fulton (a thief?) got his patent 17 years later. By the summer of 1790, Fitch ran a successful passenger line between Philadelphia and Trenton with his steamboat. In 1793 and again in 1796, Fitch tested his steamboat on the Collect Pond using a 12-gallon pot as the boiler. In 1798, Fitch came back again to the Collect Pond to show off his steamed transportation invention. In the Spring of 1798, Fitch went to Bardstown, Kentucky, to build a 3-foot model steamboat and test it on a local stream. Concentrating on Fulton, history forgot about manic-depressive Fitch, who committed suicide in a tavern by poisoning himself with opium pills on July 2nd,1798. Fitch died penniless and was buried in Bardstown in an unmarked grave under a footpath in the central square. The Daughters of the American Revolution in 1910, placed a veteran of the American Revolutionary War marker over the spot.

Pierre L'Enfant, who designed the second City Hall, conceived a plan to turn Collect Pond into a park, which would have cleaned it and created a forested barrier to the country hamlet of Greenwich (Village). If L'Enfant’s plan had happened, NYC might have been spared from the mosquitoes that eventually brought yellow fever. The town’s polluting but powerful industries killed the park idea to preserve their profits. Factoid: In 1791, Pierre L'Enfant started to design Washington D.C, but he was fired by George Washington (who only paid him $3800), replaced by Andrew Ellicott, and died broke (with about $46 worth of possessions) on June 14, 1825. Washington's only paved square, L’Enfant Plaza (also a Metro subway stop) was named after Pierre L'Enfant, the true creator of Washington D.C (before Andrew Ellicott's 1792 revision).

In 1802, NYC started to backfill the polluted pond with construction debris and more of the town’s garbage. This pigheaded idea merely flooded the marshy neighborhood worse than before. Dampness was equated with death and disease, and as yellow fever spread, this excess water became a kind of killing machine. In 1807, a plan to drain the pond was drafted, using an open 40-foot wide ditch to force the polluted water downhill into the Hudson. A few years after the depression of 1808, the Collect Pond was drained as a public works project in 1811. This smelly ditch on what would become Canal Street remained empty for 20 years after the pond was drained. In 1821, the canal was finally converted into an underground sewer and covered.

Bayards Mount -- the British called it Bunker Hill -- was leveled just as all the other hills surrounding the Collect Pond and helped fill in the Collect Pond and the swamps at Lispenard's Meadows. Broadway at Anthony Street (now Worth) was reduced about 25 feet to today’s level. Collect Pond was all gone by 1813, but was still a bog when the middle class started moving into the sinking and stinking neighborhood built as Paradise Square. They quickly moved out, and the poor inherited this landfill that soon became Five Points, “where,” according to Charles Dickens, "poverty, crime and destitution were a way of life." Freed slaves first took over the abandoned Paradise Square, and then in the 1830s it became a red light district. When the potato famine of 1845 sent Irish and Germans to NYC seeking cheap accommodations, it made Five Points and the bloody Sixth Ward the most densely populated neighborhood in NYC.

Just south of Paradise Square was the five-story Old Brewery (opened in 1837), formerly the Coulters Brewery. The Coulters Brewery was built in 1792 and brewed beer by the shores of the Collect Pond until the 1830s. It was replaced by a giant boardinghouse full of the poorest and most desperate characters in NYC. Collect Street became Rynders Street and today it’s Centre Street.

The rotting tenant homes were replaced by brick buildings that were the first so-called tenements. Entertainment for the residents ranged from minstrel shows to bare-knuckle prize fights, cockfights, dog fights, and rat vs terrier fights at the “rat pits,” popular at the Sportsmen's Hall by the waterfront. For the tamer entertainment in Five Points, some of the various immigrant settlers combined the Irish jig with the black shuffle to create tap dancing. Dickens Place was opened up by black saloonkeeper Pete Williams and became the most famous dance hall in Five Points.

The red light influence made the Five Points neighborhood notorious early on, and when the buildings started to tilt into the poorly filled land, it decrepit image was sealed. Five Points was at its worst between 1830 and 1840. In the 1850s Protestant groups started to clean up the slum, and by the 1860s, it was mostly calm. The Italian and Chinese succeeded the Irish in the 1870s-‘80s. Mulberry Bend was torn down in 1897 and replaced by Five Points Park, which is still standing as Columbus Park.

Since 1911, when NYC wanted to erase bad memories of Five Points, the land between the Baxter and Mulberry bends has been called Columbus Park. When the tenements on the site were demolished in 1897, it was first named Five Points Park, and also referred to as Mulberry Bend Park and Paradise Park.

