1000 – The Manhattan, Canarsee, Hackensack, and Rockaway Indians occupy lands now known as New York City.

1524 – Frenchman Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European to see New York Harbor, arrived and named it Nouvelle-Angoulême.

1526 – Estavan Gomez from Spain sails along the shoreline.

1600s

1609 – Henry Hudson lands party to explore Manhattan for the Netherlands.

1613 – Juan Rodriguez became the first documented non-Native American to live on Manhattan Island. He was considered the first immigrant, the first person of African heritage, European heritage, the first merchant, the first Latino, and the first Dominican to settle in Manhattan.

– Adrian Block builds four trading houses on Manhattan Island.

1614 – Dutch settle on Manhattan Island.

1639 – Jonas Bronck, a Swedish settler, bought 500 acres of land from the Lenape tribe, creating a settlement called “Bronck’s Land,” which soon became known as The Bronx.

– David Pieterszen de Vries, a prominent Amsterdam investor, sent colonists from Holland to Staten Island.

1643 – Kieft’s War between the Lenape tribe and Dutch colonists began.

1648 – The first Fire Wardens — Martin Krieger, Thomas Hall, Adrian Wyser, and George Woolsey, were appointed by Peter Stuyvesant.

1650 – The population was approximately 1,000.

1695 – New York Jews petition Governor Dongan for religious liberties

1696 – King’s Arms coffee house began business.

1697 – The First Trinity Church was erected.

1700s

1702 – Yellow fever epidemic killed more than 500 people.

1703 – Federal Hall facing Wall Street, New York’s city hall, was built.

1703 – 42% of households own slaves, second in the colonies only to Charleston, South Carolina.

1704 – The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sends Elias Neau to minister to black slaves in North America. He established the first school in New York City that was open to African Americans.

1709 – The Trinity School was founded. It was the oldest continuously operated school in New York City.

1711 – A formal slave market was established at Wall Street and the East River.

1712 – In April, a slave revolt in New York kills six white men, and 21 African Americans were executed

1723 – The city’s population was 7,248.

1725 – The New York Gazette, the City’s first newspaper, was published.

1730 – Montgomerie Charter increases municipal powers.

1732 – Professional players in New York acted in the first play in American colonies.

1733 – New York Weekly Journal began publication.

1736 – Alms house established.

1741 – Fear around slavery resulted in the New York Conspiracy of 1741, when 100 people were hanged, exiled, or burned at the stake.

1752 – St. George’s Chapel was built.

1754 – King’s College (later Columbia College) was established.

– The New York Society Library, the oldest cultural institution in New York, later served as the first Library of Congress.

1756 – The city’s population was 13,046.

1771 – New York Hospital was founded.

1774 – “Tea Party” in New York harbor.

– The city’s population was 22,861.

1775 – Descendants of John Bowne of the Flushing Remonstrance founded Bowne & Co. printers. Until 2010, it was the oldest publicly traded company in the United States.

– The First Provincial Congress met in New York; five delegates represented Staten Island.

– The Green Mountain Boys capture Fort Ticonderoga, New York.

1776 – David Mathews became the city’s 43rd mayor, getting arrested on June 22 for a plot to kill George Washington.

– On July 9, the statue of George III was demolished and melted down for shot/bullets at Bowling Green Square.

– In September, five days after the British took New York, a quarter of the city burned down.

1798 – The “great epidemic,” a major yellow fever epidemic, kills 2086 people from late July to November.

1799 – New York acquired thirty acres of the Duxbury Glebe for a quarantine.
1800s

1800 – The city’s population was 60,489.

1801 – New York Evening Post newspaper began publication.

1876 – On December 5, a stage lamp ignites scenery and starts the Brooklyn Theater Fire during a performance of The Two Orphans, killing at least 276 people, primarily patrons in the upper gallery.

– Baseball’s National League forms at the Grand Central Hotel, with teams in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Hartford, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.

1877 – The Museum of Natural History building opened.

– The New York Society for Ethical Culture was founded.

1878 – On October 27, the Manhattan Savings Institution was robbed.

– St. Patrick’s Cathedral opened.

– The New York Symphony Society was founded.

1879 – The Sullivan & Cromwell law firm began business.

– The first of four Madison Square Garden opened.

1880 – The Metropolitan Opera Company was founded.

– Workingman’s School was active.

– The city’s population was 1,206,599.

1881 – William Russell Grace was elected the first Catholic mayor of New York.

1882 – On January 13, A train wreck occurred just south of Spuyten Duyvil Creek when a local train from Tarrytown crashed into the tail end of an express from Albany, which had been stopped on the tracks after someone pulled the emergency brake. Eight were killed, including a state senator.

– On September 4, Pearl Street Station (electric power plant) began operating.

– Goldman Sachs and Luchow’s restaurant began business.

1883 – On May 24, the Brooklyn Bridge opened.

– On May 30, a rumor began that the Brooklyn Bridge was going to collapse, causing a stampede that killed 12.

– November 18: Day of two noons

– Metropolitan Opera House on 3ninth Street opened.

– Life magazine began publication.

1884 – New York Cancer Hospital, Brearley School, and Grolier Club were founded.

– Hotel Chelsea and The Dakota were built.

1885 – Standard Oil Building was constructed.

– Inauguration of the Statue of Liberty, 1886

1886 – On October 28, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated.

– The Aguilar Free Library was established.

1887 – On January 27, the Port of New York Longshoremen’s Strike began.

– The Teachers College was founded.

– Scribner’s Magazine began publication.

1888 – On March 12-13, the Great Blizzard of 1888, or “White Hurricane”, paralyzes the Eastern seaboard from Maryland to Maine in New York City, causing temperatures to fall as much as 60 degrees. The city had about 21 inches of snowfall, but enormous winds whipped it into drifts as much as 20 feet deep. Regionally, over 400 people were said to have died in the storm’s path.

– The Washington Bridge was built.

– Katz’s Delicatessen began business.

1889 – The American Fine Arts Society was incorporated.

– Childs Restaurant opened its first location at 41 Cortlandt St., in the old Merchants Hotel.

1890 – Publication of Riis’ How the Other Half Lives.

– Ellis Island was designated as an immigration station.

– The city’s population was 1,710,715.

1891 – Carnegie Hall opened.

– Gristedes Grocery and Batten Company, an advertising agency, began business.

1892 – Washington Square Arch and Decker Building constructed.

– Spence School, Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, and New York School of Applied Design for Women were founded.

– U.S. Immigrant Inspection Station began operating on Ellis Island.

– Vogue fashion magazine began publication.

1893 – On August 24, a hurricane wipes out Hog Island, causes a 30-foot storm surge, and kills at least 34.

– On December 16, the premiere of Dvořák’s New World Symphony takes place.

– Municipal Art Society was founded.

1894 – On September 23, Veniero’s Pasticceria in East Village opened.

1895 – The New York Public Library was established.

– Sea Lion Park opened

– Part of Pelham and Wakefield annexed to City.

1896 – On August 5-13, the Eastern North American heat wave prostrates the city, with temperatures exceeding 90 °F for nine days, both day and night, with stagnant air and oppressive humidity. In all, 420 people die, mostly in crowded tenements in areas such as the Lower East Side.

– On December 10, the New York Aquarium opened in Castle Garden in Battery Park. It was the oldest continuously operated aquarium in the United States.

– Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration and City History Club were established.

1897 – On February 10, the Bradley-Martin Ball was held.

– In April, Grant’s Tomb was completed.

– On September 21, in Yes, Virginia, there was a Santa Claus newspaper editorial published.

– Steeplechase Park opened on Coney Island in Brooklyn.

– Bohemian National Hall was built.

1898 – On January 1, the City of Greater New York was created, consolidating the existing City of New York with the eastern Bronx, Brooklyn, most of Queens County, and Staten Island.

–  January 1: Robert A. Van Wyck became mayor.

– National Arts Club was founded.

1899 – On July 20, the Park Row Building was completed, becoming the tallest in New York City at 391 feet.

– On September 13, Henry H. Bliss became the first person killed in an automobile accident in the United States when he stepped off a streetcar at West 7fourth Street and Central Park West and was struck by a taxicab.

– On November 8, the Bronx Zoo opened.

1900s

1900 – The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union was founded.

–  Spuyten Duyvil Bridge was rebuilt.

–  The city’s population was 3,437,202.

1901 – Bergdorf Goodman (shop) in business.

–  Rockefeller Institute and Chapin School were established.

–  National Negro Business League headquartered in the city.

1902 – On January 8, a train collision in the original Park Avenue tunnel killed 17 and injured 38.

–  Macy’s Herald Square and Algonquin Hotel are in business.

–  Flatiron Building constructed.

–  Lina Rogers Struthers became the first school nurse in the United States.[78]

1903 – New York Highlanders baseball team active.

–  Williamsburg Bridge, New Amsterdam Theatre, and Lyric Theatre are open.

–  Luna Park opened.

–  Sea Lion Park closes.

–  The Coney Island Polar Bear Club was founded.

1904 – On June 15, the Steamboat General Slocum, carrying 1,300 to a picnic site on Long Island, catches fire and sinks while on the East River alongside Astoria, Queens. Over 1,000 passengers are killed, a significant factor in the demise of the Little Germany neighborhood.

–  New York City Subway began operating.

–  IRT wildcat strike.

–  Stuyvesant High School and the Hispanic Society of America were established.

–  Dreamland opened.

1905 – On March 14, fire swept through an overcrowded tenement at 105 Allen Street on the Lower East Side, killing at least 20 people and injuring numerous more.

– The Institute of Musical Art was founded.

–  Columbus Circle laid out.

–  Ratner’s restaurant began business.

–  The 291 art gallery opened.

1906 – On June 25, Stanford White was shot and killed by Harry Kendall Thaw at what was then Madison Square Gardens. The murder would soon be dubbed “The Crime of the Century.”

– Hammerstein Ballroom opened.

– DeWitt Clinton Park laid out.

– Society for the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise was established.

– Mamma Leone’s restaurant began business.

1907 – On December 31, the Times Square Ball drop began.

– Plaza Hotel in business.

– Japan Society was founded.

– Ziegfeld Follies were active.

– Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House and Audubon Terrace were built.

1908 – Singer Building constructed.

1909 – In September/October, the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the Hudson River and the 100th anniversary of Robert Fulton’s first successful commercial application of the paddle steamer.

– New York Amsterdam News began publication.

– Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower was built.

– International Women’s Day held.

– New York’s Queensboro Bridge opens, linking Manhattan and Queens.

