With an estimated population in 2023 of 8,258,035 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), the city is the most densely populated major city in the United States. New York has more than double the population of Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city. New York is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area. With more than 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities. The city and its metropolitan area are the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York City, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. In 2021, the city was home to nearly 3.1 million residents born outside the U.S., the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. (Full article...)
Despite having the same name as one of its predecessor theaters, the current Lyric Theatre was built almost entirely from scratch, though many parts of the old theaters were preserved to comply with government regulations. The current theater retains the original Lyric facade on 43rd Street, as well as a smaller arched facade on 42nd Street. The auditorium and stage house are placed within an entirely new structure covered with concrete and brick panels. The lobby contains a domed rotunda, with a basement lounge underneath it. The auditorium contains elements from the old Lyric's and the Apollo's interiors, including a ceiling dome, boxes, and a proscenium arch, which were modified to fit the new theater's dimensions. The large stage and the accompanying stage house were designed to accommodate major musicals.
The old Lyric and Apollo theaters had been proposed for redevelopment since the 1970s, and New 42nd Street took over the theaters in 1990. Livent leased the theaters in 1995, razing them to make way for an 1,821-seat facility named after sponsor Ford Motor Company. The Ford Center was dedicated in December 1997 and officially opened the next month. Livent filed for bankruptcy in late 1998, and the theater subsequently passed to SFX Entertainment and then Clear Channel Entertainment, which renamed it for sponsor Hilton Hotels & Resorts in 2005. The venue was renamed after Foxwoods Resort Casino in 2010 as part of a partnership with Live Nation. ATG acquired the theater in 2013 and renamed it the Lyric the following year. The Lyric's capacity was reduced in a 2017 renovation because of complaints about the theater's excessive size, which had caused several of the theater's productions to lose money. (Full article...)
The World Trade Center was originally planned to be built on the east side of Lower Manhattan, but the New Jersey and New York state governments, which oversee the Port Authority, could not agree on this location. After extensive negotiations, the New Jersey and New York state governments agreed to support the World Trade Center project, which was built at the site of Radio Row in the Lower West Side of Manhattan, New York City. To make the agreement acceptable to New Jersey, the Port Authority agreed to take over the bankrupt Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, which brought commuters from New Jersey to the Lower Manhattan site and, upon the Port Authority's takeover of the railroad, was renamed PATH.
The Port Authority hired architect Minoru Yamasaki, who came up with the specific idea for twin towers. The towers were designed as framed tube structures, which provided tenants with open floor plans, uninterrupted by columns or walls. This was accomplished using numerous closely spaced perimeter columns to provide much of the strength to the structure, along with gravity load shared with the core columns. The elevator system, which made use of sky lobbies and a system of express and local elevators, allowed substantial floor space to be freed up for use as office space by making the structural core smaller. The design and construction of the World Trade Center, most centrally its twin towers, involved many other innovative techniques, such as the slurry wall for digging the foundation, and wind tunnel experiments. (Full article...)
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Dooley (right) and Hennessy, by E. W. Kemble (1900)
Mr. Dooley (or Martin J. Dooley) is a fictional Irish immigrant bartender created by American journalist and humorist Finley Peter Dunne. Dooley was the subject of many Dunne columns between 1893 and 1915, and again in 1924 and 1926. Dunne's essays contain the bartender's commentary on various topics (often national or international affairs). They became extremely popular during the 1898 Spanish–American War and remained so afterwards; they are collected in several books. The essays are in the form of conversations in Irish dialect between Mr. Dooley, who in the columns owns a tavern in the Bridgeport area of Chicago, and one of the fictional bar's patrons (in later years, usually Malachi Hennessy) with most of the column a monologue by Dooley. The pieces are not widely remembered, but originated lasting sayings such as "the Supreme Court follows the election returns".
Mr. Dooley was invented by Dunne to replace a similar character whose real-life analogue had objected. By having the garrulous bartender speak in dialect and live in an unfashionable area of Chicago, Dunne gained a freedom of expression he often did not have in standard English. The first four years of the weekly column made Mr. Dooley popular in Chicago, but little noticed elsewhere. Dunne was a rapidly rising newspaperman, and the pieces mainly appeared in the Chicago paper which he worked for. During that time, Dunne detailed the daily life of Bridgeport through Dooley's lips, painting a portrait of ethnic urban life unparalleled in 19th-century American literature.
