1930 – NOW: From the Great Depression to our Days
During this period, New York endured the Great Depression, the citywide decline of the 1970s, and the devastation of 9/11—each time confronting hardship, recovering, and rebuilding.
| 1930, 31 Chrysler Building. Empire State Building. |
| New York City became known for its daring and impressive architecture, most notably the skyscrapers. In 1930 two skyscrapers were locked in dead heat competition to be the tallest in the world. Famously 40 Wall claimed its honor for 2 weeks only, when the Chrysler pierced New York sky with its 125 foot Art Deco spire. It became the first in the world to rise higher that 1000 ft., and, yes, it was the tallest in the world for all of 11 months. In 1931, after only 14 month of construction, the engineering wonder, the first building ever to exceed 100 stories, the Empire State Building was finished. |
| 1929-40 The Great Depression |
| The Great Depression (1929-39) was the deepest and longest-lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world. In the United States, the Great Depression began soon after the stock market crash of October 1929, which sent Wall Street into a panic and wiped out millions of investors. Over the next several years, consumer spending and investment dropped, causing steep declines in industrial output and rising levels of unemployment. By 1933, when the Great Depression reached its nadir, some 13 to 15 million Americans were unemployed and nearly half of the country’s banks had failed. Though the relief and reform measures put into place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt helped lessen the worst effects of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the economy would not fully turn around until after 1939, when World War II kicked American industry into high gear. |
| 1931-39 Rockefeller Center built |
| The building boom, which started in the 20s, came to an abrupt halt with the Stock Market Crash of 1929. City’s only building project which lasted throughout the Depression was the Rockefeller Center. Although John D. Rockefeller Jr. spent most of his life engaged in philanthropy, his single, defining business venture was the creation of the “city within a city”. Constructed during the Great Depression’s worst years, the project gainfully employed over 40,000 people. |
| 1933 Prohibition repealed |
| The fourteen years of Prohibition were a dark time for the United States, as the criminalization of alcohol led to a rise in civil delinquency and organized crime. |
| 1934-45 Fiorello La Guardia elected mayor |
| In 1933, Republican reformer Fiorello La Guardia was elected mayor. La Guardia, sometimes considered New York’s greatest mayor, was of both Italian and Jewish descent. La Guardia was elected to the office for 3 consecutive terms. He was honest and energetic, he went after organized crime, and cleaned up the Police Department, which was involved in a protection racket, a practice wherein a person or group indicates that they could protect a business from potential damage that the same person or group would otherwise inflict. He was the one to pick Gracie Mansion (at East River and 88th Street) as the official residence of the New York City Mayor. |
| 1934-60 Robert Moses serves as NYC’s park commissioner |
| Robert Moses played a larger role in shaping the physical environment of New York State than any other figure in the 20th century. For 44 years, from 1924 until 1968, Mr. Moses constructed public works in the city and state costing $27 billion. Mr. Moses built parks, highways, bridges, playgrounds, housing, tunnels, beaches, zoos, civic centers, exhibition halls and the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair. He created 17 miles of beaches including Jones Beach, 7 bridges, 2 tunnels, parkways and highways around the city. Yet, for all the good he’s done, his legacy is extremely controversial. By clearing slums he misplaced people, by building highways he destroyed functional communities, by constructing roads he was destroying the city’s cultural heritage. |
| 1939-40 New York World’s Fair |
| The 1939 New York World’s Fair opened on April 30, 1939, which was the 150th anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington in New York City, back when it was the nation’s first capitol. The Fair, whose theme was “Building the World of Tomorrow”, was attended by about 40 million people, with pavilions representing 33 countries. Exhibitions in the USSR Pavilion included the life-size copy of the interior of the showcase Mayakovskaya station of the Moscow Metro. The Jewish Palestine Pavilion introduced the world to the concept of a modern Jewish state, which a decade later would become Israel. The “World trade center” pavilion, dedicated to “world peace through trade”, gave the idea to the future contraction of the World Trade Center. |
| 1952 United Nations Headquarters built |
| The United Nations Headquarters complex was constructed beside the East River, on 17 acres of land purchased from the foremost New York real estate developer of the time, William Zeckendorf. The $8.5 million purchase was then funded by his father, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who donated it to the City. Rather than announce a competition for the best design, the UN decided to commission a collaborative effort among a multinational team of world leading architects. The board included Wallace Harrison, the personal architectural adviser for the Rockefeller family, architectural giants like Le Corbusier (Switzerland) and Oscar Niemeyer (Brazil), who continued to work well into his 90s and died 2012 at the age of 104. |
| 1959-1966 Lincoln Center built |
| Lincoln Center is home to 12 institutions, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Lincoln Center Theater, the New York Philharmonic and the New York City Ballet. Thousands of concerts and performances happen here each year, making it one of New York’s most visited venues. |
| 1965 Landmark Preservation Commission |
