New York
Government
New York City Mayors
- 1898-1901: Robert Van Wyck
- 1902-1903: Seth Low
- 1904-1909: George Brinton McClellan
- 1910-1913: William Jay Gaynor
- 1914-1917: John Purroy Mitchel
- 1918-1925: John E. Hylan
- 1926-1932: James "Jimmy" Walker
New York State Governors
- 1918-1920: Alfred E. Smith
- 1920-1922: Nathan L. Miller
- 1922-1928: Alfred E. Smith
- 1928-1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt
Law Enforcement
The New York Police Department is the premier law enforcement organization in New York City. Its Manhattan headquarters is at 240 Center Street (downtown, near Little Italy) with multiple precinct houses throughout the city. Police officers are generally equipped with a .38 revolver and a nightstick. While some patrol cars may have radio receivers, two-way radio transmitters are not used until the 1930s. Arrested investigators will usually be taken to a nearby precinct house for processing, with anyone who is not immediately released on bail (Credit Rating rolls apply, obviously; locals will be in better standing than out-of-towners or foreigners) being held at the Welfare Island Penitentiary until the date of their trial or they can arrange bail. While standing trial, prisoners are held at the evocatively nicknamed “The Tombs.” Both the Bureau of Investigation and the Prohibition Bureau have offices in the city.
Murder victims and other suspicious deaths are the responsibility of the New York City Medical Examiner’s office which performs all of the autopsies in the city. This office is headquartered in Bellevue Hospital (East Side, between Kip’s Bay and the Gashouse district) and the remains are retained in the morgue until they are either turned over to families (or other claimants) or are buried by the city at the Potter’s Field on Hart Island.
Infrastructure
Getting Around
New York and its boroughs, as well as the surrounding communities, are connected by a very modern system of road, rail, and shipping links. Railway lines connect the city to the suburbs and a twenty-four hour subway system allows for inexpensive transport around the Manhattan and portions of Brooklyn, and the Bronx. Buses are more often found further out in Queens and on Staten Island (then called Richmond). Taxi cabs are ubiquitous and can either be called for in advance or hailed at the curbside. Their drivers are frequently experts on the city, or at least think themselves to be so. Private vehicles are also an option, though outof-towners unaccustomed to city driving may find the congestion of New York City’s streets vexing. (Traffic jams can always be used to delay investigators or those pursuing them, if desired.)
On the water, frequent ferries run between Manhattan, the other boroughs, some of the harbor islands (including the Statue of Liberty), and New Jersey. These tend to only run during daylight hours. Remember New York City is built on several islands and that many of the modern tunnels and bridges that cross out of the city were not built until later decades; entrance and egress to the city, and Manhattan in particular, is therefore much more restricted.
If money is an issue, most subway fares are about five cents, while cabs start at fifteen, plus that again for every quarter mile. Walking, always popular, is free, if not particularly comfortable over long distances in January.
History
The Arrival of the Half Moon
In September of 1609, while under contract to the Dutch East India Company, an English explorer named Henry Hudson arrived in the New World. Hudson was captain of the Half Moon, and his goal was to find the ever-elusive Northwest I Passage, a faster route to the Orient from Europe. Captain Hudson, however, was not the first European explorer to visit New York Bay. Over eighty years prior to Hudson’s appearance, Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian explorer hired by France to discover a Northwest Passage, anchored in New York Bay. Unlike Hudson, Verrazano was not impressed with what he saw, describing the land as “a pleasant place.” To Verrazano the verdant shoreline was an obstacle; to Henry Hudson, it was “a Paradise where no man ever need go hungry.” Where Verrazano departed without exploring the newly discovered territories, Hudson entered the bay, and navigated the Half Moon along the river later named “Hudson River.”
Soon after arriving, the native Lenape Indians canoed to the three-mast ship, bringing gifts of food and tobacco. The Lenape Indians also traded pelts for trinkets, knives and hatchets. But soon the peaceful exchanges turned dangerous, when one of the Half Moon’s crew began brawling with an Indian, resulting in the death of another crewman. The ship hoisted anchor and moved down the Hudson River. As the ship sailed along the wide, tree-lined river, arrows rained upon it from the shores. For five weeks the Half Moon explored the environs of the New York islands, searching for a passage to the Far East without success. Eventually Hudson sailed home, bringing news of the fertile lands rich in fur and resources.