Adrian Block - NYC's first Kissing Bridge crossed the Old Wreck Brook (also called Tamkill Creek, Ould Kill and Versch Water) just south of the old Roosevelt Street (east of Baxter). This old bridge was used to get from Park Row to the Bowery. The brook had the freshest water and was tapped at the Tea Water Pump on Park Row and Baxter. The Kissing Bridge was an early NYC bridge crossing the high area on Park Row between Collect Pond and Beekman's swamp. It was the first NYC bridge to be called the Kissing Bridge, the second was the Stone Broadway bridge over Canal Street (also called the Stone bridge), and the third, at 77th Street and 3rd Avenue, became NYC's most famous Kissing Bridge.

The old brook that led up Roosevelt Street to the old Collect Pond still discharges in spurts into the East River during part of the day. The old NYC shoreline came up to Cherry Street, and the largest cove in lower NYC was close to NYC's first kissing bridge.

The name Old Wreck Brook could have originated with Adrian Block’s boat, the Tiger, after it caught fire at night while docked in a cove off lower Manhattan. This supposedly happened right off the Hudson River coast next to what much later became the World Trade Center site, but I believe his boat caught fire off the East River by the Collect Pond stream, its burned-out wreck of a hull remaining to suggest the name. He could have camped for the winter at the old ruins of Norumbega with access to plenty of fresh water from the Collect Pond and fish, foot-long oysters, clams, and lobsters galore.

The area around Collect Pond was so low that during spring floods, Indians could paddle across NYC from the Hudson River through the stream where Canal Street is now to the the Pond.

Tamkill Creek flowed under the kissing bridge that flowed from the Collect Pond by Park Row and Roosevelt Street.

Charles Finney - One of the main antislavery churches in NYC, Broadway Tabernacle sported one of the largest halls in NYC. Designed by Charles Finney, Broadway Tabernacle was built in 1836 at 340 Broadway between Worth and Catherine Lane on the east side of the street. Some 2,400 worshippers would listen to Presbyterian evangelist Rev. Charles Grandison Finney's revival style oratory espousing antislavery views. Pro-slavery mobs burned down the Broadway Tabernacle while it was under construction, and the church severed ties with the Presbyterians. The church became a Protestant Congregational church and was renamed the Broadway United Church of Christ. The church became a well known abolitionist and suffrage haven in NYC, and had many rallies to promote the vote for women and ban alcohol. The church’s newspaper, The Independent, was known for its antislavery stance but also published Emily Dickinson's early poems. The Broadway Tabernacle was used for various purposes, including the first test of the anesthetic purposes of nitrous oxide. The Broadway Tabernacle was sold to the Erie Railroad in 1857.

James Bogardus - The tallest structure in NYC was the McCullough Shot Tower, once referred to as the Old Shot Tower in the Swamp. It was located at 63-65 Centre Street between Pearl and Worth Streets. This former downtown landmark was an octagonal, 8- or 11-story 217-ft. high tower that was built in 1855 in only three months by James Bogardus. Bogardus used nonstructural brick wall panels to build the McCullough Shot Tower. These panels were supported by an inner iron framework that acted like a skeleton. Molten lead was dropped through the tower sieve, and as it fell it became round and hardened when the little balls falls into the cold water below. These balls were perfect as ammunition for every weapon from rifles to cannons.

After the Civil War, the Colwell Iron Works purchased the old tower. Lewis Colwell with his staff of 33 men could produce 15 tons of shot a day, and created shot until the turn of the century. After the shot business died out, Colwell Iron Works stayed in business making plumbing supplies until 1915.

James Bogardus erected cast-iron buildings (including the elaborate Harper and Brothers building in Franklin Square), shot towers and fire towers (like the one that he created that still stands in Mount Morris Park in Harlem). The location of Bogardus cast iron factory was by the Collect Pond at Centre and Leonard Street. Bogardus's McCullough (1855) and Tatham Brothers (1856) were shot towers built with masonry walls around freestanding iron frame skeletons, prophetic of Manhattan’s famous skyscrapers to come.

The site of the old company farmhouse was the location of the 1836 Astor House Hotel, (demolished in 1926). Opened in June 1836 as the Park Hotel, this Greek Revival-styled hotel had 309 rooms in six stories. Its central courtyard was covered by an iron and glass rotunda created by James Bogardus. The fashionable crowd who lived high on the hog in the country finally had a ritzy place to stay in NYC. The Astor House Hotel was designed by Isaiah Rogers, America's foremost hotel architect who was also the architect the Tremont House in Boston, the first hotel with indoor plumbing. The cost of living rose 66 percent in 1836 due to inflation.

The Astor House Hotel's south section and central courtyard was taken down in 1913 to make way for subway construction, and the rest of the hotel met the same fate in 1926.

NYC's first building with a full self-supporting cast-iron front was the Bogardus Building at 262 Washington Street by Warren Street. Built in 1848 by James Bogardus, it became the prototype of many of cast-iron buildings that sprang up in the 1850s in the Soho neighborhood. The building was home to one of the Laing stores before it was knocked down in 1971. Most of the cast-iron panels were stolen, but some were stored in the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s warehouse.