1910 – On August 9, 1910,  Reformist Mayor William Jay Gaynor was shot in Hoboken, New Jersey, by former city employee James Gallagher. He eventually died in 1913.

–  Pennsylvania Station was built, and the first method to traverse the Hudson River was completed.

–  Pennsylvania StationGimbels shop began business.

–  Typhoid Mary Mallon was freed from her first periods of forced isolation and went on to cause several further outbreaks of typhoid.

1911 – On March 25, 146 employees, primarily women, are killed in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire near Washington Square Park, some by being forced to jump from the building by the fire.

–  In July, the Eastern North American heat wave began.

–  The New York Public Library Main Branch building was constructed.

–  Negro Society for Historical Research was established.

–  Winter Garden Theatre opened.

–  The Masses began publication.

–  Gun control Sullivan Law takes effect in New York State.

–  Dreamland on Coney Island was destroyed in a fire.

–  1912 – Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism was established.

– The New York Call began publication.

–  Heterodoxy (group) formed.

–  Citarella’s market and Automat eatery are in business in Times Square.

–  Aeolian Hall and Audubon Ballroom were built.

–  The 48th Street Theatre opened.

–  RMS Carpathia arrived with the 705 survivors of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, where 1517 people died.

1913 – The International Exhibition of Modern Art was held.

–  Grand Central Terminal was rebuilt.

–  Grand Central Oyster Bar and Prentice Hall publisher in business.

–  Vanity Fair magazine began publication.

– The Federal Reserve Bank of New York was established.

– The Woolworth Building was built.

– The New York Highlanders changed their team’s name to the New York Yankees.

–  On June 2, the 15th New York Infantry Regiment, which later became the 36ninth Infantry Regiment (“Harlem Hellfighters”), was constituted within the New York Army National Guard.

1914 – On January 1, the parts of New York County annexed from Westchester County were newly constituted as the County of The Bronx.

–  On July 4, the Lexington Avenue bombing occurred.

–  The Women’s Peace Party of New York City was organized.

–  Hunter College High School active.

–  Russ & Daughters food shop in business.

1915 – In January, the Anti-Militarism Committee was organized in response to World War I.

– On January 25, the first transcontinental telephone call occurred between San Francisco and New York City.

–  On May 1, the British Ship Lusitania departed. It was torpedoed on May 7, 1915, by a German submarine and sank. Of the 1,959 men, women, and children on board, 1,195 perished, including 123 Americans.

–  On September 22, 25 people were killed during construction of the IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line in a collapse between 23rd and 25th Street.

–  Merrill, Lynch & Co. and Knopf publisher were in business.

– City adopts new flag.

– Catskill Water Works supply City water.

1916 – On October 16, Margaret Sanger opened her first birth control clinic in Brooklyn.

– On July 30, a Black Tom explosion set off by German saboteurs at a munitions arsenal on a small island in New York Harbor killed seven in Jersey City, New Jersey. It caused damage as far as the Brooklyn waterfront and Times Square.

– The Zoning Resolution was established.

–  Auto-Ordnance Corporation gun manufacturer in business.

1917 – New York City Water Tunnel No. 1 began operating.

–  McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. in business.

–  On July 28, African Americans started the Silent Parade on Fifth Avenue as a protest against the East St. Louis riots.

– On August 30, before its departure to train ahead of World War I, the 27th Infantry Division participated in a large send-off parade in New York City along 5th Avenue.

– 20,000 women march in a suffrage parade.

1918 – The “Great Influenza Pandemic” rages across the country and worldwide. On one particularly virulent October day, 851 people died in New York City alone.

–  On November 1, The actions of a substitute motorman filling in during a strike led to a subway crash in Flatbush. The Malbone Street Wreck killed 97 people heading home from work and injured 100 more.

–  Okeh Records began business.

–  Selwyn Theatre opened.

1919 – February: The city recorded 30,000 deaths from the Spanish flu.

– On September 10, the U.S. Army’s First Division returned from war.

–  A New School for Social Research was founded.

–  The Daily News began publication.

–  Algonquin Round Table was active.

–  135th Street YMCA opened.

1920 – On September 16, a Wall Street bombing kills 38 at “the precise center, geographical as well as metaphorical, of financial America and even of the financial world.” Anarchists were suspected, but no one was ever charged with the crime.

–  Apollo Theatre on 42nd Street opened.

–  Gotham Book Mart in business.

–  Legendary slugger Babe Ruth records his first homerun for the New York Yankees in a 6-0 win over his former club, the Boston Red Sox.

–  The city’s population was 5,620,048.

1921 – The Port of New York Authority was established.

–  The Council on Foreign Relations was headquartered in the city.

–  On May 3, the first use of “Big Apple” as a nickname for the city appeared in a New York Morning Telegraph article by John J. Fitz Gerald.

–  On October 1, 833 AM became the first radio broadcast station in the city to sign on the air, under the call letters WJZ (now WABC (AM) 770).

1922 – On February 22, WOR (AM) 833 (now 710) signed on the air for the first time.

–  On March 2, WEAF 660 AM (now WFAN) signed on the air for the first time.

–  In September, the Straw Hat Riot occurred.

–  Brooklyn Technical High School was established.

–  Roseland Ballroom built.

1923 – Museum of the City of New York incorporated.

–  Cotton Club (nightclub) and Barney’s clothier began business.

–  Duke Ellington Orchestra was active.

–  The New York Yankees won their first World Series championship.

– The American Academy of Arts and Letters building and Mecca Temple were constructed.

1924 – On February 12, was the premiere of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

–  WNYC radio began broadcasting.

–  Democratic National Convention meets in NYC.

–  Little Orphan Annie comic strip by Harold Gray is 1st published in the New York Daily News.

–  Pierpont Morgan Library was established.

–  New York Daily Mirror and New York Evening Graphic newspapers began publication.

–  Saks Fifth Avenue shop and Simon & Schuster publisher in business.

–  Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade began.

– On September 20, 920 AM, signed on the air for the first time under the call letters WAHG (now WCBS (AM) 880).

1925 – On February 6, WMCA 570 AM signed on the air for the first time.

– In May, air conditioning was installed in the Rivoli cinema.

– The New Yorker magazine began publication.

– Tannen’s Magic Shop in business.

– The New York Giants football team (founded by original owner Tim Mara) was one of the five teams to join the NFL.

– Population reaches 7,774,000, making New York City the largest in the world according to demographers Chandler & Fox. This role would be relinquished in 1965 to Tokyo.

1926 – The Savoy Ballroom and Paramount Theatre opened.

– The Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance was established.

– The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was launched.

1927 – On June 26, the Coney Island Cyclone rollercoaster began operating.

– On November 13, the Holland Tunnel for automobiles opened.

– On December 4, the New York Giants won their first NFL championship after finishing the season with the best record.

– New York County Courthouse and Sherry Netherland Hotel were built.

–  Roxy Theatre and Ziegfeld Theatre opened.

– The New York Yankees won their 2nd World Series championship, sweeping the Pittsburgh Pirates in four games.

– Random House publisher, Strand Bookstore, Russian Tea Room, Caffe Reggio, and Sardi’s restaurant in business.

– Commercial transatlantic telephone service inaugurated between New York and London.

– Actress Mae West was found guilty of “obscenity and corrupting the morals of youth” in a New York stage play entitled Sex. She was sentenced to 10 days in prison and fined $500. The resulting publicity launched her Hollywood career.

– Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York to cross the Atlantic Ocean for Paris aboard Spirit of St Louis in the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight.

1928 – On August 24, a subway crash caused by a defective switch below Times Square killed 18 and injured 100.

–  The New York Yankees won their 3rd World Series championship.

1929 – On May 19, two people were killed and scores injured in a stampede at Yankee Stadium by a crowd seeking to avoid a thunderstorm.

–  In October, Wall Street Crashed.

–  In November, The Museum of Modern Art opened.

–  Stork Club and 21 Club in business.

–  CBS radio broadcasting of Cotton Club performances began.

–  The Great Depression began.

–  The Multiple Dwelling Law passed.

1930 – On March 6, 35,000 gathered on International Unemployment Day and clashed with police.

– On August 6, New York Supreme Court associate Justice Joseph Force Crater disappeared, last seen entering a taxicab. He was declared legally dead in 1939. His mistress, Sally Lou Ritz, disappeared a few weeks later.

– The Chrysler Building was constructed.

–  Carlyle Hotel in business.

–  Miller Highway along the Hudson River opens.

– The Empire State Building was completed in the 1930s

1931 – In December, the Bank of United States closed.

– The Empire State Building and Seamen’s House YMCA were built.

– The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Group Theatre were founded.

–  Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts began.

–  Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in business.

–  George Washington Bridge opens.

–  Floyd Bennett Field, the first municipal airport, began operations.

1932 – Radio City Music Hall opened.

–  On September 2, lunch atop a skyscraper was photographed.

–  D’Agostino market opened.

–  The New York Yankees won their fourth World Series championship.

–  IND subway opens.

1933 – The RCA Building was constructed.

–  Fairway Market opened at Broadway and 7fourth Street.

–  Fiorello H. La Guardia was elected the first Italian American mayor.

1934 – The Rainbow Room restaurant, Tavern on the Green, and Zabar’s food retailer began business.

–  School of American Ballet was founded.

–  Fiorello H. La Guardia became mayor.

–  On December 9, the New York Giants won their 2nd NFL championship, defeating the Chicago Bears 30-13.

1935 – On March 19, the arrest of a shoplifter inflames racial tensions in Harlem and escalates to rioting and looting, with three killed, 125 injured, and 100 arrested.

–  The New York Cruise Ship Terminal was built.

–  Premiere of Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess.

–  The Frick Collection Museum opened.

–  East River Drive construction begins.

1936 – On July 11, the Triborough Bridge opened.

–  New York City Water Tunnel No. 2 began operating.

–  High School of Music & Art and Photo League was established.

–  Goya Foods, the largest Hispanic food company in the US, was founded.

–  Ford Foundation was headquartered in the city.

–  The New York Yankees won their 6th World Series championship, the first World Series Championship, under the leadership of rookie player Joe DiMaggio.

–  Triboro Bridge opened, linking Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens

1937 – On August 11, heavy rains caused a tenement in New Brighton to collapse, killing 19.

–  The Lincoln Tunnel opened.

–  The New York Journal-American newspaper began publication.

–  The Carnegie Deli and Stage Deli began business.

– The Delaware River water supply project begins.

–  The New York Yankees won their 7th World Series championship.

1937 – New York City department store strikes.

1938 – The Manhattan skyline was photographed using Agfacolor.

–  On January 16, Benny Goodman performed at Carnegie Hall.

