Note: I use present-day names. Within each decade, things are not necessarily in chronological order.
Manhattan circa 1600, looking north.
1600: Population: 1,000?
- 1600s: The Delaware – for at least the last 1,000 years. Munsee language, Eastern Woodland culture.
- 1610s: Juan Rodriguez’s trading post, Dutch fort.
- 1620s: The Dutch: “Manhattan was sold for $24”. Black slaves.
- 1630s:
- 1640s: Bowling Green Massacre (the real one); Kieft’s War drives the Delaware north out of Manhattan.
- 1650s: Harlem, Free Blacks farm what is now Washington Square Park.
- 1660s: The British. New York English, yellow fever epidemic, the first of many.
- 1670s:
- 1680s: Jamaica, Queens
- 1690s:
Wall Street in 1660 – when it still had a wall. And when Water Street was still on the water. North-east is up.
Land added to lower Manhattan from 1650 to 1980. The red rectangle is the part shown in the previous map. North-east is up.
1700: Population: 5,000.
- 1700s: 42% of households have slaves.
- 1710s: slave uprising, African Burial Ground now in use.
- 1720s:
- 1730s:
- 1740s: slave conspiracy of 1741.
- 1750s: Columbia University.
- 1760s:
- 1770s: Santa Claus.
- 1780s: The US. George Washington’s inauguration. Book of Negroes.
- 1790s: NYSE, US Supreme Court, African Free School.
Map of lower Manhattan in 1798. Wall Street is labelled with white lettering (lower left). North is up.
1800: Population: 60,489
- 1800s: New York Post.
- 1810s: street grid north of 14th Street, Staten Island Ferry, Citigroup.
- 1820s: Con Ed (then a gaslighting company). Slavery abolished.
1830s: NYU, Union Theological Seminary, cholera epidemic kills thousands.- 1840s: NYPD, AP, CUNY, CCNY, Irish wave begins.
- 1850s: Central Park, New York Times, Harper’s, Singer sewing machines, Steinway pianos.
- 1860s: Draft Riots, The Nation. There are 20 minstrel shows.
- 1870s: Boss Tweed scandal, St Patrick’s cathedral, Bloomingdale’s, Museum of Natural History.
- 1880s: Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Dodgers, Goldman Sachs, Life, Cosmopolitan, Wall Street Journal, electric power plant (Pearl Street Station), Jewish wave begins.
- 1890s: Ellis Island, Vogue, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”.
Manhattan and Brooklyn, circa 1900. Queens (upper left) is still mostly green. Ships everywhere. East is up.
1900: Population: 3,437,202
- 1900s: Ota Benga, NYC subway, Times Square Ball Drop, New York Yankees, Manhattan Bridge, Flatiron Building, Amsterdam News, Schomburg Center, teddy bears, air conditioning.
- 1910s: Daily News, W.E.B. Du Bois, the Reuben sandwich, Grand Central Station, Merrill Lynch, Salomon Brothers, McGraw-Hill, Titanic fails to arrive.
- 1920s: Marcus Garvey at his height, Harlem Renaissance, Apollo Theater, NMAI, New Yorker, CBS, NBC, NBC logo, Time, New York Giants, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Crash of ’29.
1930s: Empire State Building, Chrysler Building, Lincoln Tunnel, Radio City Music Hall, Muzak, Scrabble, Betty Boop films, 1939 World’s Fair.- 1940s: “Ed Sullivan Show”, ABC, TV Guide, WNBC-TV (Channel 4), credit cards, New York Knicks, bebop, Birdland, Billie Holiday, Harlem Riot, Jackie Robinson, Puerto Rican wave begins.
- 1950s: UN, Guggenheim, Seagram Building, “Raisin in the Sun”, Village Voice, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, Sweet’N Low, Harlem Writers Guild.
- 1960s: Malcolm X at his height – and James Baldwin, Baldwin-Kennedy meeting, 1964 World’s Fair, Blackout of 1965, Time Life books, New York Mets, Negro Ensemble Company, Rolling Stone, Stonewall Riot, “Sesame Street”, Toni Morrison.