Sir Henry Moore - New York Hospital, the second oldest hospital in America, opened 40 years after Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia was founded in 1751. Manhattan in 1769 had about 20,000 residents, but no hospital. The governor of the colony, Sir Henry Moore, spearheaded a fund to create a general hospital. Sir Henry got the idea after listening to Dr. Samuel Bard speak at a Kings College graduation, which included the first of medical degree recipients. Sir Henry died September 11th, 1769, and never seeing the start of the hospital project he conceived.

NYC offered three-quarters of an acre near the Municipal Building for the site of the proposed hospital, but that space was too small. Trinity offered a two-acre plot by Hudson and Canal Street with a 99-year lease, but the Hospital Association planned several buildings and still needed more room than that. The Hospital Association wanted the five acres west of Broadway where Pearl/Magazine Street once ended.

It was not until 1770 that the Hospital Association bought the old site of the Ranelagh Gardens. The New York Hospital was incorporated on June 13th, 1771. Construction started September 3rd, 1773, with Governor Tryon laid the cornerstone. The two-story hospital was built about 90 feet west of Broadway to leave room for other wings and a nice lawn in front. The H-shaped hospital was expanded to three stories after a few years. New buildings were then added on the north and south sides of the first small building. These buildings were using gas illumination in 1838 and steam heat by 1844.

An accidental fire in 1775 destroyed most of the hospital, but it was re-built enough so the British and Hessian troops could use it as barracks during their occupation of NYC in the Revolutionary War. The New York Hospital was the scene of America’s first riot after New York's citizens found out British doctors were guilty of grave-robbing. The doctors usually violated the fresh graves of NYC's poor so the bodies of slaves and the homeless were used for study most often. The riot started April 13th, 1788, and a mob of 5,000 angry citizens kept it going through April 15th, 1788. On the first day of the doctors’ riot, the anatomy lab was destroyed and the mobs headed to the home of Sir John Temple, M.D. On the second day of the riot, the militia killed seven demonstrators and injured a dozen others while protecting medical students hiding out for their lives at the jail in City Hall Park. The New York Legislature ended up passing a law allowing dissection of the bodies of murderers, burglars and arsonists; thus, the doctors’ riot was mostly in vain.

The completed New York Hospital opened on January 3rd, 1791, and in 1796, a medical library was founded there. The state legislature enacted the provision of $12,500 a year for 50 years for the hospital on March 14th, 1806. A lunatic department was organized with these funds in 1806, and the New York Hospital Lunatic Asylum opened two years later (before moving uptown in 1821) to become the Bloomingdale Asylum.

A new main building was constructed between 1853 and 1855 at a cost of $140,100. The old building was used for sudden injuries from accidents and non-contagious diseases. By 1858, 500 beds were in use in the several hospital buildings that had been constructed between Broadway and Church Street from Duane to Worth Streets. During the Civil War, over 3,000 soldiers were treated at the different hospital buildings off Broadway. The New York Hospital stayed in use until it was demolished in 1870, when it was moved uptown, just west of Fifth Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets.

139 Duane Street became the third location of the New York Eye Infirmary after they leased a building from New York Hospital in 1824-1826.

Jean Allefonsce - There was a Norumbega, the mythical Viking city of silver (NYC mica?), in Maine, according to most historians who believe that the Vikings made it only as far south as New England. In 1524, Giovanni Verrazano reported the location of a province called Norumbega along the East Coast of North America. Jean Allefonsce visited the French fort of Norumbega in 1542 and spoke of a city of silver along a great river where Europeans and natives trade goods for furs. Most history books believe Norumbega was off the Penobscot River (because on Champlain’s map of 1612, the Penobscot River is called Naranberga). Norumbega was most likely off the Hudson. The French fur traders village, blockhouse, and fort of Norumbega was said to be situated between two fresh water ponds, so this pinpoints the Collect Pond as its most likely NYC location. Arthur James Weise of Troy has made a great point about the word Norumbega emerged from a corruption of Anormee Berge (Palisades), which also puts Norumbega near the Hudson River.

The Viking City of Silver and French fort of Norumbega could have been using the hills around the thousand-year-old Indian Village of the Werpoes. In the Canarsie tongue, Werpoes meant small hill, and hares in the Algonquin language. Enormous piles of oyster shells were left at the western shore of the Collect Pond, so the neighborhood was called Shell Point Hill by the Dutch. A castle or fort called Catiemuts also existed in the Shell Point vicinity just south of where Chatham Square sits today. The south side of Chatham Square was once a much taller hill that had a castle-like structure on top called Indian Lookout.