–  On May 28, the Carnival of Swing, considered the first outdoor jazz festival, occurred at Randall’s Island.

–  On August 26, the Fire Fighter (fireboat) was launched as the world’s most powerful fireboat.

–  From September to December: The New York City Teamsters truckers strike shut down the city.

–  On September 21, the New England Hurricane of 1938 struck Long Island and continued into New England, killing 564. In New York City, ten people were killed, and power was lost across upper Manhattan and the Bronx.

– On December 11, the New York Giants won their third NFL championship, defeating the Green Bay Packers 23-17.

–  Bronx High School of Science and The Cloisters Museum were established.

– The New York Yankees became the first team in Major League Baseball history to win their third straight World Series championship.

1939 – The New York World’s Fair opened in April at Flushing Meadows.

– In July, the first World Science Fiction Convention was held.

– On July 4, the New York Yankees celebrated Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day. That day, Gehrig (who was diagnosed with ALS) spoke in his farewell address by saying: “… today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

– On October 8, the New York Yankees won their fourth consecutive World Series title, and their 8th in franchise history, by sweeping the Cincinnati Reds in four games.

– Rockefeller Center was built.

– New York Municipal Airport opened.

– American Ballet Theatre active.

– Meeker Avenue Bridge opened.

– North Beach Airport (LaGuardia) dedicated

– The Bronx-Whitestone Bridge opens.

1940 – On November 16, “Mad Bomber” George Metesky plants the first bomb of his 16-year campaign of public bombings.

– American Negro Theater was founded.

– The city’s population was 7,454,995 White non-Hispanic population peaks at 6,856,586 or 92%.

1941 – The first two television stations in the city signed on the air for the first time. The first was WNBT Channel One (now WNBC Channel Four) to sign on the air. And the second was WCBW (now WCBS-TV) Channel Two, to sign on the air.

– On October 6, the New York Yankees won their ninth World Series championship.

– Le Pavillon restaurant in business.

1942 – Art of This Century gallery opened.

– Burning and capsizing the French transatlantic ocean liner the SS Normandie in Pier 88.

– New York at War military parade.

1943 – In July, the Jozef Piłsudski Institute of America was founded.

– On August 1, a race riot erupted in Harlem after an African-American soldier was shot by the police and rumored to be killed. The incident touches off a simmering brew of racial tension, unemployment, and high prices to a day of rioting and looting. Several looters were shot dead, with blood everywhere; about 500 people were injured, and another 500 were arrested.

– New York City Opera Company was founded.

– New York Fashion Week began.

1944 – The Fashion Institute of Technology was established.

– On May 2, WABD Channel four (now WNYW Channel Five) became the 3rd television station in the city to sign on the air for the first time.

– Luna Park closed after a fire.

1945 – On July 28, a B-25 Mitchell bomber accidentally crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building, killing 13 people.

– On August 14, Victory over Japan Day was celebrated in Times Square with a famous kiss photograph taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt.

– On December 17, WABD moved from Channel 4 to Channel 5.

1946 – On January 12, the New York City Victory Parade of 1946 occurred.

– On May 20, a United States Army Air Forces C-45 Beechcraft airplane crashed into the 58th floor on the north side of 40 Wall Street, killing five.

– On June 25, a fire destroyed the St. George terminal of the Staten Island Ferry, killing three and injuring 280.

– On November 1, Channel 2 changed its call letters from WCBW to WCBS-TV.

– Living Theatre was founded.

– Balducci’s grocery in business.

1947 – Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers crosses the baseball color line.

– Over six million New Yorkers were vaccinated to end the 1947 New York City smallpox outbreak.

– Actors Studio was founded.

– Premiere of Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire.

– On December 25, the Blizzard of 1947 shut down the city and killed 77.

1948 – On May 4, 95.5 FM signed on the air for the first time under the call sign WJZ-FM (now WPLJ).

– On June 15, WPIX Channel 11 became the fifth television station in the city to sign on the air for the first time.

– The first tenants moved into Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, then the largest apartment complex in Manhattan.

On August 10, Channel Seven went on air for the first time as WJZ-TV (now WABC-TV).

– New York City Ballet was founded.

– The Ed Sullivan Show television program began broadcasting.

– New York International Airport was dedicated.

– Korvettes department store in business.

– Premiere of Cole Porter’s musical Kiss Me, Kate.

– Paris cinema opened.

– 98.7 FM facility station signs on for the first time as WOR-FM (now WEPN-FM).

– New York International Airport (renamed JFK) opens.

1949 – On February 10, Miller’s play Death of a Salesman premiered.

– On May 13, The Holland Tunnel fire caused by an exploding truck carrying eighty 55-gallon drums of carbon disulfide seriously damaged the tunnel’s infrastructure and injured 66, with 27 hospitalized, mostly from smoke inhalation.

– On October 9, the New York Yankees won the 12th World Series title, defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers in five games.

– On October 11, Channel 9 became the last VHF station in the city to sign on the air as WOR-TV (now WWOR-TV).

– The Birdland Jazz Club began business.

– School of Visual Arts established.

1950 – On May 25, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel opened.

–  On August 31, William O’Dwyer resigned as mayor because of the city’s police corruption scandal; Vincent R. Impellitteri was appointed acting mayor.

– In November, Impellitteri was elected the 101st mayor, the first since the consolidation of greater New York in 1898.

– On November 22, a Kew Gardens train crash kills 78 people, injuring 363 others.

–  On December 15, the Port Authority Bus Terminal opened.

1951 – On March 29, a bomb that exploded in Grand Central Terminal, injuring no one, marked the end of the self-imposed hiatus of George Metesky, aka the “Mad Bomber.” In 1951 alone, he had five bombs explode at New York City landmarks, such as the New York Public Library Main Branch.

– On October 3, the New York Giants won the National League Pennant with a famous walk-off home run by Bobby Thomson called the hit the Shot Heard ‘Round the World (baseball).

– On October 10, the New York Yankees won their third consecutive World Series title, and 14th overall in franchise history, defeating the New York Giants in six games.

– New York State law takes over from World War II era Federal laws regarding Rent control. At the time, over two million rental units were impacted.

1952 – United Nations Headquarters and Pier 57 were built.

– On October 7, the New York Yankees tied the record, winning their fourth straight World Series championship and 15th overall in franchise history by defeating the Brooklyn Dodgers in seven games.

1953 – On October 5, the New York Yankees won a record fifth consecutive World Series championship and 16th overall in franchise history.

1954 – On January 1, Robert F. Wagner Jr. became the city’s 102nd mayor.

– In January, Arthur C. Ford became the first African American appointed commissioner of a New York City agency.

– Shakespeare in the Park began.

– Veselka Diner, Second Avenue Deli, and Fairway Market began business.

1955 – The Village Voice newspaper began publication.

– Sotheby’s branch office in business.

1956 – Sbarro opened the first store in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

– New York Coliseum begins operations

– The first commercial city heliport was constructed at the 30th St.

– Restoration project at City Hall.

1957 – On January 21, George Metesky, aka the “Mad Bomber,” was arrested in his Waterbury, Connecticut home.

–  On February 1, Northeast Airlines Flight 823 crashed on Rikers Island on takeoff from LaGuardia Airport, killing 20 of the 101 on board.

– On September 26, the musical West Side Story premiered.

– Bronx Community College was established.

– New York was left with only one Major League Baseball team with the departure of the Giants and the Dodgers.

1958 – Puerto Rican Day Parade began.

– Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Company was formed.

– Seagram Building constructed.

– On August 12, the Great Day in Harlem musicians’ portrait was photographed.

1959 – On February 3, American Airlines Flight 320 crashed in the East River on approach to LaGuardia Airport, killing 65 of the 73 people on board.

– The Guggenheim Museum building opened.

–  Cafe Wha? and The Four Seasons Restaurant[22] in business.

–  Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts construction began.

–  Premiere of play A Raisin in the Sun.

1960 – On October 2, the “Sunday Bomber” began placing and detonating bombs on successive Sundays from October 2 through November 6, injuring dozens, killing a young teenager, and involving over 600 New York Police officers.

– On December 16, a mid-air collision occurred between TWA Flight 266 (inbound to Idlewild Airport, now JFK) and United Airlines Flight 826 (inbound to LaGuardia Airport) over Miller Field, Staten Island. The TWA aircraft crashed at the site, killing all aboard, while the United aircraft continued flying for about eight miles until it crashed in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, narrowly missing a school. All 128 aboard both aircraft died, along with six people on the ground in Brooklyn.

–  Bleecker Street Cinema active.

–  Sister city relationship established with Tokyo, Japan.

–  The city’s population was 7,781,984.

1961 – NYC Zoning Resolution implemented.

– The City University of New York and La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club were established.

– The New York Yankees won their 19th World Series title.

– Lutèce restaurant in business.

– The Italian Cultural Institute in New York was founded.

– Throgs Neck Bridge opens.

1962 – On March 1, American Airlines Flight 1 crashed immediately after takeoff from Idlewild Airport, killing all 95 on board.

– On May 28, Eero Saarinen’s award-winning TWA Flight Center opened at JFK Airport.

– On October 3, 23 people were killed and 94 injured when an improperly maintained and operated steam boiler exploded and ripped through a New York Telephone Company building cafeteria at lunchtime in the Inwood section of Manhattan.

– On November 30, Eastern Air Lines Flight 512 crashed when trying to make a go-round after failing to land at Idlewild Airport in the fog. Twenty-five of the 51 on board were killed.

– A New York City newspaper strike began on December 8, 1962-63.

– On December 11, the Board of Estimate unanimously rejected Robert Moses’s proposal to build a Lower Manhattan Expressway, which would have cut through from the Williamsburg Bridge to the Holland Tunnel and dramatically changed Soho and Little Italy.

– Philharmonic Hall and Delacorte Theater were opened.

– Sylvia’s Restaurant of Harlem in business.

– The New York Yankees won their 20th World Series title.

– Andy Warhol opened his first Factory.

The – New York Mets baseball team and Centro Civico Cultural Dominicano were founded.

1963 – In January, the revised New York City Charter created community boards within each borough.

– New York City Department of City Planning voted to demolish critically acclaimed Beaux-Arts style Pennsylvania Station.

– On March 7, the MetLife Building opened as the PanAm Building.

– On April 20, three brush fires on Staten Island destroyed 100 homes.

– On August 28, the Career Girls Murders occurred on the Upper East Side of Manhattan

– The New York Film Festival began.

– The American Folk Art Museum opened.

– Elaine’s restaurant and the New York Hilton Hotel began business.

