400 STORIES: True Stories of New York City History
Do you know that for six years, the Statue of Liberty’s arm stood in Madison Square Park without the rest of her. Why? If you want the answer, you’re exactly who I’m writing for.
New York has been making history for 400 years, and much of the best of it never reached the textbooks. I started 400 STORIES to find those stories, research them properly, and tell them the way they deserve to be told.
Each story reads like short nonfiction: real people, real stakes, and about ten minutes from first line to last. Nothing is invented, every story lists the sources behind it, and where the record is uncertain, I say so.
New stories arrive every Tuesday and Friday, with period prints, maps, photographs and newspaper pages, plus a short video reconstruction that puts you on the street the day it happened. Subscribe free and you’ll walk the city differently.
Subscribe FreeEvery story happened somewhere. Find it on the map, then switch to 1836 and see the same ground the way New Yorkers knew it.
1836 map: J. H. Colton, Topographical Map of the City and County of New-York, Library of Congress. Aligned to today's streets with Allmaps. Old surveys never line up perfectly, so expect a little drift.
1790 · The capital moves
New York Lost the US Capital and Won Wall Street
Here is the story of the Jefferson - Hamilton bargain trading New York City’s status as the US capital for something else.
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1809 · A literary hoax
The Knicks Got Their Name From an 1809 Hoax
Before it was a basketball team, “Knickerbocker” was a name in a newspaper notice about a missing man. The trail leads to one of New York’s most famous authors.
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1872 · Broadway
The Murder of Wall Street's Jim Fisk – An 1872 NYC Love Triangle
NY, January 1872. Boss Tweed's machine had fallen, and Fisk's former mistress and her lover were threatening to publish his love letters.
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1832–1842 · Croton Water
The City That Couldn’t Drink Its Own Water
In 1832 cholera killed one New Yorker in 63. The city’s answer was a river forty miles to the north.
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1971–1976 · The Bronx
New York Was Going Broke. It Rebuilt Yankee Stadium Anyway.
George Steinbrenner, the team's eventual majority owner, put up $168,000, less than 2 percent of the $10 million price.
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1811 · The street grid
Arrested for Measuring Manhattan
John Randel Jr. surveyed the island for the grid that became Manhattan’s streets, and the landowners in its path fought him every step of the way.
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1876–1882 · Madison Square
Liberty’s Arm Spent Six Years in Madison Square Park
Bartholdi shipped New York a single piece of his statue to prove she was real. Then the city made him wait for a place for her to stand.
Read the story →Is there a corner of New York you have always wondered about? A building, a street name, a family story, an old photograph? Send it to the archive. I read every question, and the best ones become the next of the 400 Stories.