| After the destruction of Pennsylvania Station, one of the most beautiful buildings in New York, to make way for the construction of the current Madison Square Garden, one of the ugliest, the same fate was set to befall the Grand Central. Public outcry caused by destruction of historic and cultural treasures of New York City resulted in creation of Landmark Preservation Commission. This organization is responsible for protecting New York City’s architecturally, historically, and culturally significant buildings and sites by granting them landmark or historic district status. |
| 1964 New York World Fair, 1964 |
| The Fair’s theme was “Peace Through Understanding,” dedicated to “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe”. |
| 1970s Ford to NYC: “Drop Dead!” |
| The New York City of the 1970s looked very different from the gentrified metropolis we know today. Industrial decline, economic stagnation, and ‘white flight’ to the suburbs led to the dramatic downturn for America’s largest city. |
| 1972 World Trade Center is built |
| Lower Manhattan Association, created in 1959 by David Rockefeller in order to revitalize lower Manhattan, began promoting the idea of a “world trade and finance center” in New York City. The idea was finalized as a complex of seven buildings with two 110 stories Twin Towers at its core. At 1,368 and 1,362 feet, they were to be the world’s tallest skyscrapers. The gargantuan office space could accommodate 50,000 people; it even had its own postal index. The South Tower had the Top of the World Observation Deck and North Tower hosted the famous Windows of the World Restaurant. The Twin Towers along with other 5 WTC skyscrapers were destroyed on September 11th, 2001 by Islamist terrorists who hijacked planes and crashed them into the towers. 2,753 lives were lost in horrific attacks. The tragedy of Sept 11 forever changed nation’s psychology . It grew up. |
| 1980s Rebirth of Wall Street |
| New York’s economy not only grew during the eighties but also underwent a restructuring. Manufacturing witnessed a decline, but finance, insurance, and the real estate industry expanded by 64% in one decade and came to become major New York industries. Edward I. Koch was elected the 105th Mayor of New York City in 1977 and remained in the office until 1989. With his colorful personality, the honest and capable leader led the city out of its worst economic times. He said: “We have been shaken by troubles that would have destroyed any other city. But we are not any other city. We are the city of New York and New York in adversity towers above any other city in the world.” |
| 1990s New York City is safe again |
| In the late 1990s, the city benefited from the success of the financial sectors and led to a decade of booming real estate values. The city’s population and real estate prices started to soar. |
| 2000 Rapid growth |
| According to the 2000 census, New York’s population reached an all-time high. |
| 2001 World Trade Center destroyed |
| The 21st Century in NYC started with one of the most horrific evens in American history. On September 11, 2001, two planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the Twin Towers, destroying the complex and killing nearly 3,000 people. One World Trade Center was struck at 8:46 a.m.; Two World Trade Center at 9:03 a.m. The Twin Towers fell, and the remaining 5 World Trade Center buildings followed shortly afterwards. |
| 2002 Bloomberg elected mayor |
| Michael Rubens Bloomberg, the 108th Mayor of New York City, held the office for three consecutive terms from 2002 to 1013. He was first elected in November 2001, two months after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, a time when many believed that crime would return, businesses would flee, and New York might never recover. Instead, through hundreds of innovative new policies and initiatives, Mayor Bloomberg has made New York City safer, stronger, greener, and more innovative than ever. According to Forbes Magazine Michael Bloomberg, whose worth is $32.5 Billion, was not the richest mayor in the world, merely the 16th richest person in the world. |
| 2009 High Line Park Opens |
| One of the most unusual parks in the city is suspended over the street level. It’s the Highline Park. The High Line was built in the 1930s to carry freight trains delivering meat and other products to the factories located along the railroad. When trains stopped running on the High Line in 1980, it was supposed to be demolished but was instead turned into a park. |
| 2004 Time Warner Building. Hearst Tower |
| The Time Warner Center was the first major building to be completed in Manhattan since the September 11, 2001 attacks, although it was already under construction in 2001. Hearst Tower was the first skyscraper to break ground in New York City after September 11, 2001. |
| 2012 Hurricane Sandy |
| Hurricane Sandy was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, as well as the second-costliest hurricane in United States history. The storm became the largest Atlantic hurricane on record (as measured by diameter, with winds spanning 1,100 miles across). At least 53 people died in New York as a result of the storm. |
| The Greatest City in the World! |
| It’s hard to overestimate the significance of New York City. Relatively young, as far as cities go, New York has become the center of the world in so many respects. It hosts the headquarters of the United Nations, it’s the home for the New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street and Federal reserve; Metropolitan Opera, Broadway theaters, and Madison Avenue; Metropolitan, Guggenheim and MoMA Museums, Blue Note, Village Vanguard, Iridium and hundreds of other Jazz clubs; New York University, Columbia University, and Julliard School of Music are in New York City. New York is the world’s greatest cultural center and a creative force like no other. It is a communication, financial capital of the world and an entertainment mecca. It’s a melting pot, it’s the city of immigrants, it’s the place which was accepting ‘the tired and the poor’ from the all over the world and, in exchange, received enormous quantities of talent and creative energy, which shaped New York into what it is now, the greatest city in the world. |