Map of Manhattan's Broadway, Explained

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00:00 Introduction
00:34 The Origins of Broadway
02:58 Broadway Begins
05:54 Ad Break
07:20 Broadway in 1776
10:30 The Bloomingdale Road
14:17 Times Square
16:16 Upper Broadway
19:29 The impact of Broadway
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Karen's Channel: @MrsQHistory  

[jakehr]

Just casually dropping the fact that Wall Street came from the street that was along the outer wall of the original fortifications of New Amsterdam. It both makes so much sense and also something I never even thought about.

[booradleyx]

Last trip to nyc, I walked the length of broadway. Took me 12 hours, took my time, checked stuff out. It was awesome ❤

[JK-oklm]

I like how you source your information and conduct interviews with experts. It's really refreshing. You should do other cities like Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, SF, LA, and Seattle. :)

edit: removed duplicate Seattle and put SF

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

Yup, the northernmost part of Manhattan has quite the terrain, which is why the deepest stations on the NYC Subway are in northern Manhattan! 190th Street station on the IND Eighth Ave Line, which lies under Fort Tyron Park, is 140 feet/43 m below street level (it's also a short walk to The Cloisters)! THE deepest station on the NYC Subway system is 191st Street on the IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line at 173 feet/53 m below street level! It was built by the Interborough Rapid Transit Company and opened in January 1911 as an infill station along the city's first subway line. So people could use the station because of the topography, they chose to build a pedestrian tunnel to save people a walk of a quarter to one-third of a mile and a steep climb. The tunnel is used as a connector between western and eastern Washington Heights. Passengers using the 191st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue entrance need to take an elevator to access the station due to that intersection's height, but the elevators at that entrance are outside fare control, so it's considered a convenient way to traverse the neighborhood without walking up a hill! This tunnel was shown in the In the Heights movie!

When you mentioned at the end that they widened and straightened the waterway for ships (the Harlem Ship Canal), you didn't mention this led to the geographic oddity that Marble Hill is still considered a part of the borough of Manhattan and New York County despite it now being attached to The Bronx! Because of the canal, Marble Hill became an island in 1895, but then the river on the north side of the island was fully diverted to the canal with landfill, thus connecting the island to The Bronx! The name of Marble Hill was conceived when Darius C. Crosby came up with the name in 1891 from the deposits of dolomite marble underlying it known as Inwood marble. The marble was quarried for the federal buildings in Lower Manhattan when NYC was the national capital in the 1780s. Despite being part of Manhattan, Marble Hill has a Bronx ZIP code and uses Bronx area codes (though they did fight to retain Manhattan's 212 but it would've been too expensive).

[combustbanx]

i absolutely love this kind of history that shows how everything is connected across puny human centuries

[jonjaaay]

So many intriguing facts in the comments section. Worth it.

[SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

For that surviving section of Bloomingdale Road that you mentioned, part of that is Hamilton Place, which was originally the address of Alexander Hamilton's house, The Grange. In late 1798, Hamilton wrote to his wife Eliza that he was planning a project in NYC, the details of which he was keeping secret. During the Quasi-War of 1798–1800, Hamilton served as Inspector General of the United States Army, and so he could not devote time to his project. He wrote a letter to the merchant Ebenezer Stevens in October 1799, offering to buy a parcel adjoining Stevens's land from Jacob Schieffelin. Hamilton had wanted the plot west of the Bloomingdale Road, but Schieffelin would only sell the plot to the east of the road. Hamilton bought the eastern site in August 1800 for a plot of 15 acres, and he commissioned leading NY architect John McComb Jr, who also designed the iconic Montauk Point Lighthouse, Castle Clinton, Old Queens at Rutgers, and New York City Hall, to design a country home on the estate. The house was completed in 1802, just two years before Hamilton's death. Originally located near present-day 143rd Street, the house was moved in 1889 to 287 Convent Avenue before being relocated again in 2008 to St. Nicholas Park.

