In the mid-summer of 1863, tensions in New York had reached a boiling point. To replenish the Union Army after devastating casualties, Congress had passed the enrollment act, enacting the first draft. In New York, many of the newly arrived immigrants had been pushed by Tammany Hall and other political machines to become citizens, which made them eligible for this new draft. These newly minted citizens became incensed by the prospect of being drafted, and the anger quickly grew. The drawing of the draft numbers was a spark that drove the city into what would become the worst race riot of its history. Days later, anywhere from a hundred and twenty to more than a thousand were killed, thousands more injured, and with many prominent African-American and Abolitionist buildings destroyed.

New York can sometimes seem so immense that it would make sense that some of the world's largest animals would have roamed its streets.

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

The fact that this interior and its building were design by a French and an American architect is an early reflection of the cosmopolitanism of New York. The building combines French elements with the Federal style. Building progress of this edifice was slow, primarily due to financial problems, but also owing to workers’ disputes and a yellow fever epidemic. By 1807 the building had only reached the second story window sill level. The City Hall Rotunda shares a sense of elegant spaciousness and even certain details, such as the single first flight of stairs with curved hand railing. The entrance hall, from which one first glimpse the Rotunda, is entered through five handsome arched doorways corresponding to the archways leading into the vaulted central corridor which laterally bisects the building.

Statue of Nathan Hale, the Revolutionary War spy, in City Hall Park, in front of the Woolworth Building, ca. 1980.

"When Joseph Pulitzer purchased the New York World in May, 1883, a typical front page consisted of a half-dozen columns of densely packed type, unrelieved by illustrations or eye-catching headlines... All that changed the moment Joseph Pulitzer got hold of it. An immigrant himself, Pulitzer saw himself as a champion of the weak and oppressed. The World, as he conceived it, would be a paper 'dedicated to the cause of the people rather than to that of the purse potentates.' …His method of achieving these lofty aims was to appeal to his reader’s lowest instincts. After all, he reasoned, the best a publisher could do was to 'go for a million circulation, and when you have got it, turn the minds and the votes of your readers one way or the other at critical moments.' And the most effective way to reach that million circulation was by printing the kind of wildly sensationalistic stories that ordinary people have always gobbled up... By March, 1885, the World had a daily circulation of more than 150,000 copies – an astonishing tenfold increase in less than two years. That figure would double again before the end of the decade. The age of 'yellow journalism' had arrived." For more on the World building and Joseph Pulitzer, check out this excerpt from Harold Schechter's The Devil's Gentleman in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Spanning from the turn of the 20th Century to the 1920s, the Progressive Era left a lasting impact on the United States and New York City. During these years the nation experienced an increase in reforms meant to alleviate the suffering of the working classes. In order to accomplish this goal, Progressives believed the government needed to accept greater responsibility for its citizens' well-being. The Progressive ideals of greater government involvement and regulation was a reaction against the policies of the Gilded Age. During this period in American history, wealthy business owners and corporations accrued vast fortunes, often at the expense of working class people. Many believed something had to be done. Following the Civil War, The Gilded Age contributed to the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the United States. While both of these processes created enormous wealth for some, it also worsened the plight of many people. Urbanization and industrialization transformed both the physical landscape and the experiences and expectations of Americans. During the Progressive Era, many municipal services, like the police and fire departments, were established or expanded. School reform and increased access to sanitary living conditions improve the lives of poorer Americans. To many, the Progressive Era provided a much needed antidote to the societal ills of Gilded Age urbanization and industrialization. New York Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards: 8.2e & 11.5. For Teachers: The Progressive Era in New York Lesson Plan

Statue of Benjamin Franklin at Printing House Square, ca. 1975. Ernst Plassman's monument to Franklin, himself a prolific publisher, marks the epicenter of New York's bygone newspaper industry.

As we roam the modern streets of New York City, we can see the skyline and neighborhoods change each year. Given how complicated our city’s systems have become, it is difficult to imagine a time without the founding principles of zoning, planning, and preservation. The man who created many of those frameworks for modern-day New York is George McAneny. During his extensive civic career, he served in several official positions, including New York City comptroller, executive manager of The New York Times, first president of the Regional Plan Association, and Manhattan Borough President. The snippets of history that can be seen on Urban Archive are just a small part of McAneny’s legacy, making him one of the most remarkable New York City visionaries of the first half of the 20th century.

A walking tour of some of Lower Manhattan's most notable landmarks.