– The New York Review of Books began publication.

1964 – In February, the public school boycott took place.

– On March 13, Kitty Genovese was murdered.

– In April 1964, the New York World’s Fair opened at Flushing Meadows, Queens.

– On May 16, anti-war protesters burn draft cards.

– On July 18, riots break out in Harlem in protest over the killing of a 15-year-old by a white New York Police officer. One person was killed, and 100 were injured in the violence.

– On November 21, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge between Brooklyn and Staten Island opened. At the time, the bridge was the longest in the world.

– The Center for Migration Studies of New York was established.

– The New York State Theater and Shea Stadium are open.

– Pennsylvania Station was rebuilt.

– Staten Island won the Little League World Series.

– Steeplechase Park closes.

1965 – On February 8, Eastern Air Lines Flight 663 crashed at Jones Beach when, after takeoff from JFK, it was forced to evade inbound PanAm Flight 212. All 84 on board are killed.

–  On February 21, Black nationalist leader Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom by three members of the Nation of Islam.

– On August 15, the Beatles perform at Shea Stadium.

– In October, Pope Paul VI arrived as the first Catholic pope ever to visit the U.S. and gave his “War Never Again” speech against U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

– On November 9, New York City was affected as part of the Northeast Blackout of 1965.

– The Velvet Underground musical group formed.

– WINS (AM) 1010 changed its format from standard pop to all news.

– Max’s Kansas City nightclub and Oscar de la Renta began in business.

– The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and Chelsea Theater Center were established.

1966 – On January 1, the New York City Transit workers went on strike for 12 days following failed contract negotiations between TWU Local 100 and the MTA.

– On January 1, John Lindsay was sworn in as the 103rd mayor.

– On October 17, a fire across 23rd Street from Madison Square killed 12 members of the New York City Fire Department when a floor collapsed beneath them. It was the worst day in the FDNY’s history until September 11, 2001.

– On November 28, the Black and White Ball was held.

1967 – On October 8, James “Groovy” Hutchinson, 21, an East Village hippie/stoner, and Linda Fitzpatrick, 18, a newly converted flower child from a wealthy Greenwich, Connecticut family, were found bludgeoned to death at 169 Avenue B, an incident dubbed “The Groovy Murders” by the press. Two drifters later pleaded guilty to the murders.

– Public Theater and Paley Park opened.

– South Street Seaport Museum was founded.

– Premiere of the musical Hair.

1968 – On June 3, Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol.

– On July 3, a man opened fire in Central Park, killing a 24-year-old woman and an 80-year-old man before being gunned down by police.

– New York magazine began publication.

– Madison Square Garden and Performing Garage opened.

– Studio Museum in Harlem and Liberty Plaza Park were established.

– The Ford Foundation Building was constructed.

– Columbia University protests of 1968.

– New York City teachers’ strike of 1968.

– The Singer Building was demolished. It was the tallest structure ever destroyed until the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001.

1969 – On January 12, the Jets won their only Super Bowl Championship, beating the Baltimore Colts.

–  On February 10, a Nor’easter killed 14 people and injured 68. Dubbed the “Lindsay Snowstorm,” outer borough residents, especially in Queens, accuse the city of favoring Manhattan for snow removal (streets in Queens were not cleared a week after the storm). Lindsay subsequently lost the Republican primary for re-election.

– On June 28, a questionable police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Village gay bar, was resisted by the patrons and led to a riot. The event helped inspire the founding of the modern homosexual rights movement.

–  On November 10, the Sesame Street children’s television program began broadcasting.

– The York Theatre Company was founded.

– El Museo del Barrio founded.

– Dance Theatre of Harlem was founded.

– The Javits Federal Building and Gulf and Western buildings were constructed.

– Interview magazine began publication.

– On October 16, the New York Mets win their first World Series title, defeating the Baltimore Orioles in five games.

1970 – On March 6, the Greenwich Village townhouse explosion occurred.

–  On May 8, the Hard Hat Riot transpired.

–  The First New York City Marathon ran. It was now the largest in the world.

–  LGBT Pride March began.

– The New York Knicks won their first NBA championship.

–  Film Forum, Anthology Film Archives, and International Peace Academy were established.

– The Knapp Commission began its investigation of police corruption.

1971 – On May 21, two New York Police officers, Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini, were shot by members of the Black Liberation Army in Harlem. The gunmen, Herman Bell and Anthony Bottom were rearrested in jail in connection with the 1971 killing of a San Francisco police officer. Bottom was released in 2020.

– Bella Abzug became the U.S. representative for New York’s 19th congressional district; Charles B. Rangel became the U.S. representative for New York’s 18th congressional district.

– The Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York was created to handle drug-related crimes.

1972 – On March 15, The Godfather, a movie about a fictional New York City Italian-American crime family, premiered at the Loew’s Theatre.

– On April 7, Mobster Joe Gallo was shot at Umberto’s Clam House in Little Italy. The incident served as the inspiration for Bob Dylan’s epic “Joey,” recorded in 1975.

– On August 22, John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturale held up a Brooklyn bank for 14 hours for cash to pay for Wojtowicz’s wife’s sex change operation. The scheme failed when the police arrived, leading to a tense 14-hour standoff. The police at JFK Airport killed Natuarale.

– Queens Museum of Art was founded.

– Quad Cinema and H&H Bagels in business.

– Abuses at Willowbrook State School on Staten Island exposed by Geraldo Rivera led to its ultimate closure.

– South Street Seaport restoration established.

1975 – Fiscal crisis begins.
1976 – May 18 Roosevelt Island Tramway begins operation. July 3 “Operation Sail,” international naval review of 225 vessels from 35 nations.

1973 – Kiss formed as the first rock and heavy metal band to wear kabuki makeup.

– On February 10, 40 workers are killed in an explosion while cleaning an empty LNG tank in Bloomfield, Staten Island.

– On March 3, the 102-year-old Broadway Central Hotel at 673 Broadway collapsed, killing four residents.

– On April 4, the World Trade Center towers were built.

– On August 11, DJ Kool Herc hosted a party at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, utilizing two turntables and scratching the records to create new music; hip-hop was born.

–  Co-op City, the largest cooperative apartment complex in the world, opened.

–  B&H Photoshop, CBGB music club, Gray’s Papaya, and Times Square TKTS booth in business.

– The New York Knicks won their second NBA championship.

–  Salsa music arises.

–  Nuyorican Poets Café was active.

–  Police Headquarters opens at One Police Plaza.

–  Consolidated Passenger Ship Terminal opens at Piers 88-90.

1974 – Punk rockers The Ramones form.

– On August 7, Philippe Petit’s highwire stunt was performed atop the World Trade Center.

–  Abe Beame became the city’s first Jewish mayor.

–  The village Halloween Parade began.

– The International Center of Photography was founded.

–  The W. R. Grace Building was constructed.

–  Bayview Correctional Facility began operation.

1975 – On January 24, Fraunces Tavern, a historical site in lower Manhattan, was bombed by the FALN, killing four people and wounding more than 50.

–  On June 24, Eastern Air Lines Flight 66 from New Orleans, Louisiana, struck the runway lights at Kennedy Airport, probably due to wind shear. 113 of the 124 people on board are killed.

–  On October 30, the “Ford to city: drop dead” news headline was published.

–  December 29: A bomb explodes in the baggage claim area of the TWA terminal at LaGuardia Airport, killing 11 and injuring 74. The perpetrators were never identified.

–  City fiscal crisis.

– The Museum of Broadcasting was founded.

–  Talking Heads musical group formed.

1976 – July 4: The bicentennial celebration involves a review of 16 tall ships as part of Operation Sail.

–  From July 12 to 15, the 1976 Democratic National Convention was held at Madison Square Garden in Midtown Manhattan.

–  On July 29, David Berkowitz, aka the “Son of Sam,” kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks that terrorized the city for the following year.

–  On October 10, the Giants NFL team ceases playing in the city and plays its first game in the Meadowlands at the new Giants Stadium.

–  On November 25, New York Police Officer Robert Torsney fatally shot unarmed 15-year-old Randolph Evans in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn. Torsney was found not guilty because of insanity the following year and was released from Queens’ Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in 1979, only to be placed under many rules and restrictions and denied a disability pension.

–  Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design opened.

–  Mortimer’s restaurant was in business.

–  The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation was formed.

–  Battery Park City was created on land reclaimed from the Hudson River, with three million cubic yards of soil and rock excavated from numerous locations throughout the city.

1977 –  On February 18, Homeowners Kiss plays their first Madison Square Garden show, the first of what would be six such shows during that decade (three more were in December 1977; all of these 1977 “Garden shows” were sold out, and two more afterward in July 1979.

–  On April 21, the musical Annie premieres.

–  On April 26, the grand opening of Studio 54 in Manhattan will take place.

–  On May 16, a New York Airways helicopter idling at the helipad on the MetLife Building – then the PanAm Building – toppled over, and its rotor blade was sheared off. The blade killed four people on the roof and then fell over the edge and down 59 stories and a block over to Madison Avenue, where it killed a pedestrian.

–  On May 25, a fire at the Everard Baths at 28 West 28th Street in Manhattan killed nine patrons.

–  On July 13-14, New York City again lost electrical power during the blackout of 1977. Unlike the previous blackout 12 years earlier, this blackout was followed by widespread rioting and looting. Many neighborhoods, most notably Bushwick, were almost completely devastated.

–  On August 10, David Berkowitz, the city’s “son of Sam” serial killer, was captured outside his Yonkers apartment and brought back to the city for indictment and detention.

–  On October 12: “Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx was burning.” During Game 2 of the 1977 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers, a fire rages out of control at an abandoned elementary school near Yankee Stadium. The images and a dramatic statement by sportscaster Howard Cosell on national television are widely seen as the symbolic nadir of a dark period in city history. The story of 1977 in New York City was later featured in such works as the film Summer of Sam by Spike Lee, the best-selling book Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx was Burning, and the television drama The Bronx was Burning.

–  On October 12, CitiCorp Center opened.

–  Drawing Center established.

–  Mainstream prominence of disco music was confirmed with the December 14 release of Saturday Night Fever (set in the Italian-American community of Brooklyn). Also that evening, city-formed heavy metal metallers Kiss played the first of their three-night return gigs through the 16th at Madison Square Garden, all sold out like their first such “Garden gig” on February 18.

–  Dean & DeLuca food shop, Big Apple Circus, Smith & Wollensky restaurant, and Christie’s branch office started business.

–  I ♥ NY advertising campaign began.

– The New York Yankees won their 2first World Series championship.

1978 – On January 1, Ed Koch became the 105th mayor.

