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Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 55 general entries. We are selecting 30 for display.
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 New York
The Dutch West India Company. Five years after Henry Hudson stumbled upon it, the Dutch set up a bussiness post there to get a jump on England in opening up the West. The Ducth set the tone of the city by founding it to make money. They created the first real estate deal of NY by buying it from the Indians, using it to export beaver skins, spent most of the time drinking, and didn't even get around to building a church for 17 years.
place of inebriation. That really stands true to this day as well. If you don't belive me, then just stand on Bleeker and Sullivan and watch for 10 minutes.
Peter Stuyvesant. He made order out of chaos and ensured the city's future. He also, reluctantly, allowed anyone from any country in, as long as they were willing to work. Before he knew it, the city had become tremendously diverse in nationality, language, and religious belief.
1654. Peter Stuyvesant petitioned the board directors not to allow Jews into New York. The Dutch West India Company reminded him he was "running a business colony, not a religious establishment; and for the sake of that business no-one should be turned away." That's why I love New York.
0. Even the one man who did want to fight, Peter Stuyvesant, stayed and retired to what is now Greenich Village.
| During the revolutionary war, the Battle for New York was fought mostly in Brooklyn. The Americans were losing badly, and George Washington was forced to sneak across the East River at night in complete silence to stay alive. How many soldiers did he have with him during this dangerous journey? | New York City History: Part 1
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10,000 - 12,000. That is why this move is so important. He could have lost the war that night. But this vast number of survivors, which could easily have been caught carried out this impossible task with such intense discipline, that they stayed alive to win another day.
Trinity Church. The church is still there. Well, it was burnt down in the great fire in 1776. And was again ruined in 1839. The third one was built in 1846 stands today - and is the resting place of the quintessential New Yorker, Alexander Hamilton.
| What tough New Yorker created the stock exchange and allowed Thomas Jefferson to move the country's political capital from New York to Virginia (knowing fully New York would become the world capital of commerce, economics, culture and intellect)? | New York City History: Part 1
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Alexander Hamilton. He was the Secretary of the Treasury and started America on its path of commerce and maufacture, instead of slavery and plantations. He pushed the New York ideal on the government. Jefferson, on other hand, hated New York and urban ideals. Can you see the Civil War starting here?
| What revolution in trading by the New York shipping company "The Black Ball Line" attracted business from all over the world to Manhattan? | New York City History: Part 1
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regular scheduled departures. This service started in 1817. Full or not, the company's ships sailed, and business from around the world flocked to Manhattan to trade with and invest in America.
Abraham Lincoln. The hat he bought on Broadway, the photo taken of him at Brady's studio, and the newspapers that re-printed the photo alongside his rousing anti-slavery speech at the Cooper Institute - is what he felt rocketed him into the Presidency.
Washington Irving. "A History of New York" was a best-selling mythical history of the city written under the false name "Knickerbocker". Wealthy New Yorkers later claimed they were decsedants of the "Knickerbocker" family, unaware that it was a fiction.
| Dewitt Clinton served 10 terms as a mayor and three as a governor. He shaped New York's financial future by overseeing the creation of what? | New York City History: Part 2
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Erie Canal. He connected the Hudson to the Great Lakes, thus connecting the Mississippi to the Atlantic Ocean. By forcing the middle of the country to trade with the world through New York, he stole the importance of New Orleans and sealed New York's fate as the financial capital.
The grid. It was and still is 12 avenues wide, 155 streets long; covering 11,000 acres, creating 2000 blocks. It was an amazing act of prediction. The population that he expected to settle in to NYC (millions) seemed absurdly high at the time. It was and still is democratic, bold, easy to divide real estate wise, and simple enough for immigrants to navigate in. The Burns PBS documentary was used in this question.
| In the 1830's what New York newspaper, unfortunately, pioneered the idea to sell more copies by filling it with news of murder, rape, violence and death? | New York City History: Part 2
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The New York Herald. James Gordan Bennett made it the most popular newspaper in the world and invented modern journalism. A pretty important fact about NYC, even if not a great one.
| What proportion of the population of Ireland entered America through South Street during the potato famine in 1845-46? | New York City History: Part 2
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one eigth. This huge and sudden influx caused a range of social problems in New York. The new Irish immigrants took on the worst jobs or became beggars. It created the imbalance in New York as there were now more inhabitants of working age than jobs. And the class struggle began in America. 1.5 million entered the country. One million came through South Street. And they came to meet an already over-crowded city. The PBS New York Documentary by Burns was used in this question.
| Who said of what book, it "arose out of my life in Brooklyn and Manhattan, absorbing a million people for 15 years ...?" | New York City History: Part 2
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Walt Whitman - Leaves of Grass. He was probably the only person, at that time, who loved the diversity of New York City, and saw it as something to celebrate, rather than destroy. "Leaves of Grass" was released in 1855, with Whitman's intention being to show the people what brought them together.