The Norse colony of the Vikings vanished from NYC, but the Indians seemed to remember the name for two more centuries, using it to refer to the white man. The Latin form of Norway is Norvega, and the Indians’ pronunciation became Norumbega. Some old Norse words had even become part of the Algonquin language in 1626 when Norse frontiersman Cornelius Sand negotiated the Dutch purchase of Manhattan (years before Peter Minuit).

The name Norumbega first appears with Verrazano’s voyage of 1524, and for 40 years thereafter it was closely associated with the vicinity of the Hudson. On some old maps the name appears as Norumberg and Anorumberga. In 1540, French fur traders had situated a village and blockhouse on a small island on a fresh water lake, which was probably the Collect Pond. A 1569 map by Flemish geographer Gerard Kramer (Latinized name is Mercator) calls the Hudson, Riviere Grande, and has New York Bay at its foot. East of this river and at the head of New York Bay is a tiny picture of a village with a fort, and this village is labelled Norom.

Allefonsce tasted salt in the water at a distance of 90 miles from the sea, so he wrote "the river of Norumbega is salt for more than 90 miles from its mouth," which is certainly true of the Hudson. Fishermen tales often called the Penobscot River Norumbega, but no traces of Allefonsce’s splendid Indian village city were ever found by the Penobscot River.

What we know as the Palisades, the majestic line of cliffs along the Hudson, the French called Grand Scarp (Anormée Berge). Norumbega may be simply a Low Latin corruption of Anormée Berge. The French may have also inhabited the old fortress in the 1540s. Maugis Vumenot’s book, "The Adventurous Voyages of Captain Jean Allefonsce," about Allefonsce's summer 1542 quest of a western passage directed not northward but southward, which also demostrates that Norumbega was in NYC.

Jack London - City Hall Park Almshouse was built by the Common Council in 1734-35 on the site where the current City Hall stands. This first almshouse was a two-story brick building used by all types of indigent citizens, including vagabonds, rogues, paupers, disorderly persons, parents of bastard children, tramps, trespassers, runaway servants and beggars. The Almshouse had a cemetery to its east (uncovered in 1999) just beyond the workhouse’s fence. City Hall Park was one of NYC's early areas of prostitution; so was the area around Trinity and St. Paul's Churches.

In 1796, a second Almshouse was built to replace the older Almshouse that was torn down just to its south. This second Almshouse was built off the south side of Chambers Street in six connected, three-story buildings (that were destroyed by fire in 1857 and where the Tweed County Court House is today. In 1812, Almshouse's six-bed infirmary and other functions moved uptown to what would become Bellevue (then called the Public Work House and Home of Correction) at 26th Street and 1st Avenue.

A homeless Jack London slept on the benches of City Hall Park in the 1890s before writing The Call of the Wild. London liked being close to Newspaper Row, where he could buy defective bound books for a few cents from pushcart men. He spent his days reading and nights performing and writing while living as a hobo in the park. Jack London committed suicide at the age of 40.

In 1817, a city soup kitchen and dispensary were constructed on the SW corner of Centre and Chambers Streets, and by 1835 the dispensary was shared with a hook and ladder fire company. The Fire Department kept control of that City Hall Park corner with a series of firehouses until 1906.

Adolph A. Weinman -On the top of the Municipal Building (one of the largest government office buildings in the world) is Adolph A. Weinman's giant 25-foot statue, “Civic Fame.” The statue is holding a five-point crown representing and celebrating NYC's five boroughs. It is NYC's second largest statue after the Statue of Liberty. Built in 1914, the Municipal Building is engraved with the words Civic Duty, Civic Pride, Executive Power, Guidance, Progress and Prudence just above the ground floor colonnade. Chambers Street once passed through the classical colonnade, which also framed the entrance to the lower east side slums. A German-born sculptor, Adolph A. Weinman also designed the Liberty Dime and the half dollar.

Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank Building - The old Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank Building at 49-51 Chambers Street was built between 1908 and 1912. After 1965, 49-51 Chambers Street was filled with city offices and is now a NYC Landmark. This Beaux-Arts/Art Nouveau limestone building was the first H plan skyscraper, giving light and air to most of its offices. Several stained glass skylights shine down on the banking hall with its marble walls and floors. The architect of the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, Raymond F Almirall built the bank to serve NYC's working class immigrants, and it was used mostly by Irish Catholics who transferred funds from their main office in Dublin. By 1925, the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank had assets of over $290 million and became the largest savings bank in America. The Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank moved in 1932, east of Fifth Avenue on 42nd Street. The Good Shepherd with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie was filmed in this double towered old bank on Chambers Street.

