Today in History – March 30th

1796 – Carl Friedrich Gauss, German mathematician, discovers the construction of the heptadecagon 1842 – Ether used as an anesthetic for the first time by Dr. Crawford Long of Georgia 1858 – Pencil with attached eraser patent granted to Hyman L. Lipman of Philadelphia 1867 – The United States buys Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000,...
1909 - Men at Work on the Queensboro Bridge

When Apportunity Knocks

Are you curious about Battery Park City? When did it start? How big is it? How many people live there? Want to know about its public art? Who designed the buildings? Well, there’s an app for that and surprisingly, The Battery Park City Authority didn’t design it. Last September, the Kozyarchuk family was looking for...
Kozyarchuk Family
The Kozyarchuk family created the App in part in brainstorming sessions around the dinner table
The New Amsterdam Market was founded in 2005 by Robert LaValva, in the vaulted, open-air arcade beneath the Municipal Building. But his creation soon moved to the site of the old Fulton Fish Market, within the South Street Seaport neighborhood. There, Mr. LaValva soon gained prominence as a leader in the fight to preserve the...
Old Fulton Fish Market
A look inside the old Fulton Fish Market, which stands abandoned today.

Busting the Bus Trust

A company that had a de facto monopoly on tour bus service in Manhattan has agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine, and give up permits for 50 of its stops, including eight in Lower Manhattan. The company, Twin America, is largely unknown to Manhattan residents, because it is a partnership formed in 2009 by...
Tour Bus
Tour buses, like this one, will soon have to surrender eight stops in Lower Manhattan, as part of a settlement over practices deemed anti-competitive by government watchdogs.

Today in History – March 23rd

1066 – Eighteenth recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet. Halley’s Comet is the only naked-eye comet that may appear twice in a human’s lifetime. It last appeared in the inner Solar System and is expected to return in the year 2061. 1490 – Earliest dated edition of Maimonides “Mishneh Torah” is published 1836 – Coin...
Otis' elevator patent drawing, January 15 1861
Otis' elevator patent drawing, January 15 1861

Rare Design Element for a Lower Manhattan Skyscraper

Trinity Church continued its ongoing experiment with radically inclusive dialog about the structure it plans to build at 74 Trinity Place, with a community meeting last Saturday. Held at St. Paul’s Chapel, the four-hour session drew more than 70 area residents, who contributed ideas about how the new building can serve the Lower Manhattan community....
Rev. Dr. Bill Lupfer
Trinity Church's new rector, the Rev. Dr. Bill Lupfer at the March 14 brainstorming meeting, encourages the Lower Manhattan community to help design and program the building that will soon rise on Trinity Place.