In 1613, Amsterdam merchants returned. Sailing upon the Fortune and Tiger, merchants landed, building trading posts in hopes of doing a brisk business in fur trade. The Tiger burned, forcing the captain and crew to weather out the winter with the aid of the Indians. In spring a new ship was constructed, named the Restless, and it returned to Europe with maps and furs.
More merchants arrived in the following years, establishing forts, trading posts and farms across the five borough's area. Eventually the Dutch States-General awarded the lucrative fur trade to the Dutch West India Company, paving the road for future development.
New Amsterdam
On the southern tip of Manhattan Island is was the site the Dutch selected for New Amsterdam. Originally the location served as a trading post, with a scattering of farms surrounding it. Eventually, as the hostilities with the native Indians increased and as other European powers such France and England ventured further into the New World, it became apparent permanent defenses were needed. In 1626, with the arrival of Peter Minuit, Fort Amsterdam was established on the tip of Manhattan Island. Minuit was charged with the task of protecting the existing settlers and founding a permanent colony in New York. The rather lackluster director quickly purchased Manhattan Island from the Lenape Indians for a fabled $24 (a trade of goods occurred, not currency), and commenced work on New Amsterdam.
The following seven years, life in New Amsterdam, under the directorship of Peter Minuit saw little if any improvement. The dwellings were often nothing more than hovels, supplies were high priced, and profits nonexistent. Though many new governors were sent to the colony, as were soldiers and slaves, the conditions changed little until 1647.
The best known, most successful and the most savvy of the colonial administrators to reign in New Amsterdam was Peter Stuyvesant. His arrival in 1647 brought changes to the Dutch colony that remained long after the American Revolution. Stuyvesant established a municipal government, creating assemblies that gave colonists a voice and representation in New Amsterdam's rule; land grants were given to farmers to promote tobacco farming; rights of citizenship were established to encourage the colony's growth. Along with these changes came increases in construction, improvement of existing structures and enforcement of laws. Under the governance Stuyvesant, New Amsterdam did not blossom, but it did begin to grow. Though it would not be the Dutch who profited from this fresh start; rather it would be the English.
New York
In 1664, only 55 years after Henry Hudson first set eyes upon Manhattan Island, England took control of New Amsterdam. Peter Stuyvesant did not readily relinquish the Dutch colony to the English. He stood with fewer than 200 soldiers and a shambles of a fort against four frigates and almost two thousand men. The invaders offered peaceful terms of surrender. Stuyvesant refused and prepared to battle. Angry colonists gathered in response, protesting Stuyvesant’s decision. Without hope of success, Stuyvesant capitulated.
After the surrender, Stuyvesant was ordered home to explain his actions. There he challenged the States-Genera1 and accused the Dutch West Indian Company of neglect and mismanagement. Eventually Stuyvesant returned to the colony, where he lived the remainder of his life.
The English wasted no time in renaming the Dutch settlement to New York, in honor of the Duke of York. Treaties were made with the Lenape, in hopes of securing peace. Life in New York carried on as it did in New Amsterdam. The colony continued to grow, and like before, a series of governors marched through ofice, each making changes and adjustments.
For over one hundred years, New York expanded. New settlers arrived, more slaves were brought for labor, and the Lenape Indians all but vanished. New York boasted of being the third largest port in the British Empire. And the war taking place in North America, between Great Britain and France, greatly added to New York‘s prosperity as soldiers and supplies passed through the city.
British rule attempted to alleviate the bloat of profits in New York City by the application of taxes and tariffs, justifymg them as a cost of colony defense. The levies were not well taken in New York, or in any other British colony in North America. In place of profit, Britain reaped rebellion.
A New City in a New Nation
When the American Revolution ended eight years later, New York City, like the rest of the new United States of America, needed to be rebuilt. Streets were renamed; counties, cities and buildings were renamed. New York City wasn’t renamed, though much around it and within it was. A new economy emerged, with its roots planted in the budding New York Stock Exchange.