Palmo Opera House - On the former site of the First Reformed Presbyterian Church (1800-1834), and the public baths called Stoppani's Arcade Baths, was the Palmo Opera House. This intimate three-story opera house with a wrought-iron balcony was located at 39-41 Chambers Street (opposite the Tweed Court House) from 1844 to 1876, but only until 1846 as the opera house opened by Ferdinand Palmo, the rich owner of the Cafe des Mille Colonnes, on Broadway between Hospital and Duane Streets. That corner starting in 1828 was the first place that sold roasted chestnuts. Also close by in a Broadway store window, the first sewing machine was exhibited and demonstrated. The Cafe des Mille Colonnes opened on July 9th, 1842 by a Frenchman named Pinteaux. Palmo also made money earlier from a restaurant on the corner of Broadway and Reade Street, called Palmo's Garen, selling ices and booze.

The first performance was I Puritani on Saturday evening, February 3rd, 1844. The day before a public rehearsal was performed for the press, politicians, policemen and musical people. On March 3rd, 1847, Palmo featured the first performance of an opera by Verdi in America, I Lombardi.

After two years of operation, the theatre with a horseshoe-shaped auditorium was deemed too small for opera. Ferdinand Palmo lost everything and became a cook and bartender until he died on September 5th, 1869.

In April 1846, Edwin Pearce Christy started performing his minstrel skills with his band of six singers at the Opera House. Christy's Minstrels then moved to Mechanics Hall between February 15th, 1847, and July 15th, 1854. The Christy's Minstrels bought the Steven Foster song “Old Folks at Home” for their exclusive use and specialized in performing Foster's works. Edwin Pearce Christy retired as a performer in 1855, but worked as a manager and licensed the name to a group that performed as blackface minstrels. He committed suicide in NYC on May 21st, 1862.

On July 10th, 1848, this old opera house turned into a variety house became one of NYC's favorite playhouses for the next four years when Wallack's Theatre took over. Burton's Chambers Street Theatre featured musicals, comedies and artist model shows that exhibited almost nude actors and actresses. In 1856 or 1860, William E. Burton (1804-1860) left Chambers Street between Broadway and Centre Street and moved his theatre to the Metropolitan on Broadway. Before being demolished in 1876, the old opera house became a minstrel hall and then lastly a federal courthouse.

Rev. John Maginnis -The old Universalist Society Church built in 1818 was called Carroll Hall, and the Catholics bought it $5,400 in 1841. In 1861, it was remodeled and named St. Andrew's Church. Located at 20 Cardinal Hayes Place, St. Andrew's Church was the first parish church to have a businessman's noon mass and a 2:30 a.m. mass for local printers (and other late shift newspapermen). The first pastor to organize St. Andrew's Church, Father Byrne, was succeeded by Rev. John Maginnis, who led St. Andrew's Church services until 1850. It is said, that the church sits on a site where George Washington once lived.

Alexander Turney Stewart -The first Ladies' Mile started in the early 19th century across from City Hall Park on the west side of Broadway. The retail brain behind the area was Lisburn, Ireland-born Alexander Turney Stewart, raised by a grandfather and emigrated from Belfast, Ireland, in 1818. When he got to NYC, he was about 15 years old. Giving up thoughts of becoming a minister, he first earned money by teaching at Isaac N. Bragg's Academy on Roosevelt Street. Stewart returned to Ireland and, using the money he inherited from his grandfather, he bought Belfast-made linens and laces and returned to NYC, using the merchandise to launch his retail career on September 1st, 1823. He paid $375 a month to rent a small store at 283 Broadway (right across from where he would later open his Marble Palace).

After opening his store, Stewart married Cornelia Mitchell Clinch on October 16th, 1823. They moved into the back of his 12˝-by-30-foot store. Between 1828 and 1837, Stewart moved to bigger and bigger west side stores, selling Irish fabrics and domestic calicos (plain woven textiles). Competing with the dry goods stores (mostly at Pearl Street), A.T. Stewart had the best prices and would never cheat his customers, whom he befriended.

Between 1846 and 1848, A.T. Stewart built and opened his lavish Italian palazzo-styled Marble Palace at 280 Broadway on the NE corner of Chambers Street. The Italianate Tuckahoe marble-faced building was supported on cast-iron Corinthian columns, making it the first American store to feature such an extravagant exterior. This store also sold dry goods (re-termed department stores in the 1890s) and imported European women's clothing. The ladies came from miles and miles. The Marble Palace was the first giant store to let patrons browse on their own instead of shopping with sales clerks. It was also the first department store to use full-length mirrors so shoppers could view themselves from various angles. After 1856, A.T. Stewart added furs, which he advertised as the best and most natural skins.

This landmark building was designed in palazzo style by John B. Snook and Joseph Trench. A.T. Stewart's Marble Palace was the first commercial Italianate building. High ceilings and natural light from its central rotunda gave a refined look to its merchandise. Fearing that the new street traffic nuisance (Broadway rail cars) would prevent his high class customers’ carriages from getting to his Marble Palace store, the Merchant Prince Alexander T. Stewart used his power to halt mass transit’s progress.