–  On January 9, a new newspaper called The Trib was established

–  In May, David Berkowitz was sentenced to multiple 25-year-life terms for his 1976-1977 “Son of Sam” serial murders.

–  On July 28, a woman gave birth at the top of the Empire State Building.

–  In August-November, multi-union strikes of the city’s three major newspapers: The New York Times, New York Daily News, and New York Post.

–  On October 12, Rocker Sid Vicious allegedly stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen to death in their room in the Hotel Chelsea.

–  The New York Yankees won their 22nd World Series championship.

1979 – On February 13, the Guardian Angels, a non-profit international volunteer organization with the goal of unarmed crime prevention, was formed in Brooklyn by Curtis Sliwa.

–  On May 25, six-year-old Etan Patz vanished after leaving his SoHo apartment alone to walk to his school bus. Despite a massive search by the New York Police, the boy was never found and was declared legally dead in 2001.

–  On September 16, the Sugar Hill Gang released “Rapper’s Delight,” introducing Hip hop to the country and the world.

–  On October 2, Pope John Paul II visited the city. He gave a speech at the United Nations against all forms of concentration camps and torture in light of the then 40th anniversary of World War II’s first establishment of both in his native Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and continuation afterward by post-war Polish Communists.

–  New York Theatre Workshop was founded.

–  Geraldine Ferraro became U.S. representative for New York’s ninth congressional district.

– The New York Yankees came from behind to beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-4, on a day when they buried their team captain, Thurman Munson, with a game-winning 2-run hit by Bobby Murcer.

–  Performance Space 122 opened.

–  Fulton John Sheen, aka Fulton Sheen, American Catholic bishop and television and radio broadcasting personality, died at 84.

1980 – On March 14, ex-Congressman Allard Lowenstein was assassinated in his law offices at Rockefeller Center by Dennis Sweeney, a deranged ex-associate.

–  From April 1 to 11, the Second New York City Transit strike lasted 11 days.

–  On August 11-14, the 1980 Democratic National Convention was held at Madison Square Garden in Midtown Manhattan.

–  On September 25, the Grand Hyatt Hotel, on the site of the former Commodore Hotel near Grand Central Terminal, was opened, representing Donald Trump’s first completed real estate project.

–  On December 3, Staten Island Congressman John Murphy was convicted of bribery in the Abscam bribery scam, which convicted seven Congressmen.

–  On December 8, ex-Beatle John Lennon was murdered in front of his home in the Dakota.

–  In December, the Transit Authority grounded its fleet of Grumman Flxible buses due to cracks in their A-frames. The Transit Authority rented 150 old buses from Washington Metro.

–  ABC No Rio Social Centre was founded.

–  The Wooster Group (theatre troupe) was active.

The non-Hispanic white population totals 3,668,945, down over three million from 1940 and representing only 51.9% of the total population.

–  Sister city relationship established with Beijing, China.

1981 – On May 6, the Staten Island Ferry American Legion II crashed into a Norwegian freighter during the morning rush hour; 71 passengers were injured.

–  On July 3, the first article about “rare cancer seen in homosexuals” (AIDS) appears in the New York Times.

–  AIDS was reported from here, with the city as #1 in descending order of U.S. cases of this disease (San Francisco and Los Angeles, later the first city where symptoms of it were reported to the CDC in June of this year.

–  Run-D.M.C., Sonic Youth, and Beastie Boys musical groups formed.

–  Helmsley Palace Hotel in business.

1982 – On January 1, Ed Koch was sworn into his second term as 105th mayor.

–  On March 20, Frances Schreuder, nee Bradshaw, was arrested in her Manhattan townhouse at 10 Gracie Square for 1978’s Franklin Bradshaw murder of her multi-millionaire father that she forced her younger then-17 years old, son, Marc, into committing out of fear of her disinheritance from Franklin’s will.

–  On June 22, Willie Turks, an African American 34-year-old MTA worker, was set upon and killed by a white mob in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn.

–  On October 7, Cats premiered on Broadway and held the record for longest-running Broadway show from 1997 to 2006.

–  Institute for Puerto Rican Policy headquartered in New York City.

–  Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum opened.

–  Late Night with David Letterman television program began broadcasting.

–  Sister city relationships were established with Cairo, Egypt, and Madrid, Spain.

1983 – On April 15, the New York Post, under new owner Rupert Murdoch, issued the famous headline “Headless Body in Topless Bar.”

–  On September 15, Michael Stewart was allegedly beaten into a coma by New York Transit Police officers. Stewart died 13 days later from his injuries at Bellevue Hospital. On November 24, 1985, after a six-month trial, six officers were acquitted on charges stemming from Stewart’s death.

–  On October 6, Terence Cooke, the Catholic archbishop of New York, died at 62.

–  In November: Limelight nightclub opened

– On December 10, the Jets played the last NFL game in New York City at Shea Stadium. They subsequently moved to Giants Stadium in New Jersey.

–  Def Jam Recordings in business.

–  Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center incorporated.

– The Coney Island Mermaid Parade began.

–  Sister city relationship established with Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

–  Midtown New York City seen from 2 World Trade Center in 1984

– Recovery from the 1875 fiscal crisis marked by the successful issuance of new City notes.

1984 – On April 15, the Palm Sunday massacre occurred when Christopher Thomas, 34, murdered two women and eight children at 1080 Liberty Avenue in the East New York section of Brooklyn.

–  On June 23-29, Billy Joel performed seven live shows at Madison Square Garden in the second North American leg of his An Innocent Man Tour.

–  On October 29, 66-year-old Eleanor Bumpurs was shot and killed by police as they tried to evict her from her Bronx apartment. Bumpurs, who was mentally ill, was wielding a knife and had slashed one of the officers. The shooting provoked heated debate about police racism and brutality. In 1987, Officer Stephen Sullivan was acquitted of charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide stemming from the shooting.

– On December 22, Bernhard Goetz shot and wounded four unarmed black men on a two-train subway who tried to rob him, generating weeks of headlines and many discussions about crime and vigilantism in the media.

–  The New York Center for Independent Publishing was founded.

–  Philip Johnson’s 550 Madison Avenue was completed.

–  Paper magazine began publication.

–  Wigstock began.

The fictional Cosby Show (television program) began broadcasting.

1985 – On June 12, Edmund Perry, a returning graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, was shot to death in Harlem by undercover officer Lee Van Houten after Perry and his brother, Jonah, attacked Van Houten to get money for a film. Van Houten was acquitted the following month.

– On September 27, Hurricane Gloria made landfall with a broad, poorly defined center right past John F. Kennedy International Airport in Jamaica, Queens.

–  On November 5, Ed Koch was elected to a third and final term as mayor by a landmark margin, defeating New York City Council President Carol Bellamy.

–  On December 16, Gambino crime family boss Paul Castellano was shot dead in a gangland execution outside Sparks Steak House on E. 46th Street in Manhattan.

–  Palladium nightclub and Union Square Cafe in business.

–  Poets House established.

–  Artworld Guerilla Girls pranksters were active.

1986 – On January 1, Ed Koch was sworn into his third and final term as the city’s 105th mayor.

–  On March 7, Channel 5 changes its call letters from WNEW-TV to WNYW.

–  On March 17, St. Patrick’s Day – Rosanna Scotto joined WNYW Channel 5 as a news reporter for the station’s 10 p.m. weeknight newscast. At the time, she said: “In Manhattan, Rosanna Scotto, Channel 5 News”.

–  On April 2, Koch signs the city’s first-ever homosexual rights bill.

–  On July 7, A deranged man, Juan Gonzalez, wielding a machete, kills two and wounds nine on the Staten Island Ferry. In 2000, Gonzalez was granted unsupervised leave from his residence at the Bronx Psychiatric Hospital.

–  On August 26, the “preppie murder” occurred when Robert Chambers in Central Park murdered 18-year-old student Jennifer Levin after the two had left a bar to have sex in the park. The case was sensationalized in the press and raised issues over victims’ rights, as Chambers’ attorney attempted to smear Levin’s reputation to win his client’s freedom.

–  On October 4, Broadcaster Dan Rather was attacked on Park Avenue by two men, one of whom repeated, “Kenneth, what was the frequency?”

–  On October 27, the New York Mets won their second World Series title in franchise history, defeating the Boston Red Sox in seven games.

–  On November 13, Wollman Rink reopened after being shut for six years due to Donald Trump’s efforts.

–  On November 19, 20-year-old Larry Davis opened fire on police officers attempting to arrest him in his sister’s apartment in the Bronx. Six officers are wounded, and Davis eluded capture for the next 17 days, during which time he became something of a folk hero in the neighborhood. Davis was stabbed to death in jail in 2008.

– On November 24, two Port Authority police officers and a holdup were seriously shot and wounded in a shootout at a Queens diner.

– On December 20, a white mob in Howard Beach, Queens, attacked three African American men whose car had broken down in the predominantly white neighborhood. One of the men, Michael Griffith, was chased onto Shore Parkway, where he was hit and killed by a passing car. The killing prompted several tempestuous marches through the neighborhood led by Al Sharpton.

– Four World Financial Center was built.

– Le Bernardin restaurant in business.

1987 – On January 25, the New York Giants won Super Bowl XXI at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California, defeating the Denver Broncos, 39-20.

– On May 19, 11-year-old Juan Perez was mauled and killed by two polar bears after he and his friends sneaked into the enclosure at the Prospect Park Zoo that night.

– On June 16, Bernhard Goetz was acquitted of the four attempted murders but convicted of one illegal gun possession count in 1984’s subway shooting.

– On November 2, Joel Steinberg and his lover, Hedda Nussbaum, were arrested for the beating and neglect of their six-year-old adopted daughter, Lisa Steinberg, who died two days later from her injuries.

– The case provoked outrage that did not subside when Steinberg was released from prison in 2004 after serving 15 years.

– ACT UP was formed.

– The New York Observer began publication.

– Knitting Factory cultural venue and Restaurant Aquavit in business.

– Tibet House was founded.

– Dia Center for the Arts opened.

New York Cares was established.

1988 – On January 26, Phantom of the Opera opened on Broadway and earned the record for longest-running show.

– On April 1, Bright Lights, Big City was released, a period piece film about a cocaine-addicted young Pennsylvanian fact checker in Manhattan.

– The New York City Campaign Finance Board and Lower East Side Tenement Museum were established.

– World Financial Center was completed.

– Human Rights Watch was headquartered in the city.

– The Tompkins Square Park riot occurred.

1989 – On August 30, Leona Helmsley was convicted of tax evasion.