Over the next one hundred years, New York City’s population exploded as immigrants deluged the thriving metropolis. Stolid stone banks and exchange houses replaced older wooden structures on Wall Street, while businesses and residences climbed ever further northward, and slums festered in the former neighborhoods. Fueling this conflagration of growth were two historic events, the introduction Robert Fulton’s steam engine to transport shipping and the completion of the Erie Canal. The former made New York Harbor the foremost shipping port in the world with the first scheduled cargo delivery system. Prior to the steam engine, cargo ships were at the mercy and whim of the wind; steam power allowed for travel in any weather, whenever desired. This combined with the Erie Canal, a man-made channel running from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, developed commerce with the distant ends of the United States (considered Indiana at the time) and granted access to the world.
In the 1860's, however, New York City's soaring growth was tempered with war. Like most American cities, the Civil War brought strife and turmoil. The passing of the Conscription Act raised the ire of many northern states, especially within underclass communities of New York City. Many felt that the nation's first wartime draft unfairly targeted the city's poor, since service could be avoided by paying $300, an amount available only to the wealthy. This great inequity created a schism in the city, a divide that ruptured New York City in 1863.
Two days after the draft lottery started, thousands gathered in the streets on the Lower East Side. The angry mob poured downtown toward the draft office. When the violence commenced, nearly fifteen thousand New Yorkers had enlisted in the riot. The draft offices were destroyed, the city's police and militia overpowered, buildings burned, and rioters looted. Blame for the war extended to the city's black inhabitants, many of whom were killed and their homes burned. The riot raged for three days. Businesses and residences blazed. Blacks were beaten and lynched in the streets. Finally, Federal troops fresh from the battle of Gettysburg arrived to quell the uprising. Order was restored at gun point.
Five Borough Consolidation
The decades following the Civil War brought New York City to the very edges of Manhattan Island. With the continued influx of immigrants, and the lack of living space, the city only had one direction to build Upward. A flood of multi-story tenement houses inundated Manhattan. Apartment buildings appeared as well, though these tended to be more dignified. Prior to the Civil War, New York City’s upper society considered apartment living unrefined; but by the 1900’s, that attitude, like living space in the city, had vanished. As the population increased, the poor moved into ramshackle tenements while the well-to-do dwelled in luxury apartments.
Businesses also climbed skywards. Giant, manmade canyons of stone formed the new geography of the city. Bridges, elevated rails and tunnels linked the Manhattan’s urban landscape to the surrounding cities. Then, in 1898, a new city was created, not with bricks and iron, rather with legislation. New York City consolidated into a new metropolis of five boroughs.Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Richmond united to create the second largest city in the world, second only to London. The consolidation benefited all of the previous counties and towns that existed on the fringes of Manhattan, and Manhattan gained new land in which to expand. By the 1920’s, the mass transit system connecting the boroughs was extended, allowing New Yorkers to work in downtown Manhattan and live in the outlying parts of the city.
The Red Scare
During the two decades prior the 1920’s, New York City, and the nation as a whole, experienced great unrest. Labor unions protested. Women’s Rights groups protested. Ethnic groups protested. Bolsheviks and anarchists protested. Anti-war groups protested. Antialcohol groups protested. Union Square Park in New York City’s midtown became a gathering point for many of these protests. Thousands congregated there to speak with a single voice, a single that did not go unnoticed.
In 1917, the Espionage Act was passed in the United States, followed by the stronger, revitalized Sedition Act and Alien Act in 1918. With these biting policies, Federal and State government commenced calming the national turbulence. In New York City, socialist and communist papers were closed, the editors and publishers arrested. “Red Raids” were instigated throughout the city, rounding up suspected anarchists and Bolsheviks. In a single night, the Department of Justice, with the aid of New York City police, were able to arrest over 600 suspected Bolsheviks without substantial evidence. During the escapade, the raiders also demolished the homes of the mainly Russian group, making a statement that was shared by most of America.
Though the fear of subversive alien infiltration decreased as the 1920’s came to an end, the restrictive immigration quotas remained in place. As intended, the quotas decreased the stream of immigrants entering New York City, particularly those from Eastern European countries. But before the 1920’s could begin, other measures were taken to improve what was believed to be the declining moral character of the nation.
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