New York's City Hall is one of the oldest continuously used City Halls in the nation that still houses its original governmental functions. Designed by Joseph François Mangin and John McComb Jr. and completed in 1812, it is one of the finest architectural achievements of its period. The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated City Hall an individual landmark in 1966 and its central rotunda an interior landmark in 1976. In 1993, the African Burial Ground and the Commons, which includes City Hall and the surrounding park, was designated a Historic District.

The photo published in The Forward on December 25, 1968 had this curious (and sexist) caption: Israel’s Prettiest Join New York’s Finest at Times Square (טיימס סקװער in Yiddish), New York as a New York police officer stands in the center and observes stoically.”

The Hudson-Fulton Celebration began more than 100 years ago. Starting on September 25, 1909, over a million New Yorkers and tourists enthusiastically joined in the two-week festivities to commemorate the tricentennial of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the river that now bears his name and the centennial of Robert Fulton’s invention of the steamboat. This story can be read in its original format here.

Won't you join us for a walk in the steps of early immigrants exploring their new American lives in the city? Start way downtown in Manhattan, so you're facing the East River, with Ellis Island in view. We invite you to wonder about those who arrived here willingly and even desperately, and passed through immigration hall at the notorious arrival port of Ellis Island depicted in the Forward's archival image below. In traditional Jewish lore, to look eastward, with devotional intent, is to open the heart to Jerusalem and the source of all illumination.

“Newspaper Row” across from City Hall Park. Photographed by Berenice Abbott for the Federal Art Project, July 23, 1936. From left to right, the buildings are: New York World Building; New York Tribune Building, New York Times Building, Potter Building.

New York City abounds with tales of ghosts, and with each retelling, we breathe new life into these stories. In the grand Halloween tradition, join us as we venture into the most haunted sites of our city.

Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, honorary chairman of their tour, greeted 1936's champion "Maccabee" soccer team visiting from British mandate Palestine, here to play against the city's own All-Star team and American Soccer League team, as a fundraiser providing relief for Polish Jews, recently under siege by anti-Semitic riots.

The New York Sun Building, formerly Tammany Hall. Undated, prior to 1916.

New York World Building ca. 1933 Completed in December 1890, the World Building, officially called the Pulitzer Building, was an expression of the ambitions and business genius of its publisher Joseph Pulitzer. At a height of 309 feet to the top of the dome, the World's new home became the highest building in the city and the tallest office building in the world. Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant who had first arrived in New York in 1864 and fought in the Civil War, had his initial success the newspaper business in St. Louis. He purchased the New York World from financier Jay Gould in 1883 when the ailing paper had a daily circulation of only 22,000. A year later, Pulitzer had quadrupled the circulation, and by 1898 was selling a half million copies a day. In 1889, as the Times was completing its imposing headquarters on Printing House Square, Pulitzer planned a new home for the World that would outshine and overtop all his competitors. The site he acquired was on the northeast corner of Park Row and Frankfort Street overlooking City Hall Park. Pulitzer envisioned a dome that would symbolize both the ascendance of his paper and, as he professed, the highest ideals of journalism: liberty, justice, democracy and "true Americanism." Indeed, the World's 5-floor gilded dome, which housed the writers, editors, and Pulitzer's private office, lifted the publisher high above the city. In its booklet printed for the building's debut, the paper effused: "From Jersey's shores, from Brooklyn Heights, from the beach of Staten Island, from points far remote, it is first discerned as one approaches New York looming above the busy metropolis, above Trinity's lofty spire, above the tall towers and high roofs of its neighbors-a giant among the giants." In an architectural competition, Pulitzer selected George B. Post, architect of the Times Building, to design his tower. Some stories claim that Post won the commission by wagering $20,000 with Pulitzer that he could complete the project for its $1,000,000 budget. He got the job, but lost the bet, since the costs reached $2,000,000. No expense was spared on the elaborate façade of red sandstone, Renaissance ornament, and figurative sculpture that gave the tower an Old World character and made it look to be made of masonry rather than the advanced metal-cage construction that Post used within the walls. The language with which the World celebrated its new head-quarters was as richly laden with rhetoric as the building itself: "There is a sermon in these stones: a significant moral in this architectural glory. Fidelity to the Public Welfare, fearless opposition to the Wrong and vigorous defence (sic) of the Right, a persistent aspiring to loftier Ideals are the lessons it teaches."

