Contents

1   Manhattan Is Discovered

2   First Settlers Arrive

3   Peter Stuyvesant Takes Command

4   The English Name It New York

5   The Leisler Rebellion

6   Pirates Infest New York

7   Of Queesting and Fribbles

8   The Peter Zenger Trial

9   The City Goes Mad

10   Duel for Empire

11   The Stamp Act Rebellion

12   Revolutionary War

13   The Doctors’ Riot

14   The Capital of the Nation

15   The Hamilton-Burr Duel

16   John Jacob Astor Fools the President

17   Sawing Off Manhattan Island

18   The Gangs of New York

19   Down With Foreigners!

20   The Astor Place Riot

21   Slavery and Abolitionism

22   The Police Riot

23   Abraham Lincoln Arrives

24   The Draft Riots

25   Confederates Try to Burn Down New York

26   The Tweed Scandals

27   Thomas Edison Lights the City

28   Building Brooklyn Bridge

29   Metropolitan Opera House Opens

30   Creation of the Statue of Liberty

31   The Blizzard of 1888

32   New York’s First Skyscraper

33   Ellis Island Opens

34   The Reverend Parkhurst Samples Vice

35   Hearst Wages War

36   Creation of Greater New York

37   Opening of the Twentieth Century

38   The General Slocum Disaster

39   Colonel House and Woodrow Wilson

40   The Triangle Fire

41   The League of Nations Opens on Broadway

42   Wall Street Is Bombed

43   The Wall Street Crash

44   The Great Depression

45   The Jimmy Walker Scandals

46   Fiorello LaGuardia Becomes Mayor

47   Nazis Plan to Bomb New York

48   William O’Dwyer Sweats

49   Robert F. Wagner’s Administration

50   “This City Is the Center of the Universe”

Selected Bibliography

Index