History of New York City

The history of New York City traces its development from Indigenous homelands and Dutch and English colonial settlements to a global metropolis shaped by migration, commerce, politics, and culture.

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Lenape: An Indigenous people whose ancestral homeland includes much of present-day New York City and surrounding regions. Lenape communities lived across the area before European settlement and remain part of its history.
Commissioners' Plan of 1811: The plan that imposed Manhattan’s numbered street grid north of Houston Street. Its regular blocks structured much of Manhattan’s nineteenth-century expansion.
Port of New York and New Jersey: A major harbor and shipping complex serving the New York metropolitan region. The port connected the city’s merchants and industries to global trade.
New York City draft riots: The violent 1863 uprising in New York City against Civil War conscription and racial inequality. The riots exposed the conflict between class, race, and wartime policy in the city.
Five boroughs of New York City: The five municipal divisions of New York City: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island. Their differing histories reveal how consolidation created a city of distinct regions.
New Netherland: A Dutch colonial territory in North America, centered on the Hudson River and governed from New Amsterdam. The city began as the capital of this Dutch colony.
Erie Canal: A canal completed in 1825 linking the Hudson River at Albany to the Great Lakes. It made New York City the principal Atlantic gateway for inland trade.
Wall Street: A street in Lower Manhattan that became a metonym for United States finance. Financial institutions there helped establish New York as a commercial capital.
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire: The 1911 New York City factory fire that killed 146 garment workers. The disaster prompted labor and building-safety reforms in the city and beyond.
Brooklyn: A borough of New York City that was an independent city until its 1898 consolidation. Brooklyn’s annexation was central to the creation of modern New York City.