Dunne's bartender came to wider attention with the wartime columns, and the Dooley pieces were soon in newspapers nationwide. Both the columns and the books collecting them gained national acclaim. Beginning around 1905, Dunne had increasing trouble finding time and inspiration for new columns, and they ended in 1915, except for a brief resurrection in the mid-1920s. Even in Dunne's own time (he died in 1936), his work was becoming obscure in part due to his use of dialect, and the unusual spellings that it required have proved a lasting barrier for potential readers. (Full article...)
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Virginia Poe, as painted after her death
Virginia Eliza Poe (néeClemm; August 15, 1822 – January 30, 1847) was the wife of American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The couple were first cousins and publicly married when Virginia Clemm was 13 and Poe was 27. Biographers disagree as to the nature of the couple's relationship. Though their marriage was loving, some biographers suggest they viewed one another more like a brother and sister. In January 1842, she contracted tuberculosis, growing worse for five years until she died of the disease at the age of 24 in the family's cottage, at that time outside New York City.
Along with other family members, Virginia Clemm and Edgar Allan Poe lived together off and on for several years before their marriage. The couple often moved to accommodate Poe's employment, living intermittently in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. A few years after their wedding, Poe was involved in a substantial scandal involving Frances Sargent Osgood and Elizabeth F. Ellet. Rumors about amorous improprieties on her husband's part affected Virginia Poe so much that on her deathbed she claimed that Ellet had murdered her. After her death, her body was eventually placed under the same memorial marker as her husband's in Westminster Hall and Burying Ground in Baltimore, Maryland. Only one image of Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe has been authenticated: a watercolor portrait painted several hours after her death.
The disease and eventual death of his wife had a substantial effect on Edgar Allan Poe, who became despondent and turned to alcohol to cope. Her struggles with illness and death are believed to have affected his poetry and prose, where dying young women appear as a frequent motif, as in "Annabel Lee", "The Raven", and "Ligeia". (Full article...)
111 West 57th Street contains 60 luxury condominiums: 14 in Steinway Hall and 46 in the tower. The residential tower has a glass facade with piers made of terracotta; its pinnacle contains setbacks on the southern side. The tower is the fourth-tallest building in the United States as of November 2022, as well as the thinnest skyscraper in the world with a width-to-height ratio of about 1:24. Steinway Hall, a New York City designated landmark, contains a facade made mostly of brick, limestone, and terracotta. 111 West 57th Street contains numerous resident amenities, housed mostly in the building's base, as well as a large rotunda within Steinway Hall that is also a designated city landmark.
The Steinway & Sons store at 111 West 57th Street was proposed in 1916 but was not completed for another nine years due to lawsuits and other delays. Steinway Hall served as a store, recital hall, and office building for almost nine decades, though it was unsuccessful as a speculative development. Plans for a residential skyscraper on the site date to 2005, and JDS acquired the lots for the skyscraper between 2012 and 2013. Despite the tower's size, it was technically constructed as an addition to Steinway Hall. Construction on the tower began in 2014, and Steinway Hall was restored as part of the residential project. The development faced several challenges, including financing difficulties, lawsuits, and controversies over employment. The tower topped out during April 2019 and was finished in 2022. (Full article...)
The congregation went through difficult times during the Great Depression, and the bank almost foreclosed on its buildings in 1946. Membership dropped significantly in the 1930s because of the Depression, grew after World War II, and dropped again in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of demographic shifts. Programs for young children helped draw Jewish families back into the neighborhood and revitalize the membership. (Full article...)
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La Caravelle was a restaurant in New York City, specializing in French cuisine. It opened on September 21, 1960, at 33 West 55th Street in Manhattan. The restaurant was established by Fred Decré and Robert Meyzen, with Roger Fessaguet as head chef, and took its name from the type of sailing shipsChristopher Columbus sailed on his voyages to the New World. Like most European restaurants, La Caravelle had a menu that changed daily. This made the restaurant popular with new customers and also brought them back regularly. Salvador Dalí, John Lindsay, Leland Hayward, Walter Cronkite and Dorothy Kilgallen often dined at the restaurant in its early years. President John F. Kennedy was especially fond of La Caravelle's vichyssoise and chicken in champagne sauce, and he often requested them as takeout orders to eat on the plane while traveling.
