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Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History

 
Gotham
The Secret Man Behind the World’s Most Visible Building

The Secret Man Behind the World’s Most Visible Building

By Jason M. Barr and Ann Berman

And yet almost all the stories about the origins of this New York landmark [the Empire State Building], online and in print, are inaccurate. They all omit the pivotal, behind-the-scenes role played by Louis Graveraet Kaufman (LGK) (1870-1942), the secret schemer, without whom the Empire State Building would not have been built.  LGK’s hidden machinations irrevocably changed Gotham — and world — history, yet few today know his name.

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Andrew Holter: Going Around

Andrew Holter: Going Around

Interviewed by Rob Snyder

From 1949 until his death in 1997, Murray Kempton was a distinct presence in New York City journalism. Peddling around town on a three-speed bicycle wearing a three-piece suit, he wrote about everything from politics to jazz to the Mafia. His writing was eloquent, his perspective unique, and his moral judgements driven by a profound sympathy for losers, dissenters and underdogs. […] Going Around: Selected Journalism / Murray Kempton (Seven Stories Press, 2025), edited by Andrew Holter, brings Kempton’s work to old admirers and a new generation of readers.

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Glenn Dyer, The Era Was Lost: The Rise and Fall of New York City’s Rank and File Rebels

The Era Was Lost: The Rise and Fall of New York City’s Rank and File Rebels

Review By Benjamin Serby

Dyer laments that “a politically self-aware working class” no longer exists anywhere in the United States, including New York City. It would seem that until something profoundly shifts in our political culture, workers will simply defend what they already have rather than push for more. With longstanding institutional, legal, and economic arrangements in nothing short of crisis, perhaps this is the moment when the wheel of history — stalled fifty years ago — finally begins to turn once more.

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Sheila Gerami, The Hall of Fame for Great Americans: A Biography of Stanford White’s Forgotten Memorial

The Hall of Fame for Great Americans: A Biography of Stanford White’s Forgotten Memorial

Review By Paul Ranogajec

The Hall of Fame for Great Americans, a group memorial and patriotic monument on the campus of the Bronx Community College, is a rich site for interrogating a range of cultural and political questions about American society from the 1890s to the present. Sheila Gerami’s book brings the now obscure monument to the attention of art historians and others who might want to approach New York’s memorial landscape from new angles.

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Cultural Diversity, Ethnic Tensions, and Economic Marginality in an Early Bronx Settlement — Part 2

Cultural Diversity, Ethnic Tensions, and Economic Marginality in an Early Bronx Settlement — Part 2

By Marian Swerdlow

Only one church building from the time of the ancient Village still stands, the former Potts Memorial Church on Washington Avenue.  As for the “successor” buildings these congregations moved into after the dissolution of the Village, three of them — the former St. John’s German Evangelical Lutheran Church on Fulton Avenue, the First Congregational Church of Morrisania on Forest Avenue, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on Washington Avenue — still stand, although just outside the borders of the ancient Village. The latter two retain their  original congregations. Each of the three is a beautiful building in a very different style, and each well worth a visit.  The demolitions of the magnificent third St. Augustine’s church (1895 - 2013), and of the historic former Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church (2019), are part of the story of an area that has been one of the poorest in New York City for over half a century. 

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Cultural Diversity, Ethnic Tensions, and Economic Marginality in an Early Bronx Settlement — Part 1

Cultural Diversity, Ethnic Tensions, and Economic Marginality in an Early Bronx Settlement — Part 1

By Marian Swerdlow

The Village of Morrisania, founded in 1848, was the first area west of the Bronx River to be densely settled in what today is the Bronx. Despite this historic significance, almost nothing has been published about it in the past century, possibly because of the scarcity of resources in the community that is today in the ancient Village’s footprint. 

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Davida Siwisa James: Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill

Davida Siwisa James: Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill

Interviewed by Rob Snyder

Davida Siwisa James explores two parts of Harlem in her book Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton’s Old Harlem Neighborhood Through the Centuries, published by the Empire State Editions imprint of Fordham University Press. Exploring four centuries of life in a part of upper Manhattan that stretches from 135th Street to 165th Street and from Edgecombe Avenue to the Hudson River, James looks at the encounters between the Lenape and Dutch settlers, the rural village that was Harlem, and the Harlem Renaissance luminaries who lived in Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill.

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Which Way to the Promised Land? Mabel Lee at the Intersection of Gender and Race

Which Way to the Promised Land? Mabel Lee at the Intersection of Gender and Race

By Mimi Yang

Oppressed people across cultures embrace the Exodus narrative, in which Moses delivers the Israelites from slavery, as a source of hope and strength. “The Promised Land” has become more than a physical locale for modern-day seekers; it represents a cultural and spiritual sphere that offers freedom, equality, and fulfillment. Mabel Ping Hua Lee (李彬华1896 – 1966), a Chinese feminist whose work and commitment was on par with her contemporary suffragists, also sought the Promised Land — a place for a better life and dreams for happiness and fulfillment. New York City entered Lee’s life as the gate, the world, and the destiny of her Promised Land. Intriguingly, her feminism and dedication to securing the universal right to vote originated from a seemingly distant cultural background.

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Quarantine Scenes in Staten Island History

Quarantine Scenes in Staten Island History

By Carlos Santiago

New York City’s borough of Staten Island has a long history of quarantines and public reactions to them. Just over five miles from Manhattan, Staten Island has faced numerous disease outbreaks, with quarantine measures playing a central role in containment efforts. In the nineteenth century, mass immigration and the spread of infectious diseases overwhelmed the city, leading to stricter quarantine enforcement.

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Dawn Day Biehler: Animating Central Park

Animating Central Park: A Multispecies History

By Dawn Day Biehler

I chose to investigate Central Park mostly because its architecture and architects heavily influenced other parks across the US. My choice of Central Park was also motivated by my experience growing up in upstate New York. I was concerned about the relationship between New York City and its suburban and rural hinterlands – both the cultural meanings of city and countryside, and how the city exploited more land, water, plant and animal life, and human labor as it grew.

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