After he energized Broadway Ladies Mile north of Chambers Street with his Marble Palace, Stewart expanded further uptown and built a huge six-story cast-iron emporium, which became the beginning of the second Ladies Mile on Broadway. A.T. Stewart's largest Broadway store yet, this “Iron Palace” opened in 1869 with 19 departments. Just south of Grace Church, stretching between 9th and 10th Streets and spanning to 4th Avenue, this immense store employed 320 clerks and 200 cash boys. Soon it would total almost 2,000 employees, and by 1877, the Iron Palace expanded into 30 separate departments, demonstrating the awareness to detail that made A.T. Stewart stand out from his competitors.

And before Montgomery Ward, Sears and Spiegels became famous for their mail order business, A.T. Stewart had 20 people on his payroll in 1876 to handle the orders that came pouring in from around America.

This second Ladies Mile went northward to 24th Street where McCreery's Department Store (1883) and Stern's (1878) were located. It also featured B Altman and Company, Lord and Taylor, and Macy's. A.T. Stewart kept his old Marble Palace on Chambers Street around for awhile to use as a warehouse. He also owned several factories and mills and was making $1 million a year by 1869.

The top two floors of the Marble Palace on Chambers Street were added after Stewart's warehouse closed. When Stewart first built the structure, it topped the ground floor with four floors of pedimented windows above. In 1917, The Sun newspaper left Newspaper Row, moved across City Hall Park and into the Marble Palace building on Chambers Street. Benjamin H. Day began publishing The Sun on September 3rd, 1833, filling the newspaper with human interest articles. The Sun's original clock can still be seen on the old Marble Palace with its logo "The Sun Shines for All." The Marble Palace became a NYC landmark in 1966 after almost a half a decade known among New Yorkers as the Sun Building.

A.T. Stewart soon owned almost all of Bleecker Street, the Globe Theatre, and the Metropolitan Hotel, and had a huge Fifth Avenue mansion. He also built affordable housing for his employees at Hempstead Plains, Long Island, in a town he called Garden City. With all his holdings, A.T. Stewart was the richest man in NYC thanks to the retail trade and not real estate. When A.T. Stewart died in NYC on April 10th, 1876, he was worth about $40 million, making him NYC's third richest man behind Astor and Vanderbilt. He was buried at St. Marks Church.

But Stewart’s interesting history didn’t stop there. After 30 months of internment, his body was dug up from St. Marks Church on November 7th, 1878. Stewart Vault No. 112 was a few feet off the triangle by Second Avenue and East 10th Street, between the east church wall and Second Avenue. Closer to the east wall of the church was Peter Stuyvesant's vault No. 171. Beside A.T. Stewart were the vaults of Thomas Bibby and Benjamin Winthrop; in front and back were George Wotherspoon, James Cockroft, James McCall, John A. Graff and Edwin Townsend.

The 12-by-15-by-10-ft. vaults with only 3 feet of earth covering the 4˝-by3˝-foot hole in the roof covered by three slabs. The middle slab fits into the grooved edges of the two side slabs, so the middle slab had to be removed before the side slabs. Once opened and through the almost square opening the grave-robbers had to descend down 12 stone stairs. There were five coffins to choose from, two with Stewart's kids and two members of the Clinch family. A.T. Stewart's coffin was the newest. His heavily decomposed body had not been embalmed so when air first hit, the body would have liquified quickly. The stench the morning after made the investigators sick.

The November 7th grave robbery was preceded by an unsuccessful attempt on October 9th when just the name slab was removed. The robbers demanded a $200,000 ransom for A.T., but three years later his widow had whittled it down to $20,000. The remains that were recovered were entombed in the family vault in the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, Long Island. Mrs. Cornelia Stewart died of pneumonia on October 25th, 1866.

In 1896, John Wanamaker bought the Iron Palace and opened the New York version of his famous Philadelphia store.

Washington Hotel, a three-story hotel on Broadway, was first called Washington Hall when it was completed in 1812. It was on the SE corner of Reade Street where the old A.T. Stewart Building stands today. Washington Hall served as the Federalist Party headquarters in NYC (while the other party built Tammany Hall). In 1828, Washington Hall and its huge assembly space were converted into a hotel. It was the site of many fashionable functions and society dances, including the annual Firemen’s Ball and James Fenimore Cooper's Bread & Cheese Club. While exiled in America, Prince Louis Napoleon, the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, stayed at the Washington Hotel for a few months in the spring of 1837. A fire in 1844 destroyed the historic hotel, making room for A.T.'s Marble Palace in 1846. There was another Washington Hotel at 302 Greenwich Street.

Alfred Ely Beach -Alfred Ely Beach, publisher of Scientific American, created a 312-foot tunnel under Broadway (across from City Hall) that existed between 1870 and 1873. Rather than deal with Tweed and Tammany Hall, who not welcome a new transportation rival, Beach cloaked construction of this first subway tunnel in secrecy. Tammany Hall was being paid off by the many streetcar companies in NYC as well as the Erie Railroad.