– On November 7, David Dinkins, Manhattan Borough President, was elected the city’s first African-American mayor.

– On December 29, the funeral of former New York Yankees great Billy Martin was held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan.

– New York became a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants.-

– Angelika Film Center opened.

– The City Commission on Public Information & Communication was created.

– The fictional Seinfeld television program began broadcasting.

– The City Council was redistricted and enlarged to 51 members; the Public Advocate was made an elected office; the Board of Estimate was disbanded, and its functions were split between the City Council and the Procurement Policy Board.

1990 – On January 1, David Dinkins became the city’s first African-American mayor.

– On January 25, Avianca Flight 52 to Kennedy Airport crashes at Cove Neck, Long Island, after missing an approach and running out of fuel. 73 of 158 passengers are killed.

– On March 8, The first of the copycat Zodiac Killer Heriberto Seda’s eight shooting victims are wounded in an attack in Brooklyn. Between 1990 and 1993, Seda wounded five and killed three in his serial attacks. He was captured in 1996 and convicted in 1998.

– On March 25, Arson at the Happyland Social Club at 1959 Southern Boulevard in the East Tremont section of the Bronx kills 87 people unable to escape the packed dance club.

– On September 2, Tourist Brian Watkins from Utah was stabbed to death in the Seventh Avenue – 53rd Street station by a gang of youths. Watkins was visiting New York with his family to attend the US Open Tennis tournament in Queens when he was killed defending his family from a gang of muggers. The killing marked a low point in the record murder year of 1990, in which 2,242 were recorded, and led to an increased police presence in New York.

– On September 13, the Law & Order TV show began.

– On November 5, Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League, was assassinated at the Marriott East Side Hotel at 48th Street and Lexington Avenue by El Sayyid Nosair.

– The city registered 2,245 murders, setting a record.

– The city’s population was 7,322,564.

1991 – On January 24: Arohn Kee raped and murdered 13-year-old Paola Illera in East Harlem while she was on her way home from school. Her body was later found near the FDR Drive. Over the next eight years, Kee murdered two more women before being arrested in February 1999. He was sentenced to three life terms in prison in January 2001.

– On July 23, The body of a four-year-old girl was found in a cooler on the Henry Hudson Parkway in Inwood, Manhattan. The identity of the child, dubbed “Baby Hope,” was unknown until October 2013, when 52-year-old Conrado Juarez was arrested after confessing to killing the girl, his cousin Anjelica Castillo, and dumping her body.

– On August 19, A Jewish automobile driver accidentally kills a seven-year-old African-American boy, thereby touching off the Crown Heights riots, during which an Australian Jew, Yankel Rosenbaum, was fatally stabbed by Lemrick Nelson.

– On August 28, a four-train crashed just north of 14th Street – Union Square, killing five people. Motorman Robert Ray, who was intoxicated, fell asleep at the controls and was convicted of manslaughter in 1992.

– On October 31, Scores, the first significant gentlemen’s club (strip club) in New York, opened.

– On December 28, nine people were crushed to death trying to enter the Nat Holman gymnasium at CCNY. The crowd was trying to gain entry to a celebrity basketball game featuring hip-hop and rap performers, including Heavy D and Sean Combs.

– Formation of the rap group Wu-Tang Clan from Staten Island.

1992 – On February 26, two teens were shot to death by 15-year-old Khalil Sumpter inside Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn an hour before a scheduled visit by then-mayor David Dinkins. Sumpter was paroled in 1998 at the age of 22.

– On March 22, ice buildup without subsequent de-icing caused USAir Flight 405 to crash on takeoff from LaGuardia Airport. Twenty-seven of the 51 on board were killed.

– On September 8, New York One, a television channel, launches on cable television.

– On December 10-13, a noreaster strikes the US Mid-Atlantic coast. The storm surge causes extensive flooding along the city shoreline.

– On December 17, Patrick Daly, Principal of P.S. 15 in Red Hook, Brooklyn, was killed in the crossfire of a drug-related shooting while looking for a student who had left his school. The school was later renamed the Patrick Daly School after the beloved principal.

– Guggenheim Museum SoHo opened.

– LAByrinth Theater Company was founded.

– Sister city relationships were established with Budapest, Hungary, and Rome, Italy.

1993 – On February 26, a bomb planted by terrorists exploded in the World Trade Center’s underground garage, killing six people and injuring over a thousand, as well as causing much damage to the basement.

– On June 6, the Golden Venture, a freighter carrying 286 illegal immigrants from China, runs aground a quarter-mile off the coast of Rockaway, Queens, killing ten passengers.

– On September 13, Late Night with Conan O’Brien premieres

– On December 7, Colin Ferguson shoots 25 passengers, killing six, on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train out of Penn Station.

– New Yorkers Against Gun Violence was headquartered in the city.

– Staten Islanders vote in favor of secession from the city.

– Sister city relationship established with Jerusalem, Israel.

1994 – On January 1, Rudy Giuliani became mayor.

– On March 1, a New York school bus shooting occurred. Rashid Baz, a Lebanese-born Arab immigrant, opened fire on a van carrying members of the Lubavitch Hasidic sect of Jews driving on the Brooklyn Bridge. A 16-year-old student, Ari Halberstam, later died of his wounds. Baz was acting out of revenge for the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron, West Bank.

– On June 14, the New York Rangers won the Stanley Cup, ending their 54-year drought. Brian Leetch became the first American to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

– In August, the Hackers On Planet Earth conference began.

– On August 31, William Tager shot and killed Campbell Theron Montgomery, a technician employed by NBC, outside of the stage of the Today show. Tager was also identified as one of possibly two men who assaulted CBS News anchor Dan Rather on Park Avenue in 1986.

– In September, Friends debuts on NBC.

– On December 15, Disgruntled computer analyst Edward J. Leary firebombs three trains with homemade explosives at 145th Street, injuring two teenagers. Six days later, he firebombs a crowded four train at Fulton Street, injuring over 40. Leary was sentenced to 94 years in prison for both attacks.

– On December 22, Anthony Baez, a 29-year-old Bronx man, dies after being placed in an illegal chokehold by New York Police Officer Francis X. Livoti. Livoti was sentenced to 7 and a half years in 1998 for violating Baez’s civil rights.[158]

New York Underground Film Festival and Hackers on Planet Earth conference begin.

1995 – On June 5, in a collision on the Williamsburg Bridge, a Manhattan-bound J train crashed into a stopped Manhattan-bound M train after passing a red light at high speed, killing one and injuring 50.

– On December 8, a long racial dispute in Harlem over the eviction of an African-American record store owner by a Jewish proprietor ended in murder and arson. 51-year-old Roland Smith Jr., angry over the proposed eviction, set fire to Freddie’s Fashion Mart on 125th Street and opened fire on the store’s employees, killing seven and wounding four. Smith also perished in the blaze.

– City website online (approximate date).[160]

– Luna Lounge in business.

– Dahesh Museum of Art was established.

1996 – On March 4, Second Avenue Deli owner Abe Lebewohl was shot and killed during a robbery. The murder of this popular deli owner and East Village fixture remains unsolved.

– On June 4, 22-year-old drifter John Royster brutally beat a 32-year-old female piano teacher in Central Park, the first in a series of attacks over eight days. Royster would go on to brutally beat another woman in Manhattan, rape a woman in Yonkers, and beat a woman, Evelyn Alvarez, to death on Park Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In 1998, Royster was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

– On July 17, TWA Flight 800 departs Kennedy Airport and crashes in the Atlantic Ocean south of Long Island, killing all 230 people on board.

– On October 26, the New York Yankees won the 23rd World Series championship, their first in 18 years, defeating the Atlanta Braves in 6 games.

– Magnolia Bakery in business.

– The Daily Show television program began broadcasting.

– Skyscraper Museum established.

1997 – On February 23: 1997 Empire State Building shooting.

– On May 30, Jonathan Levin, a Bronx teacher and son of former Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin, was robbed and murdered by his former student Corey Arthur.

– On August 9, Abner Louima was beaten and sodomized with a plunger at the 70th Precinct house in Brooklyn by several New York Police officers, who were led by Justin Volpe.

– On September 15, the Museum of Jewish Heritage opened.

– On November 7, a Manhattan couple, Camden Sylvia, 36, and Michael Sullivan, 54, disappeared from their loft at 76 Pearl Street in Manhattan after arguing with their landlord over a lack of heat in their apartment. The landlord, Robert Rodriguez, pleaded guilty to tax evasion, larceny, and credit card fraud following the missing people investigation. The couple was presumed dead.

– Chelsea Market, Balthazar (restaurant), and The Mercer Hotel in business.

– Center for Urban Pedagogy established.

1998 – On January 14, 1998, Bank of America robbery.

– On May 17, David Wells pitched a perfect game, as he and the New York Yankees defeated the Minnesota Twins, 4-0. It was the 2nd perfect game in Yankees history.

– On September 2, Swissair Flight 111 departs Kennedy Airport and crashes off the coast of Nova Scotia.

– On October 21, the New York Yankees won their 2fourth World Series championship, sweeping the San Diego Padres in 4, finishing with their highest ever with 125 wins and just 50 losses.

– The fictional Sex and the City television program began broadcasting.

– The Strokes musical group formed.

1999 – On January 3, 32-year-old Kendra Webdale was killed after being pushed in front of an oncoming subway train at the 23rd Street station by Andrew Goldstein, a 29-year-old schizophrenic. The case ultimately led to the passage of Kendra’s Law.

– On February 4, unarmed African immigrant Amadou Bailo Diallo was shot and killed by four New York City police officers, sparking massive protests against police brutality and racial profiling.

– On March 8, Amy Watkins, a 26-year-old social worker from Kansas who worked with battered women in the Bronx, was stabbed to death in a botched robbery near her home in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Her two assailants were sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

– In June, the Debut of the Staten Island Yankees marked the return of baseball to the Island since the demise in 1887 of the New York Metropolitans.

– On September 20, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit first debuts on NBC.

– On October 31, EgyptAir Flight 990 departed from Kennedy Airport and crashed off the coast of Nantucket.

– Don Diva magazine was headquartered in the city.

– Deaths in New York City from AIDS exceed 75,000 since the onset of the disease.

– City Hall Park restoration complete.

2000 – On January 21, American Psycho, a film about a psychopathic serial killing investment banker in Manhattan, was released.

– On March 16, Patrick Dorismond was shot and killed by a New York Police officer in a case of mistaken identity during a drug bust.

– On May 24, Wendy’s massacre in Flushing, Queens.  Seven employees were shot in the head, and five of them died.

– On October 25, the Yankees win Game 5 of the 2000 World Series versus the Mets.

