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,…
Month: March 2015
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…
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…
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…
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…
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….