In 1868, however, Beach got a charter from Tammany Hall to build a pneumatic tube for mail, but a loophole in the charter did not state the size of the tube. This gave Beach the guts to build a 9-ft. wide tunnel in which he ran an experimental pneumatic pressure subway car that seated 22 people. Blown along by compressed air from a giant steam-operated fan, NYC's first subway car went 10 miles an hour. When the subway car tripped a wire at the end of the tunnel, it reversed the fan (nicknamed the Western Tornado) and sucked the car back into the station.

Beach's company took a five-year lease in the basement of Devlin's Clothing Store at 258-260 Broadway on the SW corner of Murray Street. The foreman for the excavation was Alfred's 21-year-old son, Fred. Lit by lantern, their workers dug 20 feet under Broadway for 58 nights. The subway’s 120-foot carpeted waiting room was decorated with frescoes and paintings, and it had a fountain, aquarium and grand piano.

A New York Herald reporter first noticed the sagging sidewalk above the subway, exposing the project. Other newspapers reported some news about it, but most details were withheld. A month after the news broke on February 26th, 1870, NYC's first underground subway opened. In the single year it was open to the curious public, around 400,000 people paid 25 cents each for the ride. The trip went from Broadway at Warren Street south to just past Murray Street and back north again to Warren Street.

Boss Tweed and his biggest crony, Governor John T. Hoffinan, killed Alfred Beach's plans for an underground subway he wanted to run to Central Park. Official backing instead went to Tweed's viaduct plan calling for 40-foot arches to support an elevated track for train lines. A year later, Governor Hoffinan was voted and new Governor John Adams Dix passed Beach's bill in 1873. But by the time the good news arrived, Alfred Ely Beach was broke and his backers had pulled out. Beach's tunnel was rented out first as a shooting gallery and then as a storage facility until it was finally sealed up.

Construction began on August Belmont’s creation -- the IRT -- on March 24th, 1900. In October 1904, the first electric-powered subway opened under City Hall. For 5 cents apiece, riders could travel from City Hall up the west side to 145th Street. This historic looped station is no longer open to the public, but is still used by the #6 train to turn around and roll back to the Chambers Street station. In February 1912, while digging the BMT subway under Broadway, workers were shocked to discover Beach's old underground tunnel and NYC's first subway car. The NYC subway system that first began under City Hall helped to double NYC real estate values, but still they were hardly subsidized. Subway maintenance was overlooked even more later as the powers-that-be (such as Robert Moses) focused on building tunnels, bridges and parkways, stroking the automobile industry while sacrificing mass transit.

Davy Crockett -In 1827, the American Hotel was operated at 229 Broadway on the corner of Barclay Street, across from City Hall Park, by the Cozzens of West Point, so it was mostly patronized by members of the army. Its architecture by Davis and its figures by Canova, the American Hotel stood on the future site of the Woolworth Building. In 1850, Taber & Bagley assumed management of the hotel.

South of the American Hotel on Barclay Street (where John Jacob Astor would build his Astor House) was the David Lydig mansion, which was once owned by Cornelius Roosevelt. It was next to the home of Rufus King before the future state senator became known for his antislavery stance and moved his manor to Jamaica Queens in 1805). King, a soldier in the Revolutionary War, was a representative of the Confederation Congress and one of the authors, framers and signers of the U.S. Constitution. In 1820, Rufus King delivered two of the most radical speeches ever heard in the Senate before the Civil War. His opposition to admitting Missouri, a slave state, to the Union started his long antislavery career.

David Lydig was born in NYC in 1764 and died on June 16th, 1840. Before moving to 225 Broadway (near Barclay Street) in 1819, Lydig lived at 35 Beekman Street. After selling his Broadway mansion at great profit to John Jacob Astor for his Astor Hotel, he moved to 34 Laight Street. When Lydig realized that the Erie Canal would bring cheap wheat and flour to NYC, he sold his flour interests before his competitors did.

To the north of the American Hotel were the homes of John McVikar (not the British criminal, McVicar) at 231 Broadway and Philip Hone, a NYC mayor. Irish-born McVikar was one of the founders of the St. Patrick's Society in 1792, and by 1797, he was its vice president. McVikar was in the lending business at 27 Queen (now Pearl) Street prior to 1786 and lived at 39 Maiden Lane. From 1793 to 1810, McVikar was a director for the Bank of New York and a director of the Mutual Insurance Company and the United Insurance Company after 1795. Before moving to Broadway he lived at 228 Pearl Street.

When Davy Crockett visited NYC in the 1830s, he stayed at the American Hotel, which was easily accessible to City Hall across the street and the Five Points, where he enjoyed going slumming. His presence at the hotel caused such a big fuss that it made the neighbors crazy, including Philip Hone.

