It’s no wonder that New York City, called New Am-sterdam until 1664, is sometimes referred to as the crossroads of the world. This city is rich with history. New Yorkers can claim a whole slew of firsts to fame – not just firsts for Americans, but many firsts for mankind as well.
For example, I probably mentioned in January that Lombardi’s on Spring Street in Soho is the country’s first pizzeria (opened in 1895). Here are a few more NYC firsts and other interesting facts dating to the early 1900’s when the Yankees won their first World Series. (These facts are taken from A Short and Remarkable History of New York City by Jane Mushabac and Angela Wigan) . . .
1638: Tuition for New York’s first unofficial school, created by the Dutch Reformed Church, is two beaver pelts per year.
1673: The first postal service in America begins. A rider carries letters by land between New York and Boston on a monthly basis.
1700: Population of New York: 4,500.
1714: Governor Robert Hunter writes the first play to be printed in English in the colonies, Androboros.
1760: The colonies’ first recognized black poet is a New Yorker by the name of Jupiter Hammon.
1766: St. Paul’s Chapel, still standing across the street from the former World Trade Center towers, is completed. It is the oldest standing church in Manhattan today.
1776: The first American woman to fight in the Revolution is Margaret Corbin when she takes over her wounded husband’s cannon post on upper Broadway.
1785: New York is named the first capital of the United States.
1789: First Presidential inauguration is held in New York for George Washington.
1792: The Buttonwood Agreement is signed by 22 stockbrokers and merchants under the buttonwood tree on Wall Street, establishing the forerunner to the New York Stock Exchange.
1807: The world’s first steam-powered vessel, the steamboat Clermont, is built in a Manhattan shipyard.
1809: The term “knickerbockers,” a nickname for New Yorker, is coined by author Washington Irving’s when he uses the pseudonym “Diedrich Knickerbocker” for A History of New York. In it, he uses “Gotham” as the satirical name for New York.
1820: Population 123,706. New York is the nation’s largest city.
1822: The first treadmill is built in this country. Custom-built for a City prison, it is used to grind 45 bushels of corn a day.
1825: America’s first grand opera, The Barber of Seville, is performed at the Park Theatre.
1830: The first American-made steam locomotive for railroad service is built in Manhattan.
1836: Inflation drives up the cost of living 66%. From 1833 to 1835, the cost of property in Greenwich Village quadruples.
1837: Tiffany & Co. opens as a “Stationery and Fancy Goods Store.” The first week’s profit is thirty-three cents.
1840: Population 312,710.
1842: The New York Philharmonic gives its first concert.
1843: P.T. Barnum puts 5-year-old Charles Stratton on display – a 15-pound child dwarf he presents as General Tom Thumb.
1845: Edgar Allen Poe writes “Raven” at his home in lower Manhattan.
1845: The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club is started and the rules are written down, replacing cricket as the national sport within 20 years.
1849: Walter Penn patents the safety pin but sells the rights for $100. He later becomes the first American inventor of the sewing machine.
1849: Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman in the U.S. to receive a medical degree.
1850: New York City population exceeds half a million people.
1851: The New York Times puts out its first issue.
1853: Steinweg and sons open a piano factory. Later their Steinway grand becomes world-famous.
1853: The first American World’s Fair is held in Bryant Park.
1855: Walt Whitman of Brooklyn self-publishes Leaves of Grass.
1857: The first landscaped park in the nation, Central Park, is underway. It takes 20 years to complete its 843 acres, and1,600 people are displaced. Most of the city’s downtown poor cannot afford the fare to get there.
1857: Currier & Ives lithographs sell for five cents to a dollar.
1857: U.S. cities like New York have the highest death rate in the world due to poverty and overcrowding, with tuberculosis accounting for most deaths in the City.
1858: R.H. Macy, a whaler from Nantucket, comes to New York and opens a small store on 14th Street. Today Macy’s takes up an entire block on 34th Street.
1859: Thanks to new illustrations in Washington Irving’s Knickerbocker History of New York, “knickers” becomes the new name for knee-length pants.
1863: New four-wheeled roller skates can be seen on City sidewalks.
1866: The first Broadway musical, Faustian Black Crook, opens and tours for forty years.
1867: The first curve ball is thrown by Brooklyn pitcher William Arthur Cummings.
1868: The nation’s first rapid transit system, elevated trains, is built.
1870: An underground pneumatic subway car is tested on 100 yards of track under Broadway by 400,000 riders. The tunnel is built in secret to hide it from Boss Tweed, who gets a kickback from horse-drawn street cars.