– Acela Express train began operating between Washington, D.C., and Boston, stopping at New York Penn Station.

– The city’s population was 8,008,288. It was the first time the population officially reached this mark, and it marks the reversal of the suburban flight of the 1970s and 1980s with an increase of nearly one million residents over two decades. Over 1.2 million foreign-born residents arrive in New York between 1990 and 2000.

– The Polish Cultural Institute was founded in New York.

2001 – On January 17, an earthquake measuring 2.5 on the Ritcher Scale struck the city.

– On January 28, the New York Giants lose to the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XXXV.

– On May 10, actress Jennifer Stahl was killed with two other people in an armed robbery in her apartment above the Carnegie Deli in Manhattan. The victims were bound and shot point-blank in the head.

– On June 25, baseball returned to Brooklyn for the first time since the 1957 departure of the Dodgers with the first game of the Brooklyn Cyclones in Coney Island.

– On September 11, the two World Trade Center twin towers and several surrounding buildings were destroyed by two jetliners in part of a coordinated terrorist attack by radical terrorists (“9/11”), killing 2,606 people who were in the towers and on the ground.

– On November 4, the Yankees lose Game 7 of the 2001 World Series to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

– On November 12, American Airlines Flight 587 crashes into the Belle Harbor neighborhood of Queens shortly after takeoff from Kennedy Airport, killing all 260 onboard and five people on the ground.

– Neue Galerie New York opened.

– The Institute of Culinary Education was active.

– Sister city relationship established with London, United Kingdom.

– Liszt Institute New York opened.

2002 – On January 1, Michael Bloomberg became the 108th Mayor of New York.

– In January, New York City was put in a “Drought Warning” after a warm and dry winter. That was upgraded to a “Drought Emergency” in March until the Fall.

– On March 11, The Tribute in Light memorial was unveiled and lit up daily for the next month. It has since been lit up every September 11.

– The Tribeca Film Festival was founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff.

– The state granted the mayor authority over the city’s public schools.

– The mayor signed a bill banning smoking in all workplaces.

2003 – On January 24, four teenage boys drowned in the Long Island Sound near City Island when their overloaded dinghy sank. A communication misunderstanding between them and the 911 dispatcher contributed to their deaths.

– On February 15, between 300,000 and 400,000 people participated in the February 15, 2003, anti-war protests.

– On March 10, Police officers James Nemorin and Rodney Andrews are killed during an undercover drug sting in Staten Island. Their killer was initially sentenced to death, but this was changed to life in prison after the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional in the state.

– On May 16, 57-year-old Alberta Spruill died of heart failure due to the use of stun grenades when police raided her Harlem apartment looking for drugs after a tip from an unreliable informant.

– On July 23, Othniel Askew shot to death political rival City Council member James E. Davis in the City Hall chambers of the New York City Council.

– On August 14, New York lost power in a blackout that affected eight states and parts of Canada.

– On October 6, Ming of Harlem was rescued, along with an alligator in another room, in an apartment in East Harlem. Both animals are safely rescued.

– On October 11-12, The first-ever Open House New York Weekend took place, with more than 75 buildings opening to the public.

– On October 15, The Staten Island Ferry boat Andrew J. Barberi collides with a pier at the St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island, killing ten people and injuring 43 others.

– On October 25, the Yankees lose Game 6 of the 2003 World Series to the Florida Marlins.

– On November 3, The last 11 R33/36 World’s Fair cars make their final trip on the seven service, marking the end of the Redbird trains in the New York City Subway.

– On December 17, AirTrain JFK opened, now carrying over 10 million passengers annually.

– Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music was established.

– Time Warner Center was built.

– City 3-1-1 hotline and NYC Media launched.

– Bill passed requiring online access to all city reports and publications.

– The wd~50 restaurant in business.

– Sister city relationship established with Johannesburg, South Africa.

2004 – On February 22, all four New York City Subway tracks of the Manhattan Bridge were opened to service for the first time since 1986.

– On May 25, the body of 21-year-old Juilliard student Sarah Fox was found in Inwood Hill Park six days after she was reported missing.

– In July, the First Shake Shack opened in Madison Square Park.

– On August 30 – September 2: The 2004 Republican National Convention was held.

– Momofuku restaurant in business.

– Sister city relationship established with Brasília, Brazil.

2005 – On January 27, Nicole Dufresne, an aspiring actress, was shot dead in the Lower East Side section of Manhattan after being accosted by a gang of youths.

– On February 18, Trash bags containing the body parts of Rashawn Brazell, who was reported missing four days earlier, were found in the Nostrand Avenue station.

– On September 19, The first episode of How I Met Your Mother, set in Manhattan, aired.

– On October 31, Peter Braunstein sexually assaulted a co-worker while posing as a fireman, later leading officials on a multi-state manhunt. Braunstein was later sentenced to life.

– In November: After over 190 years in Manhattan, the Fulton Fish Market moves to Hunts Point in the Bronx.

– On December 20, The third New York City Transit strike lasted three days due to stiff penalties imposed on TWU Local 100 under the Taylor Law.

2008 – On February 25, Criminology graduate student Imette St. Guillen was brutally tortured, raped, and killed in New York City after being abducted outside the Falls bar in the SoHo section of Manhattan.  Bouncer Darryl Littlejohn was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life imprisonment.

– In April, Construction on One World Trade Center began.

– On April 1, New York University student Broderick Hehman was killed after being hit by a car in Harlem. Hehman was chased into the street by a group of black teens who allegedly shouted, “Get the white boy.” The death of Hehman echoed the death of Michael Griffith (manslaughter victim) 20 years earlier in Queens.

– On May 23, 7 World Trade Center was the first tower completed at ground zero.

– On May 29, Jeff Gross, founder of the Staten Island commune Ganas, was shot and wounded by former commune member Rebekah Johnson. After being featured on America’s Most Wanted, Johnson was captured in Philadelphia on June 18, 2007.

– On June 22, The body of 16-year-old Chanel Petro-Nixon was found in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, four days after she vanished.

– In July, parts of Queens suffered a blackout during a heatwave.

– On July 25, Jennifer Moore, an 18-year-old student from New Jersey, was abducted and killed after a night of drinking at a Chelsea bar. Her body was found outside a Weehawken motel. 35-year-old Draymond Coleman was convicted of the crime and sentenced to 50 years in 2010.

– On September 30, New York City music club CBGB closes.

– On October 11, a general aviation aircraft owned by New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle crashed into the 31st floor of the Belaire Apartments on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Lidle, 34, was killed in the crash along with his flight instructor.

– On November 25, Four New York Police officers fired a combined 50 shots at a group of unarmed men in Jamaica, Queens, wounding two and killing 23-year-old Sean Bell. The case sparks controversy over police brutality and racial profiling.

– New York City Global Partners was established.

– Gun offender registration ordinance enacted.

2007 – On January 2, film student Cameron Hollopeter suffered a seizure in the station and fell off the platform onto the tracks at the 137th Street-City College station. Wesley Autrey saved his life as a train was approaching.[190] Autrey was given numerous awards and prizes, and his two daughters were awarded scholarships.

– On March 14, 32-year-old David Garvin went on a shooting rampage in Greenwich Village, killing a pizzeria employee and two auxiliary police officers before New York Police officers fatally shot him.

– On July 18, A steam pipe explosion killed one and wounded 20 others near the corner of Lexington Avenue and East 41st Street in Manhattan.

– The New York Times Building was finished.

– Beaver José spotted in Bronx River.

– The City began planting one million trees.

2008 – On February 3, The New York Giants win Super Bowl XLII, defeating the previously undefeated New England Patriots.

– On February 12, Psychologist Kathryn Faughey was brutally murdered in her Manhattan office by a mentally ill man whose intended victim was a psychiatrist in the same practice.

– In March, the Times Square bombing occurred.

– On March 15, A crane collapse at a construction site in Turtle Bay killed seven and damaged adjacent buildings.

– On September 15, Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt.

– On October 3, the City Council votes to relax mayoral term limits to allow Michael Bloomberg to run and serve for a third term.

– On December 2, 25-year-old aspiring dancer Laura Garza disappeared after leaving a Manhattan nightclub with a sex offender named Michael Mele. Her remains were found in Olyphant, Pennsylvania, in April 2010. On the first day of his trial in January 2012, Mele admitted to killing Garza and pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter.

– On December 11, Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff was arrested.

– Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium are closed.

2009 – On January 15, US Airways Flight 1549 ditched in the Hudson River after both engines failed; all 150 passengers and five crew members were evacuated.

– Times Square began pedestrianization.

– 311 service initiated

– High Line Park Phase I and Bank of America Tower were completed.

– Kickstarter in business.

– Citi Field and the new Yankee Stadium were open.

– The New York Yankees win the World Series, the first since 2000 and 27th overall.

– Iraq Veterans Against the War is headquartered in the city.

– The NYC BigApps contest began.

2010 – On February 26, a Blizzard dumps 21 inches on Central Park, making the month of February the fourth snowiest in history.

– In May: 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt.

– On May: 2010 Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons held at UN.

– On May 29, the second Luna Park opened.

– On September 16, strong thunderstorms and two tornadoes hit Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, killing one woman when a tree fell onto her car on the Grand Central Parkway.

– Beekeeping was legalized.

– Humans of New York began publication.

– The Fictional Louie TV series)= began broadcasting.

– FoodCorps was headquartered in the city.

– The city’s population was 8,175,133; metro 18,897,109.[205] Manhattan’s white population exceeds 50% for the first time since the 1970s.

2011 – On February 11, Maksim Gelman went on a 28-hour rampage, killing five and wounding six others throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

– April: WeWork opened its first location in SoHo.

– On May 17, Weiner’s sexting scandal was first reported.

– On May 23, the smoking ban occurred in all parks, boardwalks, beaches, recreation centers, swimming pools, and pedestrian plazas.

– In June, High Line Phase II opened.

– On July 13, the body of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky was found dismembered in two locations in Brooklyn after a 35-year-old Orthodox Jewish clerk allegedly murdered him.

– On August 28, Hurricane Irene dumped heavy rain and flooded most of the city.

– On September 12, the National 9/11 Memorial opened.

– On September 17, Occupy Wall Street began.

2012 – On February 5, the New York Giants won a Super Bowl football contest over the New England Patriots.

– On June 1, Johan Santana threw the first no-hitter in New York Mets history, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 8-0. Santana throws 134 pitches during the historic night.

– On August 24, 2012, the Empire State Building shooting.

In October, the NBA Nets play their first game in the Barclays Center, bringing professional sports back to Brooklyn for the first time since the departure of the Dodgers in 1957.