Hone was mayor of NYC starting in 1826 (for only one year) and president of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. He bought a home on Broadway at the corner of Park Place for $25,000, where he wined and dined NYC society. Hone backed the first opera house in NYC and the first summer hotel in the Rockaways, but both ventures failed. He sold his Broadway home in 1836 for $60,000, this site was converted into street shops and eventually became the site of the American Hotel.

Cass Gilbert - The Broadway-Chambers Building, designed by Cass Gilbert for his first NYC project, was finished in 1900. With a facade done in a traditional three-part classical composition (tripartite skyscraper construction), the building at 277 Broadway is made of brick with brightly glazed terra-cotta ornaments.

John H. Contoit -Ice cream mogul John H. Contoit ran another public garden on the west side of Broadway between Leonard and Franklin Streets. Contoit's New York Garden was situated between two buildings on top of Kalckhook Hill. An oasis decorated with colored lanterns, it became one of the best known resorts in NYC. It followed his first ice cream garden at 39 Greenwich Street in 1801, and another ice cream saloon across Broadway from City Hall Park between 1802 and 1805. This second location used to be Montague's Inn at 253 Broadway (by Murray Street). Contoit then moved the New York Garden one block south near Park Place until 1809, and it was situated here at 355 Broadway from 1809 to about 1849. Served in high glasses for 12˝ cents (one Mexican shilling), Contoit's ice cream flavors included vanilla, lemon, and, if in season, strawberry. Contoit's was also was known for its pound cake, lemonade, claret and cognac. His ice cream fortune and ongoing investments in NYC real estate made Contoit a name on every New Yorker’s lips.

Charles Wilson Peale - Charles Wilson Peale was an artist who was well known for his portraits of John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. He painted 60 portraits of George Washington from seven sittings. In 1788, Peale opened his American Museum in Philadelphia next door to Independence Hall. In 1825, his son Reubens opened a NYC museum on the site of Montague's at 252 Broadway across from City Hall Park. Peale's Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts lasted until 1841 when P.T. Barnum bought his collection for $7,000. A band would play music to attract customers to early NYC museums.

Adam Vandenberg -Trinity Church would eventually own the huge tract of farmland called the Company Farm. The Company Farmhouse, just south of the Broadway rope walk (where Park row meets Broadway today), became a tavern called the Drovers Inn. The Drovers innkeeper was Adam Vandenberg. Adam's brother, Cornelius Vandenberg, sent the first Winter Albany Post in December, 1747. A successful amusement promoter in NYC, Adam also owned an entertainment garden called the Mead Garden (a.k.a. Vandenberg's Garden) and a horse race course. This site became the location of the famous Astor House Hotel in 1838, after it was the site of the 1794 home of John Jacob Astor himself.

Levels

Norse Catholics - 1125 & 1540 - Jean Allefonsce - born 1484 in Portugal died off La Rochelle 1544 or 1549 - David Ingram signed on with English privateer John Hawkins marooned with some 100 of his shipmates near Tampico on the coast of Mexico, about 200 miles south of the present Texas/Mexico border. 11 months later, in October 1568, Ingram and two others of his original party were picked up from the coast of Nova Scotia by a French fishing vessel. 1999 British writer Richard Nathan retraced Ingram’s journey in reverse, walking from Nova Scotia to Tampico in just 9 months The Norumbegans were friendly and led Ingram to their leader, a king named the Bathshaba who lived in the city of Arembec wonderful city of Arembec

Native American - Norumbegans Explorer-Juan (Jan) Rodrigues was the 1st non native resident of NYC. This black (mulatto) crewman from the boat Jonge Tobias lived and traded among the natives in 1612 (w/o support of a harbor ship). A friend of the Indians and the keeper of the Norumbega secret. Timeline - 1612 - 1664 Topics - Indian/ Dutch, People - Adrian Block fire through Peter Stuyvesant fire proofing Places

Slave - Caesar's friend Timeline - 1712 - 1741 Topics - 1712 - 1741 Slave revolts, Dutch / British Slave/White People - Gerardus Beekman to Molly Williams (1818) Places - greenwich and rector (John Hughson tavern), Water & Wall (slave market), Hanover square-#11, Firemen's Hall-71 Fulton Street,

Inventor - Christopher Colles -1774 - NYC's first log pipeline Timeline 1742-1776 Topics - Patriots / British, Water People Places

Patriot - Burr Timeline - 1776- 1836. Topics - Patriots / Tory Loyalists, 1776 Fire, Manhattan Company Places

Ringleader - Tweed Timeline - 1823 -1878 Topics - 1835 Fire, 1845 Fire, Tammany Hall, Gangs, People - Mose Humphrey knocked senseless in 1838 Places -