1870: The first transcontinental freight rail connection is made from the west coast to New York.
1871: “The Greatest Show on Earth,” P.T. Barnum’s circus, arrives in Brooklyn.
1871: The donkey and elephant symbols for the Democratic and Republican parties are created by Thomas Nast.
1875: Street-level Park Avenue train tracks are sunk into a trench for safety and quiet.
1877: The world’s first typing course is given to women at the YMCA.
1877: Bell telephone starts offering its phones to the City. The public is soon outraged by the excessive poles and mass of wires above ground.
1879: Milk is delivered in glass bottles in Brooklyn.
1880: The English muffin is introduced by Samuel Bath Thomas in Manhattan.
1880: The Metropolitan Art Museum opens on Fifth Avenue.
1880: The New York Daily Graphic prints the first newspaper photograph, a picture of a local shantytown.
1883: After 14 years of construction and at least 26 deaths, the Brooklyn Bridge opens, connecting the first and third largest cities in the nation – Manhattan and Brooklyn. It is one of the wonders of the world.
1883: The Met opera house opens with Faust.
1884: The Dakota apartment house is completed at Central Park West and 72nd Street. Musician John Lennon is shot and killed there by a crazed fan 96 years later.
1886: The Statue of Liberty is dedicated.
1888: Pastrami on rye is served for the first time in a New York deli.
1889: The Wall Street Journal sells for two cents a copy.
1890: Opening night of Stanford White’s Madison Square Garden draws 17,000.
1891: Carnegie Hall opens with a performance conducted by Tchaikovsky.
1894: The New York subway system is voted in.
1895: Theodore Roosevelt is the new Police Board president.
1896: Tootsie Rolls are sold for a penny and are named for the nickname that inventor Leo Hirschfield calls his daughter Clara.
1898: The five boroughs – Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the Bronx - are joined to become Greater New York: population 3.4 million, second only to London.
1900: The first U.S. National Automobile Show opens at Madison Square Garden.
1901: Street cars are converted to electricity, becoming fast and dangerous.
1902: The teddy bear is born in Brooklyn. President Theodore Roosevelt okays the use of his nickname.
1904: The IRT runs its first subway train from City Hall to 145th Street. The ride takes 26 minutes and costs five cents. The IRT is the first underground system with both express and local tracks.
1904: The Pulitzer Prize is established by millionaire Joseph Pulitzer at Columbia University.
1904: Longacre Square is renamed Times Square when The New York Times moves to 42nd Street at 7th Avenue and Broadway.
1904: Typhoid Mary causes 1,300 cases of typhoid working in a New York kitchen. She uses false names until 1915 when she is hospitalized for the rest of her life.
1904: The song “Give My Regards to Broadway” by George M. Cohan is first heard on Broadway.
1904: The first paper teabags appear when a merchant packs sample teas in muslin bags to send to customers.
1907: The era of the taxicab arrives.
1907: The Plaza hotel opens on Fifth Avenue and Central Park South.
1908: “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is written by two New Yorkers.
1908: The Metropolitan Life Tower on Madison Avenue is the tallest building in the world (700 feet) until 1913 when the Woolworth Building tops it by 92 feet.
1909: The Melting Pot is a play that coins the phrase in the very place that epitomizes it.
1909: Wilbur Wright flies the first plane over New York Harbor.
1910: Pennsylvania Station excavation is complete and trains run through it for the first time.
1912: The Titanic strikes an iceberg on its way to New York; more than 1,500 people are lost, including New York millionaires Guggenheim, Astor, and Straus.
1913: The world’s first movie palace, the Regent Theater, opens. It seats 1,800.
1913: Grand Central Terminal replaces the old depot. It can handle 70,000 rail passengers per hour.
1913: Ebbets Field Park opens in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Dodgers are named for the Brooklynites known for their skill at dodging trolleys.
1913: The first American crossword puzzle appears in New York World.
1916: Nathan’s famous frankfurter comes to Coney Island. Nathan and his wife Ida use a secret recipe to make the five-cent hot dog, working 18 hours a day to undersell competitors.
1918: The first regular air mail route in the country carries mail daily between New York and Washington, D.C.
1919: The cost of living in New York has increased 79% in five years.
1920: The Yankees purchase 24-year-old Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox for $125,000. He hits 54 home runs his first season as a Yankee.
1923: Time magazine is launched. The first issue is 15 cents.
1923: Yankee Stadium opens in the Bronx and the Yankees win their first World Series.
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