Where do you usually work? We asked this question to our Urban Archive community and mapped their answers. Take a look!

"Peter Cooper became one of New York’s prominent millionaires, yet he still saw himself as a master craftsman, 'A Mechanic of New York.' However, education was paramount on Cooper’s agenda. With the fortune Cooper had amassed from his glue business, ironworks, his patent inventions and his real estate holdings Cooper invested his money in The Cooper Union, commonly called at that time, Cooper Institute. It would be the crowning glory of his life. The cornerstone was laid in 1854.He erected an imposing six-story Italianate building between Third and Fourth Avenue at Astor Place. To support the floors and make the building fireproof the rolled structural iron beams were produced at the Cooper Hewitt & Company ironworks. These iron beams would make possible the building of future skyscrapers... Cooper Union was the first free institute to provide adult education in the fields of engineering, architecture and science for young men and women who qualified regardless of race, religion, sex or social status. It is acknowledged that although Cooper Union was Peter Cooper’s vision, it was Abram Hewitt’s brain that made it possible because he oversaw the construction of the building and served as Cooper Union’s president for over forty years." For more on Peter Cooper and Cooper Union, check out this article by Polly Guérin in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

The Civil War marks one of the bloodiest events in American history. During the Constitutional Convention, compromises regarding slavery were made in order to ratify the Constitution and form the United States of America. The framers of the Constitution recognized the moral issues surrounding the slave trade but many were not prepared to give up slavery's economic benefits, in order to make true the phrase "All Men are Created Equal." As the nation expanded westward, the debate over slavery intensified. The northern states, who largely opposed slavery's expansion believed the federal government should stop its spread. The southern states rallied behind the notion of state's rights in order to protect their slave-trading interests and allow for its expansion to the newly forming states in the West. Tensions, which had been largely kept in check throughout the 1840s and 50s reached a boiling point with the election of President Lincoln in 1860. Following his inauguration, several states succeeded from the Union, sparking a brutal war lasting four years. The war resulted in the end of slavery throughout the United States and the passage of important Constitutional Amendments, which would be used throughout the nation's history to advance civil rights to marginalized groups. As you explore some of the important locations associated with the war in New York, consider the following questions: What role did New York play in the Civil War? What effects did the Civil War have on the "home front?" New York Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards 4.5c, 7.8c,d, & 11.3c For Teachers: Lesson Plan for Civil War in New York

The East Village has long been a richly diverse immigrant neighborhood. It has also served as a hub for cultural movements: the Beats, punk rock, bohemians, Hare-Krishna…the list goes on. Take a walk through the area that was considered the center of counterculture in New York.

Group of Socialist leaders including Forward editor in chief Ab Cahan (in center, looking to his right), former Vienna, Austria vice-Mayor Dr. Max Winter, and Frank R. Crosswaith, founder of the Negro Labor Committee

The Asian-American and Pacific Islander community has a more than 150-year-long history in the United States, dating back to the first wave of Chinese and Japanese immigrants settling on the West Coast. And while nearby neighborhoods like Chinatown or the Lower East Side may have been much more prominent hubs for Asian-Americans, Greenwich Village and the East Village nevertheless can boast a long and impressive roster of individuals, organizations, institutions, and events located here that played an important role in the story of Asian-Americans in our city and country — especially (and unsurprisingly) in relation to civil rights and the arts. It is here that rights were won; discrimination was given a human face; innovations in painting, writing, and sculpture took place; and people gathered to confront the challenges and opportunities presented by the world around them. Here are just a few of those inspiring individuals, places, and associations:

Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Arts was founded in 1859. The institution began as a night school hosting courses in architectural drafting and the applied sciences, also hosting day-time classes in the Female School of Design instructing women in then-new technologies such as photography, telegraph, and typewriting. Peter Cooper's humble beginnings inspired a pedagogical model that offered working-class men and women upward mobility, at the same time instilling a sense of social responsibility that would create highly active citizens.

A collection that maps and celebrates NYC LGBT history for the month of October!

Cooper Union This building was specially designed to house Peter Cooper's great philanthropy- a trade school for boys in New York who could not otherwise afford such specialized training. It is notable for the early use of rolled-iron sections produced by Cooper, Hewitt & Co. at Trenton Jersey- Cooper's own rolling mills. Cooper put off the completion of the school to roll beams for Astor's new library on Lafayette Street and for Harper & Brothers' publishing house on Franklin Square.

In August 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving some women—but not all—the right to vote at the national level. Celebrate the centennial of suffrage with a tour of New York locations that were important in the history of women’s rights.

Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Arts was founded in 1859 by philanthropist and inventor Peter Cooper. Peter Cooper himself came from a working-class background. He hopped between various odd careers such as cabinet making, hat making, and brewing, yet through and through he was an inventor at heart. Cooper was able to purchase a glue factory in 1821. He found new ways to produce glues and other products like gelatin and isinglass from the raw materials that nearby slaughterhouses provided. This propelled Cooper into a business career in which he invented the "Tom Thumb" locomotive to navigate the hilly terrain near Baltimore, built the largest rolling-mill for railroad iron in the United States, and eventually oversaw the production of the first structural wrought-iron beams. He went on to found the Cooper Union, inspired by Paris' École Polytechnique. The institution began as a night school that hosted courses in architectural drafting and the applied sciences. The building also held day-time classes for the Female School of Design instructing women in then-new technologies such as photography, telegraph, and typewriting. Peter Cooper's humble beginnings inspired a pedagogical model that offered working-class men and women upward mobility, at the same time instilling a sense of social responsibility that would create highly active citizens. The building which the school resides in features the rolled wrought-iron beams Peter Cooper invented and produced. Another quirky feature of the structure is its round elevator shaft, which was completed prior to the invention of the elevator. Cooper believed that the elevator would soon be invented in a cylindrical shape. The Foundation Building was the tallest when it was completed in 1859 and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

Between 1954 and 1957, the Municipal Art Society surveyed historic buildings in all five boroughs to create a database of potential landmarks to preserve. Local residents and MAS staff compiled individual sheets devoted to about 200 buildings. Each sheet outlined the building’s date, location, and style and provided a description and a small photograph. This is the list of Manhattan buildings.

In 1853, young Samuel L. Clemens wrote his mother in Missouri: "Well, I was out of work in St. Louis, and didn't fancy loafing in such a dry place, where there is no pleasure to be seen without paying well for it, and so I thought I might as well go to New York." It was the first time the future Mark Twain would visit, but it wouldn't be the last. New-York Historical's 2019 exhibition 'Mark Twain and the Holy Land' took a deep dive into a pivotal moment in Twain's career: the five-month cruise to Europe and the Holy Land that would inspire his bestselling travelogue 'The Innocents Abroad.' Like many good journeys, it started in New York. Check out some NYC sites that have a Twain connection.

This Presidents Day, we wanted to take a look back at some of the most iconic places that the nation's executives have occupied in New York over the years. Here is a list of a few of our favorites!

A picket at entrances to the Great Hall at Cooper Union on December 2, 1964, was later identified as the second public demonstration for gay rights in the United States by Barbara Gittings, co-founder of the Daughters of Bilitis, New York Chapter, in 1958. This was also the earliest known public challenge by the LGBT community against the psychiatric profession. The Cooper Union event followed the September 19, 1964, picket in front of the U.S. Army Building in Lower Manhattan, which protested the military’s treatment of gay people. Both pickets were organized by Randy Wicker. Dr. Paul R. Dince, Associate in Psychiatry at New York Medical College, was invited as part of the Cooper Union Forum Series to give a lecture titled “Homosexuality, A Disease.” Though this was to be his first public lecture, Dince had been a contributor to Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals, a book published in 1962 about the development of male homosexuality by the New York psychoanalyst Irving Bieber. The result of a 10-year investigation, the work made Bieber an influential “expert,” or notorious homophobe, depending on one’s perspective at the time. The book received a largely negative response from the gay community, with reviews in The Ladder, Mattachine Review, and New York Mattachine Newsletter. The prevailing psychiatric viewpoint that homosexuality was a disease was already under attack. In 1961, Thomas S. Szasz wrote a book, The Myth of Mental Illness, which took on the “mental health” profession, citing psychiatrists as making prejudiced moral judgments under a pseudo-scientific aura. His critiques proved valuable as tools for the homophile movement. In New York, Wicker, incensed by a radio program that had psychiatrists discussing homosexuality as a disease, convinced WBAI radio to allow a group of gay men to discuss their lives on the “Live and Let Live” program in 1962. This is believed to have been the first such radio program. As early as October 1963, Frank Kameny, an influential early gay rights strategist and leader of the Mattachine Society of Washington, D.C., had attempted to convince his board to adopt a statement that homosexuality was not a disease. (He finally succeeded in March 1965 with the quite radical for its time tenet: “Homosexuality is not a sickness, disturbance, or other pathology in any sense, but is merely a preference, orientation, or propensity, on a par with, and not different in kind from, heterosexuality.”) At the Cooper Union, Wicker, two other gay men (one was probably Craig Rodwell), and a lesbian, Kay Tobin (real name Kay Lahusen), stationed themselves at the entrances to the Great Hall, wearing signs “WE REQUEST 10 MINUTES REBUTTAL TIME,” and handed out homophile literature. The forum chairman, apparently wanting a lively discussion, agreed to the group’s request. After Dr. Dince’s talk, Wicker spoke from a microphone in the audience, challenging the disease theory of homosexuality. He received more applause than Dince, who expressed surprise at the picket of, and challenge to, his speech, as well as the audience reaction. Tobin wrote an article on the event for the Daughters of Bilitis’ publication The Ladder, and Wicker appeared on the issue’s back cover.

The gilded statue of Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, adorned the tower of Madison Square Garden and held watch over New York City for over three decades. She is arguably the most famous and recognizable work by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, ca. 1975.