- 1970s: Essence, heroin epidemic, salsa, hip hop, World Trade Center, Son of Sam, Crazy Eddie, General Tso’s chicken, Blackout of 1977, I ♥ NY, Studio 54, CBGB, HBO.
- 1980s: Crack Era, gentrification, “The Cosby Show”, MTV, Def Jam, “Video Music Box”, Fort Greene Renaissance, Spike Lee, Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Stewart, Yusef Hawkins, Edmund Perry, Central Park Jogger, June Jordan, “Seinfeld”.
- 1990s: Fox News, MSNBC, “The Daily Show”, “Charlie Rose”, Happy Land Fire, Bad Boy Records, Roc-A-Fella, Erykah Badu, VICE Media, Heavy.com, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo.
Manhattan circa 2007, looking north.
2000: Population: 8,008,278
- 2000s: 9/11, Alicia Keys, Time Warner Center, Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Smooth, Tumblr, Nixzmary Brown, Sean Bell, Crash of ’08, Fall of Lehman Brothers.
- 2010s: Occupy Wall Street, “stop and frisk” at its height, Ramarley Graham, #Nerdland, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Hurricane Sandy, One World Trade Center, Eric Garner, Peter Liang.
– Abagond, 2017, 2018.
Sources: mainly TimeOut, NYC Architecture, The Right Stuff, Wikipedia.
See also:
- New Angouleme – as it was in 1524
- New York
- Times Square through time – takes a somewhat longer view, from 5 billion years ago to 5 billion years from now.
- How daily life has changed, 1984-2014
Abagond 
Just wondering when any land reclamation work was done around Manhattan and where it was done. I know that the shape of Manhattan has changed since the 1600s.
And… will a future post be on Manhattan pre-1600?
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Reblogged this on Người Đến Từ Bình Dương.
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Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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@ jefe
I just added a map that shows what was added to lower Manhattan when. I put it right after the 1660 map.
I want to do a post on the geological history of Manhattan and then one for each of the past five centuries: 1500s, 1600s, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s. And some of the things listed in this post, like the African Burial Ground, the Draft Riots and the Harlem Renaissance.
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I am amazed that so much reclamation was done pre-1800. I wonder how so much earth was ferried to that location and from where. There are not exactly many mountains in Manhattan that could be easily stripped or earth and dumped there from a horse cart. Or maybe they did it by boat.
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@ Jefe
I don’t know the specifics of the Manhattan land extension, but I do know that landfill doesn’t have to use a lot of dirt. Using refuse and garbage is actually a very old technique, not a modern concept. You can also fill much of the lower depth with rocks and stones.
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One important event has been left out: The chartering of the modern City of New York late in the 19th Century. The five boroughs became Greater New York, as it is known, on Jan. 1, 1898. Before that, New York City consisted of Manhattan and part of the Bronx. Each borough is an individual county.
Some nuances: About one-half of the modern Bronx was part of New York City prior to 1898, all of land west of the Bronx river.
The City of Brooklyn had annexed all of the towns in Kings County. Kings is the name of the county the borough of Brooklyn occupies.
The borough of Queen occupies Queens County. When New York City was consolidated in 1898, the eastern part of Queens County was split off to form Nassau County.
The borough of Staten Island occupies the County of Richmond. The geographical place is called Staten Island, but the borough was named Richmond until the mid-1970s.
Brooklyn has long been the most populous borough, maintaining a population above 2,000,000 since the 1920 census. The Queens now has become the fastest growing borough, and could overtake Brooklyn after the mid-21st Century. But all boroughs are growing at a consistent rate.
New York City’s population could exceed 9,000,000 by 2050 and 10,000,000 by 2100. The theoretical population limit of New York City under present land use laws might be around 16,000,000, according to a presumably informed source.
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^ Maybe the title of this post should be “Manhattan: a brief history: 1600-2017” instead.
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Interesting info. Thanks
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