Speaking of the Manhattan trolleys you showed at 10:35, it used to have some San Francisco-style operations! Duffy's Hill located on Lexington Ave between 102nd and 103rd Streets, has a grade of 12.6 percent and was named for Michael James Duffy, a Tammany Hall Alderman who built 26 rowhouses there! It was the home of many cable car accidents because the cars had to quickly accelerate and decelerate at this point. The corporation that ran the cable cars had a 24-hour guard stationed at the base of the hill by 1937 to watch over incidents! In Brooklyn, trolleys were once such a part of the Brooklyn scene that the local baseball club was named the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers, after the people who had to dodge the trolleys to make it to the baseball park, which was then shortened to the Brooklyn Dodgers! Brooklyn once having a streetcar system is even referenced in Pokémon Black/White in Nacrene City!

[CentaurusRelax]

I lived in Manhattan for 21 years, until 2012. Really wish I had this kind of fascinating information. As much as I love the city and cherish my time there, I know I would have appreciated it all just a bit more with this kind of historical foundation. Thank you.

[lucasgonzalez]

throughout the video I kept thinking about what it must have looked like in Assassins Creed 3 only for you to end it with that clip lmao

[ScotchBeard]

Love your videos. Straight-forward, full of information, and well edited. You're always a must-click.

[ShaheenGhiassy]

Really well done! I liked that it included original research and not just regurgitating other YouTube information

[SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

That old tower on the right by the bridge at 16:33 is the High Bridge Water Tower, which was authorized by the State Legislature in 1863, was designed by John B. Jervis, the engineer who supervised the building of the High Bridge Aqueduct. The bridge next door is the oldest bridge in NYC as it opened as part of the Old Croton Aqueduct in 1848. Both the bridge and the water tower were part of the first reliable and plentiful water supply system in New York City. Water was pumped up 100 feet (30 m) to a 7-acre reservoir next to the tower (now the site of a play center and public pool built in 1934–1936) which then provided water to be lifted to the tower's 47, 000 US gallons tank. This high service improved the water system's gravity pressure, necessary because of the increased use of flush toilets.

The Old Croton Aqueduct was the first of its kind ever constructed in the United States. The innovative system used a classic gravity feed, dropping 13 inches (330 mm) per mile, and running 41 miles (66 km) into New York City through an enclosed masonry structure crossing ridges, valleys, and rivers! The reason they chose to build an ambitious system is because as the City was devastated by cholera in 1832 and the Great Fire in 1835, the inadequacy of the water system of wells-and-cisterns became apparent, and after they found the Croton River in northern Westchester County was a great source, they wanted to build the delivery system! Today, with three major water systems (Croton, Catskill, and Delaware) stretching up to 125 miles (201 km) away from the city, its water supply system is one of the most extensive municipal water systems in the world! The system's Delaware Aqueduct is the world's longest tunnel as it is 137, 000 m or over 85 miles in length!

[sevomat]

New York is actually turning 400 just this month or next - right around now. Not much of a party is being thrown but there it is 🫤

[ethanp-ev]

This has very quickly become my favorite youtube channel

[highbell]

I live in Irvington, about 25 miles North of the city, and I always think it's fascinating that the same Broadway continues through my town and beyond. There's even a mile marker in a stone wall along the street that marks 25 (or maybe 26 i forget) miles from the city. It really shows how important it is to the city's development and the suburbs north.

[michaelscottland]

I cannot express verbally how much I appreciate this video. You really have no idea how much I appreciate this video.

[marfand]

I'm from near London and visited NY for the first time two weeks ago. I couldn't work out why this road cut across a perfect grid system. Now I know. Thanks for the video. Loved New York by the way.

[tomo]

8:33 Yes!
That fence is my favorite spot in the city. I'm so glad you mentioned the fence posts. It incredible that they clearly exist out in public after almost 250 years,
When I'm in that area I look for tourists and point it out to them.

[KGTiberius]

One of the BEST styles of history. Story telling of facts, conflicting desires, modern relevance, visible remains, history, and video game incorporated history.

[LarryMickelson]

You have awakened within me an interest and love for understanding how cities are laid out. I never really cared until stumbling upon your channel. Now I gobble up every video you post! Thanks for the dedication and high quality videos!