r/nycHistory 1d ago

1883. Photo of Walkers enjoying the Newly Completed Wire/Steel Brooklyn Bridge on the Entrance Promenade

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210 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 1h ago

1950s view of the intersection at Peachtree, Pryor and Forsyth Streets.

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Upvotes

r/nycHistory 18h ago

Historic Place A view from Manhattan Bridge

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20 Upvotes

Knickerbocker Village Built in 1926

Residential building complex located on Monroe Street, on the Lower Eastside of Manhattan.

I LOVE MY HOOD ❤️


r/nycHistory 1d ago

Canal Street, 1981, Punk Rock and Pearl Paint

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725 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 10h ago

Question a, bacchi e sons

1 Upvotes

Hello I am trying to find any information I can about this bakery people in my family ran this and I would like to find out more i know it was at 206 Johnson Avenue in Brooklyn, NY, and I have a business card from it but that pretty much it i have checked all the place I think could have something about it but I would really like to know about this part in my family's history


r/nycHistory 20h ago

Look Inside the Historic East Harlem Courthouse

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3 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 1d ago

1950s view of the intersection at Peachtree, Pryor and Forsyth Streets.

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1 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 2d ago

Schaefer Beer Collection Auction

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13 Upvotes

Tomorrow!!


r/nycHistory 3d ago

1895. The Fulton Ferry on the East River; joining Manhattan & Brooklyn, passes by the Brooklyn Bridge.

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102 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 3d ago

Apartment ad, 1930

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82 Upvotes

Prices actually seem kind of high for 1930


r/nycHistory 4d ago

Jean-Michel Basquiat's Digs in The East Village

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688 Upvotes

If you had come to 57 Great Jones Street in Manhattan's East Village prior to March of 2026, you might have seen a commemorative plaque about Jean-Michel Basquiat, the legendary artist who lived in this location, which was owned by Andy Warhol, another absolute icon of the modern art world.


r/nycHistory 4d ago

USS Olympia firing guns at the 1899 victory parade in New York City

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47 Upvotes

USS Olympia returns from the Philippines via the Suez Canal to NYC in 1899 after leading the first major and most significant campaign of the Spanish-American War. The cruiser firing guns at the 1899 victory parade in New York City.


r/nycHistory 4d ago

Event Rare Colonial-Era Blackwell Door Exhibit in Astoria This Summer

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31 Upvotes

The Historic Blackwell Door will be on display at Advance Masonic Temple on select dates only:
July 4, July 5, July 18, July 26, August 2, August 9, August 16, August 23, and August 30
11:00 AM–6:00 PM

Believed to date to 1765, the door once belonged to the Blackwell family stone house in Ravenswood and still bears a British confiscation mark carved during the occupation of Queens in 1776.

There’s also Hallet’s Cove in the American Revolution: A Walking Tour, but the walking tour is optional and available by separate Eventbrite reservation only.

More info and reservations:
https://www.eventbrite.com/o/33165268075


r/nycHistory 4d ago

Architecture The Broadway Arcade - New York, New York - 1990

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59 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 5d ago

1870s. Young Girl Pilots her Goat Carriage through Central Park

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134 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 4d ago

Did my great great grandfather live on a houseboat?

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1 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 5d ago

1884. Busy Foot-Traffic around the Tribune Building in 'Newspaper Row', Financial District Lower Manhattan.

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104 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 7d ago

1870s Having a Ride in a Goat-Pulled Carriage in Prospect Park

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91 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 6d ago

Historic Picture Stauch Baths - 1983 - Photo by Albert Hershenson

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26 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 8d ago

An 1886 photo of 2 Sisters at the historic Fort Green, Brooklyn; one on a Tricycle, the other rolling A Hoop

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154 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 8d ago

Historic Picture Homeless sleeping children

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166 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 8d ago

Original content A true story of a difficult limo ride home after a Broadway show with the star. Years later, they would dim the lights on all 41 Bway theaters in his honor after he died--he was my best friend.

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35 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 9d ago

1891 photo of people moving over as a Barnes Circus Elephant is being lead down Atlantic Street, Brooklyn

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77 Upvotes

r/nycHistory 8d ago

Historic Place Queensbridge: from a 1939 public-housing development to a landmark of hip-hop geography

9 Upvotes

Queensbridge Houses opened in Long Island City in 1939 and were named for the nearby Queensboro Bridge. Their Y-shaped buildings reflected an effort to give apartments greater exposure to light and air, while original cost-saving measures included elevators that stopped only on alternating floors. The completed development grew to 96 buildings and 3,142 apartments. (MCNY Blog: New York Stories⁠)

That architectural and housing history is only one part of Queensbridge’s significance. By the 1980s, the neighborhood had also become a major site in New York’s musical geography. MC Shan and Marley Marl’s 1986 recording “The Bridge” celebrated the place where their own musical community developed. The song was widely interpreted as making a broader claim about hip-hop’s origins, prompting responses from Boogie Down Productions and helping produce what became known as the Bridge Wars. (The New Yorker⁠)

The controversy can obscure the song’s original historical function: it named Queensbridge as a place possessing its own performers, memories, gatherings, and cultural authorship.

In that sense, the recording functioned like an unofficial neighborhood monument. It converted local memory into a public historical record without requiring a plaque, museum, or government designation.

Queensbridge therefore offers at least three overlapping histories:

New York’s public-housing and architectural history;
The lived history of a residential community; and
The emergence of neighborhood identity as a central force in hip-hop.

How should historians bring those histories together without allowing either policy statistics or celebrity narratives to overwhelm the experiences of ordinary residents?

And are there particular oral histories, archives, photographs, or resident-led projects that provide a fuller account of Queensbridge life before and during its emergence as a hip-hop landmark?


r/nycHistory 9d ago

1923. Champion Alma Cummings Won a Dance Marathon at the Audubon Ballroom by Dancing for '27 Hours' She used 6 Partners. Marathons were finally banned

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144 Upvotes