On This Day, At This Place: September 16, 1920

On September 11, thousands gathered at Ground Zero to honor those killed fifteen years earlier when commercial airliners were repurposed into deadly missiles, striking a blow at an iconic symbol of capitalism by targeting prominent buildings in New York’s Financial District. On September 16, tens of thousands walk down Wall Street unaware that nearly a...
The Presumed Target: Apparently believing that big things come in small packages, J. P. Morgan & Company settled into its new headquarters at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in 1913. Occupying an unidentified, unadorned four-story stone building in a growing neighborhood of steel-frame corporate skyscrapers, the firm saw no need for extra notoriety or additional rent.

Today in History

1440 – Gilles de Rais, one of the earliest known serial killers, suspected to have killed hundreds of children, is taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes. Sentenced to execution by hanging and burning, the French serial killers died on October 26 of that year....

A Matter of Truss

The pedestrian bridge planned for West Thames Street, currently seven years behind schedule, is now slated to begin construction before the end of this year, but its estimated cost has almost doubled in nine months and nearly tripled since the previous opening date of 2009. The project’s planners hope to save money, however, by demolishing...
An artist's rendering of the proposed West Thames pedestrian bridge, which is slated to begin construction before the end of this year, with a projected completion date of early 2018.

A Niou Day in Lower Manhattan

Financial District resident Yuh-Line Niou has won the primary race to determine which of six candidates would get the Democratic Party nomination to represent Lower Manhattan’s 65th Assembly district in Albany for the next two years. Although the general election is in November, the heavily “blue” landscape of Lower Manhattan makes the nomination of the...

Today in History

1541 – After three years of exile, John Calvin returns to Geneva to reform the church under a body of doctrine known as Calvinism. 1609 – Henry Hudson reaches the river that would later be named after him 1814 – In a turning point in the War of 1812, the British fail to capture Baltimore....
The morning of September 13. An armed Humvee on Broadway and Walker Street

Broadsheet Profile: Assembly Candidate Gigi Li

Gigi Li believes that leadership consists of listening, as much as talking. “Smart plans are voter-informed and voter-driven,” she says. “Most of my agenda has come from speaking to constituents on the street and at their doors.” As an example, Ms. Li cites her plan to reform the Battery Park City Authority — with at...