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New York’s last hundred or so years have continued to be a time of great contrasts.
With tremendous highs and devastating lows – some unique to New York City and New York State, and some experienced throughout the country. All are part of what makes New York what it is.
▲ As its name implies, a subway is a (mostly) belowground system of transportation. The project of building a subway in New York City was pushed along after a huge blizzard in 1888. With only aboveground transportation at that time, the city was paralyzed. Construction on the subway began in 1900. By 1904, the first part of what would become an extensive subway system opened. The original route was 9 miles long and had 28 stops. The cost of that first ride was 5¢, equal to about $1.63 today.
◀ New York City’s subway system has grown by leaps and bounds. And it’s still growing. Today, the system consists of 665 miles of tracks connecting 472 stations. It includes 28 different lines, some with overlapping routes. On average, about 4 million people ride the subway to different parts of the city every day. For those who need it, a subway map like this one is displayed in every station. The fare is $2.90.
◀ The “good life” in New York ended on October 29, 1929. That day, the stock market crashed. (A stock market is a place where people buy and sell shares in a company. The shares are called stock.) People lost all – or almost all – the money they had invested in stocks. Banks ran out of cash as people tried to withdraw their savings. Businesses went broke. People lost their jobs, and thousands became homeless. This was the “face” of the Great Depression. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the governor of New York State at the time. In August 1931, he put in place a jobs program. The aim of the program was to reduce unemployment. About his approach, Roosevelt said this:
Upon the State falls the duty of protecting and sustaining those of its citizens who, through no fault of their own, find themselves . . . unable to maintain life.
In 1934, Robert Moses was appointed the parks commissioner of New York City. He remained in that position until 1960. During those 26 years, Moses helped shape the city, building 13 bridges, 416 miles of parkways, and 658 playgrounds. The site of the 1939 World’s Fair in Queens (right) was among Moses’s projects, as was the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn’s Coney Island. Moses’s work as commissioner, however, was controversial. His projects displaced 250,000 people. They destroyed immigrant and Black neighborhoods. Why? To make room for more roads. ▶
Think Piece!
Think about Robert Moses’s many achievements. Do you think they were worth the price of destroying neighborhoods? Could there have been another way? What might it have been?
◀▲ The end of World War II in 1945 brought nearly 1.5 million soldiers home to New York. Each would be able to claim benefits under the GI Bill. The GI Bill was federal legislation designed to help veterans pay for college. To make room for these new students, New York Governor Thomas Dewey established a state system of universities – the State University of New York, or SUNY. Founded in 1948, with campuses throughout the state, today SUNY is the biggest public university system in the country. Shown here is the SUNY System Administration Building, in Albany.
Throughout the 20th century, New York became home to many monumental construction projects. Here are just a few of them.
1931
Upon its completion and until 1971, the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world. It rises 102 stories and has lookouts on the 86th and 102nd floors. The building has made an appearance in many movies, the most notable of which is King Kong.
1952
The United Nations (UN) is the place where member nations come together to work toward their goal of maintaining world peace and security. Members also work to reduce suffering and poverty and to improve people’s lives in other ways. The area of land occupied by the UN is officially international territory. For this reason, the UN has its own security force, fire department, and post office.
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1954
The New York State Thruway is a 570-mile system of highways. The main highway connects New York City and Buffalo. Other branches connect the state’s other main cities, its tourist attractions, and its rural areas. The system is one of the longest toll roads in the country.
1959
The Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System remains an essential link for shipping goods between Duluth, Minnesota, and the Atlantic Ocean, a distance of more than 2,300 miles. The seaway has more than 110 ports and 17 locks. The locks allow ships to be raised and lowered on the waters between Montreal and Lake Erie. These places have a difference in elevation of about 600 feet, the height of a 60-story building. In addition, a dam that spans the New York State–Ontario border provides hydroelectric power to communities in the U.S. and Canada.
1973
The original World Trade Center was a group of seven buildings, including the Twin Towers. At 110 stories, the towers were the tallest buildings in the world at the time. A terrorist attack on the North Tower in 1993 is often described as foreshadowing the much more deadly attack years later.
▲ Whether it was the World Trade Center or dozens of other skyscrapers, the Mohawk Skywalkers were there. These Native American ironworkers worked on the “high steel” of many of Manhattan’s tallest buildings. Lynn Beauvais’s grandfather worked as a “skywalker.” Her grandmother advised her not to visit the site of the work. Here’s what Beauvais said about that:
‘It’ll make you nervous,’ she said – and it does. I went to lower Manhattan later to see my brother Kyle Beauvais. He was working five stories up, and I saw him walking outside of the building to come see me. I couldn’t stand to watch him.
Think Piece!
Think about the height of One World Trade Center. Why do you think the height was set to reach 1,776 feet above the ground? What is your reaction to this idea?
◀ In 2020, the world was hit by the pandemic known as COVID-19. In the United States, New York City was the first center of the illness. Schools and businesses shut down. Hospitals filled up. People stayed home. Almost everyone wore face masks to protect themselves and others when they went out. In late 2020, the first vaccines were available. By the time the pandemic had slowed down, over 80,000 New Yorkers had died, with more than half of those deaths in New York City alone. The virus that causes COVID continues to mutate, or change, so more variations of the vaccine continue to be developed.