– On October 29-30, Hurricane Sandy brought flooding and high winds, resulting in several deaths and widespread power outages. The New York Stock Exchange, public schools, and all mass transit services were closed as a result.[211] At least 43 deaths have been directly attributed to the storm in New York City alone.

2013 – On March 9, 16-year-old Kimani Gray dies after being shot by undercover New York police officers in Brooklyn.[

– On March 11, a vigil for Kimani Gray turned into a riot in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

– On May 21, the New York City Football Club was established.

– On September 21, The first NHL game ever played in Brooklyn with relocation from Long Island, the New York Islanders. The move ultimately did not go well, and in 2018, the team announced its intention to move out of Brooklyn back to Long Island.

– On November 13, the Four World Trade Center opened.

– On December 1, four people were killed and scores injured after a Metro-North Railroad train derailed near the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx.

– 21st Century Fox was headquartered in the city.

– The city’s population was 8,405,837.

2014 – On January 1, Bill de Blasio became mayor.

– On March 12, eight people were killed, and over 70 others were injured when an explosion in Harlem destroyed two five-story buildings. A gas leak was suspected as the likely cause of the explosion.

– On March 20, the .nyc internet domain name was established.

– On May 21, the National 9/11 Museum opened.

– On July 17: Death of Eric Garner.

– In September, High Line Phase III opened.

– On October 23, the Queens Hatchet attack occurred.

In October, 432 Park Avenue topped out, becoming the tallest building in New York City by roof height and the tallest residential building in the world.

– On November 3, One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere by architectural height, opened.

– On November 10, Fulton Center, a great subway and retail complex in Lower Manhattan, was completed.

– On December 20, 2014 killings of New York Police officers two police officers were killed.

2015 – In January, Miranda’s musical Hamilton premiered.

– On January 12, New York City launched IDNYC, a municipal identification card system.

– On March 26, two people were killed and 22 people were injured in the East Village of Manhattan after another gas explosion likely caused by a gas leak leveled three buildings.

– On May 2, Police Officer Brian Moore was murdered on duty in Hollis, Queens.

– In July, Disability Pride Parade was held.

– On September 7, the Subway Extension opened, making 34th Street-Hudson Yards the first new station in 25 years.

– On September 24-26, Pope Francis visited New York City and became an honorary New Yorker through an IDNYC municipal identification card.

– The Whitney Museum moved to Gansevoort Street.

– On November 1, the New York Mets lost Game 5 of the 2015 World Series to the Kansas City Royals.

2016 – On January 23, the city received a record 27.5 inches of snow from a blizzard.

– On March 3, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub (Oculus) was completed.

– On September 17, 2016, a bomb exploded in Chelsea, Manhattan, wounding 29 people. A second device — reportedly a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a mobile phone — was found four blocks from the site of the explosion and was removed safely. A suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, was apprehended two days later.

– On November 9: Anti-Trump post-election protests began.

– On December 31, The main location of Carnegie Deli closes.

– Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 was headquartered at the Trump Tower in the city

– Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016 was also headquartered in the city of Downtown Brooklyn.

2017 – On January 1, the Second Avenue Subway opened after decades of delay.

– On January 20, Queens native Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, the first from the outer boroughs to become president and the most recent New Yorker to become president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

– On January 21, Women protested against U.S. President Trump.

– The Kosciuszko Bridge was rebuilt.

– In April, over one million IDNYC municipal identification cards were registered by April 2017.

– On July 5, Police Officer Miosotis Familia was shot and killed in her command center vehicle in The Bronx. Her killer was then killed by responding officers,

– On September 17, the final print edition of the Village Voice was distributed.

– On October 31, a terrorist truck attack on a bike path near West Street kills eight and injures 11.

– On December 11: Attempted terrorist attack at the Port Authority injures 4.

– On December 28: An apartment building fire in Belmont, Bronx, kills 13 people and injures 14.

– The city registers only 290 murders, the lowest since 1928 and the lowest per capita since 1945.

2018 – On January 1, New Year was rung in at 10 degrees Fahrenheit, the coldest in 100 years and the second coldest on record.

– On March 11, a sightseeing helicopter crashed in the East River near the Upper East Side, killing five tourists.

– On June 11, Three World Trade Center opened.

– On June 20, 15-year-old Lesandro Guzman-Felix was murdered by members of the Trinitarios gang at a Bronx bodega in a case of mistaken identity.

– In July, 30 Hudson Yards was the tallest building in the Hudson Yards Redevelopment Project and features an 80-foot cantilever observation deck.

2019 – On May 19, Empire Outlets New York City, a retail complex in Staten Island, opened its doors after construction in 2015. This was the first outlet mall in New York City. SHoP Architects developed it.

– On June 10, a helicopter crashes into the AXA Equitable Center in Midtown, Manhattan, killing the pilot.

– On June 28, Central Park’s beloved Belvedere Castle reopened after a 15-month renovation reinvigorated the 1858 structure’s original look.

– On August 10, Jeffrey Epstein commits suicide in the Manhattan Detention Center while awaiting trial for recruiting underage girls for sexual service,

– On October 3, the launch of the 1fourth Street Busway (M14 Select Bus Service) took place.

– In 2019, there was a record number of 66.6 million visitors to New York City and an industry’s economic impact of $80.3 billion.

2020 – Over 1.3 million people are registered with New York City’s municipal identification card (“IDNYC”) program.

– In February, genomic analyses suggested that COVID-19 disease had been introduced to New York as early as mid-February and that most cases were linked to Europe rather than Asia.

– On March 1, a 39-year-old healthcare worker who had returned home to Manhattan from Iran on February 25 became the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in New York.

– On March 15, all New York City Department of Education schools closed until at least mid-April.

– On March 22, the city went into lockdown amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

– On March 30, the Mercy-class hospital ship USNS Comfort arrived in New York City to assist against the COVID-19 pandemic.

– On May 8, The Trump Death Clock website unveiled a companion billboard in Times Square. The Trump Death Clock was based on the claim that had measures been implemented one week earlier, 60% of American COVID-19 deaths would have been avoided.

– On May 25, the murder of George Floyd leads to a series of protests in New York City and throughout the world.

– On May 25, Christian Cooper was subjected to false accusations in the Central Park birdwatching incident. The first online Black Birders Week, May 31 to June 5, 2020, was created in response to the incident.

– In June, Bicyclists formed Street Riders NYC, which held several protests through December 2020 to raise awareness about systemic racism and police brutality.

– On December 14, Sandra Lindsay, a Long Island Jewish Medical Center registered nurse, became the first recipient of the first dosage of the then-only approved Emergency Use Authorization.

– The COVID-19 vaccine – the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was introdduced.

– The city’s population was 8,804,190.

2021 – On January 4, Registered Nurse Sandra Lindsay received her second and final dose of an EUA-approved COVID-19 vaccine.[247] With the second dosage, she was expected to have a 95% immunity to COVID-19.

– On February 5, SOMOS Community Care opened Yankee Stadium as a COVID-19 vaccination “mega-site” operated by the SOMOS and the New York National Guard. Former Yankees Mariano Rivera participated in the opening of the site.

– On February 10, Citi Field was converted into a COVID-19 vaccination “mega-site” operated by the City of New York.

– On September 1, Hurricane Ida brought heavy rain and intense flooding to the city, crippling the New York City Subway and commuter rails.

– On November 10, the Concrete Jungle was also for scaffolding surrounding that concrete. It is a beautiful landmark school built 80 years ago and covered in scaffolding, boards, and netting.

2022 – On January 1, Eric Adams became the 110th Mayor of New York City.

– On January 9, seventeen people were killed in an apartment fire in the Bronx.

– On January 21, a shooting in Harlem killed one New York Police officer, Jason Rivera, instantly. His partner, Wilber Mora, died four days later. The shooter, LaShawn McNeil, was killed by another officer.

– On April 12, a shooting on the N train inside the 36th Street subway station in Sunset Park (Brooklyn) injured 29 people.

2023 – On April 16, The Phantom of the Opera closed after 35 years on Broadway, having set the record for the longest-running Broadway show

– On April 18, a collapse in a parking garage in lower Manhattan left one dead and six injured

– On June 6, 2023, Central Canada wildfires caused dangerous air pollution and extreme smoke around the city. Many people consider it a serious health warning and take precautions by wearing a mask.

– Pedestrians experienced trouble breathing, eye itching, and lung damage.

– On June 28, Domingo German of the New York Yankees threw the 24th perfect game in MLB history against the Oakland Athletics, defeating them 11-0. German became the fourth Yankee to throw a perfect game.

– On July 14, suspected Long Island Serial Killer Rex Heuermann was arrested in Midtown Manhattan as a suspect in the murders of three of “the Gilgo Four” victims, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, and Amber Costello.

– On August 4, Social Media influencer Kai Cenat incited extreme violence in Union Square, Manhattan. Cenat held a PlayStation 5 and gift card giveaway with Twitch streamer Fanum. More than a thousand of his followers appeared at the event. Some of the teenagers showed up, climbed on buses, broke car windows, and clashed with the New York Police; the chaos ended in Cenat later being charged due to the outburst.

– On August 23, seventeen-year-old Noah Legaspi jumped off the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Columbus Circle. He falls onto the glass awning, and his body splits in half while his arm lands on the other side of the street. The tragic event occurred because of a breakup between him and his girlfriend. The teenager fell 750 feet from the rooftop of the West Side five-star hotel.

– September 29: Tropical Storm Ophelia flooded the city with eight inches of rain, a record for the city. The rain caused wild scenes of buses flooded, submerged cars, and people wading knee-deep through water. La Guardia Airport got hit badly with flooded terminals and many delayed flights. A sea lion at Central Park Zoo escaped her pool enclosure due to the torrential rain but was eventually returned safely to the facility’s grounds.

– In October, Pro-Palestine and Pro-Israel rallies occurred throughout the city, including Washington Square Park and near the United Nations, after the savage attack by the terrorist group Hamas on Israel. Governor Kathy Hochul eventually went to Israel in support of the country, with New York City having the highest population of Jewish people outside of Israel.

– More than 95,000 migrants entered the city throughout the year. Many of them were housed throughout the five boroughs. The Roosevelt Hotel became a hot spot destination for new arrivals.

2024 – On January 2, a very rare 1.7 Magnitude earthquake jolts Roosevelt Island and Queens residents.

©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, January 2024.

Also See:

New York City

New York City Photo Gallery

New York – The Empire State

New York History

Sources:

Archaeology
New York City
On This Day
Wikipedia