Twenty years after its opening, chef Roger Fessaguet left the kitchen to become an owner with Meyzen due to the retirement of Fred Decré. In 1984, Robert Meyzen retired and Fessaguet and André Jammet took over ownership of the restaurant. The following year, a New York Magazine article cited it as one of the best restaurants in New York City, and mentioned that most guidebooks gave it their highest rating. Fessaguet retired in 1988, leaving ownership with Jammet and his wife. The Jammets redecorated La Caravelle in 1990, replacing the original red carpets and banquettes with a color scheme of green and peach. Artist Nina Duran was hired to create a small mural for the restaurant's foyer. The restaurant closed on May 22, 2004, despite garnering the James Beard Foundation's Most Outstanding Restaurant in the Country award in the same year. The name is now known for champagnes produced by the Jammets; the restaurant began serving them as its house brand in 1997. (Full article...)
Stuyvesant was established as an all-boys school in the East Village of Manhattan in 1904. An entrance examination was mandated for all applicants starting in 1934, and the school started accepting female students in 1969. Stuyvesant moved to its current location at Battery Park City in 1992 because the student body had become too large to be suitably accommodated in the original campus. The old building now houses several high schools.
Admission to Stuyvesant involves passing the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test. Every March, the 800 to 850 applicants with the highest SHSAT scores out of the around 30,000 students who apply to Stuyvesant are accepted. The school has a wide range of extracurricular activities, including a theater competition called SING! and two student publications. (Full article...)
The Liberty Theatre consists of an auditorium facing 41st Street and a lobby facing 42nd Street. The facade on 42nd Street is largely hidden but was designed in the neoclassical style, similar to the neighboring New Amsterdam Theatre, designed by the same architects. The lobby from 42nd Street led to the auditorium in the rear, as well as men's and women's lounges in the basement. The auditorium, designed in the Art Nouveau style, contains two balconies cantilevered above ground-level orchestra seating. The theater has a steel frame and was designed with advanced mechanical systems for its time. The original design included depictions of the Liberty Bell and bald eagles, which have since been removed.
The Liberty opened on October 10, 1904, and in its early years hosted several hit productions, which largely consisted of comedies, dramas, or musicals. D. W. Griffith briefly screened movies at the theater in the 1910s. After Klaw and Erlanger ended their partnership in 1919, Erlanger continued to operate the theater until 1931; the Liberty was leased the next year to Max Rudnick, who presented movies and vaudeville. The Liberty hosted its last legitimate show in 1933, and the Brandt family took over the venue, operating it as a movie theater until the 1980s. The city and state governments of New York acquired the theater as part of the 42nd Street Redevelopment Project in 1990. Forest City Ratner developed an entertainment and retail complex on the site in the 1990s, but the Liberty Theatre remained largely abandoned until the early 21st century, when it became a restaurant space and event venue. (Full article...)
The Q79bus route constituted a public transit line in Queens, New York City. It ran primarily along Little Neck Parkway between Little Neck station and Jamaica Avenue. Service on the route, initially known as the Q12A, began on June 4, 1950, following a request made by Queens Borough President Maurice A. FitzGerald. In 1990, the route was renumbered the Q79. In 1996, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority proposed extending the route to Floral Park, but this extension was canceled to community opposition. This route was operated by the New York City Transit brand until June 27, 2010, when it was discontinued under system-wide service cuts. (Full article...)
The two-story building contains a symmetrical facade of brick at ground level and glass above. The first story is made of dark red brick in Flemish bond. The second story is made of six translucent glass panels divided by four steel bars. Johnson designed the interior of the guest house with a living and dining room facing 52nd Street, as well as a bedroom in the rear. These are separated by an outdoor garden with a pool, separated from either room by fully glazed walls.
Johnson was hired to design the guest house in 1948 for Blanchette Rockefeller, who wanted a separate building to store her modern art collection, as her husband did not appreciate modern art. The house was constructed from 1949 to 1950 and initially hosted many functions for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), for which Blanchette Rockefeller was a patron. The house was donated to MoMA in 1955 and was then occupied by several residents, including Johnson himself between 1971 and 1979. The Rockefeller Guest House was sold in 1989, becoming the first house to be sold at an art auction in New York City. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Rockefeller Guest House as an official landmark in 2000. (Full article...)
