Archive: 2019

What happens when money and progress interfere with history and cultural significance? How do communities mobilize when they see an injustice, and how does big business respond? How do relics of the past get repurposed today, and why does it matter? In June 1904, construction began on Pennsylvania Station. Eight acres of existing buildings were cleared to make way for what was meant to be a gateway into the city. McKim, Mead & White, the architects commissioned by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to build this major transit hub, had been planning for years, drawing on neoclassical architectural styles to create a Beaux-Arts masterpiece in midtown Manhattan. After 6 years of construction, Pennsylvania Station received its first travelers in 1910. The millions of commuters who passed through enjoyed shops, lounges, long benches, phone booths, and daylight pouring in through semi-circular windows…

What does it take for one person to oppose an international system as insidious and devastating as racism? On Martin Luther King Day, we consider the courage, risk, and profound effort involved in the fight for equality. Martin Luther King challenged the system. He suffered devastating losses and celebrated remarkable victories, changing the course of American history during the Civil Rights Era. 120 years earlier in New York City, David Ruggles did the same thing. New York abolished slavery in 1827, and a free black community slowly began to form in Manhattan. Enslaved people fled the south seeking freedom in New York, but it wasn’t that simple. Fugitive slaves and black New Yorkers could lose their freedom at any moment; southern enslavers flooded New York City, seeking fugitives and free blacks to sell into slavery. The threat of kidnapping and…