Central Park. Opening just before the Civil War, the park didn't fulfill this prophecy right away. But in the longer run it did - and this 843 acre man made structure still keeps the city invisible to those relaxing inside it. It really is beautiful.
| What bad-table mannered pioneer became the richest man in America by buying up all the real estate property he could in Manhattan? | New York City History: Part 2
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John Jacob Astor. he is famous for being a fur trader. But he wagered on the fact that New Yorkers would soon have to move upwards on Manhattan. He's interesting because he was the first American to make a fortune out of the city. Biggest fortune in the nation at the time.
The Draft Riots. The first federal draft ever in America was during the Civil War. Possibly over tens of thousands rioted for 4 days until the union troops could arrive. Complete chaos. Horrible attrocities. Nothing like it has had ever happened before or since in this country. 119 people confirmed killed. Most were drowned and not counted.
| Before the United Nations was built in the neighborhhod known as Turtle Bay, by what other name was the neighborhoood known? | Nearly Ultimate New York 4
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Blood Alley. Before the city gave the land for the U.N., there were tenements and slaughterhouses all along First Avenue and stables throughout the rest of the district. Now the 72-story Trump World Tower is on First Avenue where tenements once stood.
Addisleigh Park. Milt Hinton, Lester Young, Lena Horne, and lots of other jazz folks have lived there in the past 60 years or so. The other choices are all in Queens as well.
In Lower Manhattan. The Five Points were where five streets met in Lower Manhattan. Only two of the streets still exist. If you've ever watched "Law and Order" and seen the courthouse, that building stands near the center of the Five Points.
1931. Through the hardest years of the Depression, the 102 stories were mostly vacant, and the owners could barely pay the property taxes.
They are both City Housing Projects. The Polo Grounds Houses and The Jackie Robinson Houses, respectively.
| Ruth Snyder, who, with her boyfriend Judd Gray, murdered her husband, was the subject of the most famous front page photo ever printed in the "New York Daily News". The murder took place at the Snyder home in what part of Queens? | Nearly Ultimate New York 4
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Queens Village. On January 22 ,1928, Ruth Snyder was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing. Thomas Howard, a "Daily News" photographer, had a camera strapped to his ankle, and as the switch was pulled, crossed his legs and snapped a picture which appeared on the front page of the News below the headline, "DEAD!"
| There was a time capsule buried in 1939 at the World's Fair in Flushing. How many years after 1939 is it scheduled to be opened? | Nearly Ultimate New York 4
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5,000. There were a few things added at the 1964 Fair. I would like to see what folks in 6939 think of Mickey Mouse and The Beatles.
1923. "The House That Ruth Built" opened on April 18, 1923. It was (and still is) located at 161st Street and River Avenue, The Bronx.
| We all know of the terrible tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center. However, that was not the only time lives were lost there. On February 26, 1993, something happened that killed six people and injured over 1,000 more. What happened on that day? | New York's Darkest Days
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Terrorists detonated a bomb in the underground parking lot.. An enormous bomb in a rented truck went off on that day. The terrorists were caught when one demanded a refund on the rented truck.
| On June 15, 1904, the pleasure ship, General Slocum, caught fire and sank just above the East River. Over 1,000 people perished in what was the worst maritime disaster during peacetime. (The Titanic disaster would happen almost a decade later.) What caused this awful loss of life? | New York's Darkest Days
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All of these (Faulty hoses failed to put out the fire, The life jackets were so old they actually pulled people further down into the water, Layers of paint literally glued the lifeboats to the side of the ship). The event was so shocking that it was even mentioned in James Joyce's "Ulysses". (On a side note, none of the obviously bribed inspectors nor any of the owners of the ship was convicted of any wrongdoing. The captain, however, was.)
| In August 1776, the first major confrontation between British and Colonial forces occurred in the Revolutionary War. It was a disaster from start to finish for the Americans, forcing George Washington to retreat during the night. What was this event called? | New York's Darkest Days
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The Battle of Brooklyn. Also known as "The Battle of Long Island", Washington's daring retreat, in total darkness across the turbulent East River, actually saved his army and kept the war going.
| On March 25, 1911, nearly 150 people--most of them immigrant teenage girls, died in what remains New York's worst industrial fire. Many of the girls were trapped on the 8th and 9th floors when the fire escape gave way and the elevators couldn't take the heat. The trapped girls either jumped to their deaths, suffocated or burned. What company did these victims work for? | New York's Darkest Days
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The Triangle Shirtwaist Company. The subsequent outcry forced many changes in New York's fire and safety codes. It also helped give rise to the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.
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