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Broderick in 1927
Johnny Broderick (January 16, 1896 (some sources say 1894, 1895, or 1897) – January 16, 1966) was a New York City Police Departmentdetective who became known in the 1920s and 1930s as one of the city's toughest officers, patrolling the Broadway Theater District and policing strikes as head of the NYPD's Industrial Squad, sometimes personally beating gangsters and suspects.
In his career as a detective between 1923 and 1947, Broderick built a reputation for physical courage, for assaulting gangsters like Jack "Legs" Diamond and "Two-Gun" Crowley, and for facing down armed gunmen in a prison break at The Tombs prison.
Broderick was a "celebrity detective" whose exploits were a favorite of gossip columnists and the press. He and his sometime partner Johnny Cordes were probably the best known officers in the NYPD in the era between the two world wars. A character based on Broderick was the subject of the 1936 film Bullets or Ballots, with the Broderick character played by Edward G. Robinson. He was also portrayed in a comic book about police, and a film, TV series, and Broadway musical based on his life were once contemplated. (Full article...)
The Trump International Hotel and Tower is 583 ft (178 m) tall and has contained 44 physical stories since it was built. The building originally had an aluminum-and-marble facade and was surrounded by a public plaza on Broadway and Central Park West. There was a theater and shops in the basement as well as a restaurant on the top floor. After the building was renovated, a glass facade was installed. The lower portion of the tower is used as a hotel, while the upper floor is a residential condominium.
Planning for an office skyscraper on the site dates to 1965, when developers Hyman R. and Irving J. Shapiro planned to replace an existing two- or three-story building there. After the Shapiros' firm made two failed proposals for the site, Realty Equities Corporation took over development in 1967. Upon its completion, the building served for more than two decades. By the early 1990s, the tower was bankrupt and the GE/Galbreath/Trump joint venture had taken over the structure. Gulf and Western successor Paramount Communications occupied the building until 1995, after which it was renovated; the residences opened in 1996 and the hotel rooms opened in 1997. The hotel was renovated in 2010. (Full article...)
Founded in 1869 by German Jews as an Orthodox breakaway from an existing Reform congregation, it is the oldest Orthodox congregation on Long Island (including Brooklyn and Queens), and one of the last remaining non-HasidicJewish institutions in Williamsburg.
The congregation constructed its first building on Keap Street in 1870. In 1904 it merged with Chevra Ansche Sholom, and took the name Congregation Beth Jacob Anshe Sholom. The following year it constructed a new building at 274–276 South Third Street, designed by George F. Pelham, consecrated in 1906. In the 1950s, this building was expropriated and demolished to make way for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway[broken anchor]. The congregation combined with another congregation in a similar situation, and, in 1957, as Congregation Beth Jacob Ohev Sholom, constructed a new building at 284 Rodney Street, just south of Broadway. (Full article...)
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The Tank's entrance (left), 2018
The Tank is a nonprofit off-off-Broadway performance venue and producer in Manhattan, New York. The organization was founded in May 2003 by a group of young artists and has since moved several times, residing on 36th Street . The Tank presents art across several disciplines (comedy, dance, theater, music, film), produced at no fee for use of the venue to the presenting artists.
The Tank houses two performance spaces (a 56-seat black box and a 98-seat proscenium) and five rehearsal studios. Beyond presenting work at its resident home in Manhattan, the theater has also produced shows performed elsewhere throughout New York City, collectively presenting over 1,000 performances each year. Between 2016 and 2018, five of the theater's shows were nominated for a total of six Drama Desk Awards and in 2020, the theater itself received an Obie Award for its work supporting emerging artists. (Full article...)
The Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line station was built for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and was a local station on the city's first subway line, which was approved in 1900. The station opened on October 27, 1904, as one of the original 28 stations of the New York City Subway. The Eighth Avenue Line station was built as an express station for the Independent Subway System (IND) and opened on September 10, 1932, as part of the IND's first segment. The complex was renovated in the 2000s, following unsuccessful attempts to raise money for such a restoration during the late 20th century.
Malcolm spent his adolescence living in a series of foster homes or with relatives after his father's death and his mother's hospitalization. He committed various crimes, being sentenced to 8 to 10 years in prison in 1946 for larceny and burglary. In prison, he joined the Nation of Islam, adopting the name MalcolmX to symbolize his unknown African ancestral surname while discarding "the white slavemaster name of 'Little'", and after his parole in 1952 quickly became one of the organization's most influential leaders. He was the public face of the organization for 12 years, advocating Black empowerment and separation of Black and White Americans, and criticizing Martin Luther King Jr. and the mainstream civil rights movement for its emphasis on non-violence and racial integration. Malcolm X also expressed pride in some of the Nation's social welfare achievements, such as its free drug rehabilitation program. From the 1950s onward, Malcolm X was subjected to surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). (Full article...)
The Bronx (/ðəbrɒŋks/) is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New York City borough of Queens, across the East River. The Bronx is the only New York City borough not primarily located on an island. The Bronx has a land area of 42 square miles (109 km2) and a population of 1,472,654 at the 2020 census, its highest decennial census count ever. If each borough were ranked as a city, the Bronx would rank as the ninth-most-populous in the U.S. Of the five boroughs, it has the fourth-largest area, fourth-highest population, and third-highest population density. The population density of the Bronx was 32,718.7 inhabitants per square mile (12,632.8/km2) in 2022, the third-highest population density of any county in the United States, behind Manhattan and Brooklyn. With a population that is 54.8% Hispanic as of 2020, it is the only majority-Hispanic county in the Northeastern United States and the fourth-most-populous nationwide.
The Bronx is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, and a flatter eastern section. East and west street names are divided by Jerome Avenue. The West Bronx was annexed to New York City in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895. Bronx County was separated from New York County (modern-day Manhattan) in 1914. About a quarter of the Bronx's area is open space, including Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, Pelham Bay Park, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center. The Thain Family Forest at the New York Botanical Garden is thousands of years old and is New York City's largest remaining tract of the original forest that once covered the city. These open spaces are primarily on land reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed north and east from Manhattan. (Full article...)
Staten Island (/ˈstætən/STAT-ən) is the southernmost borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County and situated at the southernmost point of New York. The borough is separated from the adjacent state of New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and from the rest of New York by New York Bay. With a population of 495,747 in the 2020 Census, Staten Island is the least populated New York City borough but the third largest in land area at 58.5 sq mi (152 km2); it is also the least densely populated and most suburban borough in the city.
A home to the Lenape indigenous people, the island was settled by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. It was one of the 12 original counties of New York state. Staten Island was consolidated with New York City in 1898. It was formerly known as the Borough of Richmond until 1975, when its name was changed to Borough of Staten Island. Staten Island has sometimes been called "the forgotten borough" by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government. It has also been referred to as the "borough of parks" due to its 12,300 acres of protected parkland and over 170 parks. (Full article...)
Named after the Dutch town of Breukelen in the Netherlands, Brooklyn shares a border with the borough of Queens. It has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan, across the East River, and is connected to Staten Island by way of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. With a land area of 69.38 square miles (179.7 km2) and a water area of 27.48 square miles (71.2 km2), Kings County is the state of New York's fourth-smallest county by land area and third smallest by total area. (Full article...)
With a population of 2,405,464 as of the 2020 census, Queens is the second-most populous county in New York state, behind Kings County (Brooklyn), and is therefore also the second-most populous of the five New York City boroughs. If Queens were its own city, it would be the fourth most-populous in the U.S. after New York City itself, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Queens is the fourth-most densely populated borough in New York City and the fourth-most densely populated U.S. county. It is highly diverse as about 47% of its residents are foreign-born. (Full article...)
Image 16The Sunday magazine of the New York World appealed to immigrants with this April 29, 1906 cover page celebrating their arrival at Ellis Island. (from History of New York City (1898–1945))
Image 17Anderson Avenue garbage strike. A common scene throughout New York City in 1968 during a sanitation workers strike (from History of New York City (1946–1977))
... that Lucy Feagin founded the Feagin School of Dramatic Art in New York City, where talent scouts for radio, screen, and stage were always present to watch her senior students' plays?
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