Construction for the IRT East Side Line near the intersection of Park Row and Centre Street, November 13, 1902. The open pit, seen here, for subway construction, does its best to not disrupt the activity of this busy street. The trolley car #593 of the Metropolitan Street Railway still runs on the shored up roadway. The Old Hall of Records (at right) is likewise shored up and numerous elevated walkways and wooden sidewalks allow for movement over and around the construction.

In celebration of the Municipal Art Society's 125th Anniversary, we've compiled a list of landmarks older than MAS.

Tweed Courthouse, ca. 1975. The Old New York County Courthouse is better known as Tweed Courthouse, for the infamous Tammany Hall political boss who oversaw its funding (and the rampant kickbacks associated with construction costs). The massive Italianate courthouse, designed by architect John Kellum, quickly ran over its initial budget, with inflated materials costs used to fill Tammany coffers. In 1873, twelve years after the cornerstone was laid and two years after original architect Kellum's death, Tweed was convicted of embezzlement in an unfinished courtroom. Tweed's trial and imprisonment ground construction to a halt. Though architect Leopold Eidlitz was hired in 1874 to complete the courthouse interior and design a new wing, work did not resume until 1876. When Eidlitz's Romanesque south wing was completed in 1881, it was initially unpopular and considered incongruous to Kellum's Renaissance Revival design. For all its notoriety and expense, the Tweed Courthouse's utility as a civic structure was relatively short-lived. By the turn of the 20th century, the courthouse's association with political graft led politicians and press alike to call for its demolition, often as an element of redevelopment proposals for City Hall Park. When the new New York County Courthouse was completed in 1927, City Court operations shifted to the imperiled Tweed Courthouse. Over the next two decades, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and Robert Moses each called for the structure's removal. Still, the Tweed Courthouse survived, albeit without its grand entrance stairway, a casualty of the 1942 widening of Chambers Street. In 1984, the Landmarks Preservation Commission recognized both the historical and architectural significance of the long-unpopular courthouse in its designation as a New York City Landmark. A lengthy restoration project commenced in 1999, with the Giuliani administration declaring that the courthouse would become the new home of the Museum of the City of New York. The Bloomberg administration reversed these plans, instead determining that the Department of Education would become the next long-term Tweed tenant.

While most people think of chop suey as a specific dish, in reality, it is more of a style of cooking. It is an Americanized style, an often improvised stir fry of mixed ingredients, namely meat, vegetables, and a starchy gravy. First popularized in Chinatown around the turn of the 20th century, it spread throughout the city, becoming more Americanized (read-more bland) over the course of time. It is sometimes referred to as one of New York’s first fusion cuisines.

With the United States entering the First World War in April of 1917, many U.S. social groups began raising funds to help support the troops abroad.

In November 1952, the young Israeli state, a mere 4-years-old, sent their Minister of Police, Behar Sitreet, on an official fundraising tour. While in New York, Minister Sitreet paid a holiday visit to Mayor Vicent Impeliterri, who was also part of further holiday festivities at Madison Square Garden's massive Hanukkah pageant and fundraiser.

The New York City Department of Sanitation was established in 1881 to attack an overwhelming problem. New York City of the late 19th century was plagued with relentless filth. Horses left 2.5 million pounds of manure and 60,000 gallons of urine on the streets every single day. The unceasing expansion of the city left layers of grime on the streets.

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

On October 12, 2021, Municipal Archives digitization specialist Matt Minor presented an illustrated history of the Surrogate’s Court for DORIS’ “Lunch and Learn” program. As he reminded the audience, the original name of the building was the Hall of Records. It was the first purpose-built records hall for the City. The following is a condensed version of his talk. The original format of this story can be found here along with other excellent blogs.

World Building ca. 1890-1899 Completed in 1890, the World Building, (also known as the Pulitzer Building) was commissioned by editor Joseph Pulitzer as a headquarters for his paper the New York World. Designed by the prolific skyscraper architect George B. Post, it was the first building in New York to surpass in height the 284- foot spire of Trinity Church. The number of stories is disputed: estimates range from the 26 stories claimed by the World to the 16 or 18 suggested by recent scholars. The World and Tribune buildings were demolished in 1955 for the expanded automobile entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge.

City Hall Subway Station, ca. 1905. Considered the "crown jewel" of the original 28 IRT subway stations, the Old City Hall Station was in service from 1904 until 1945. Designed by architects Heins and LaFarge, the ornate station, with its curved track, was the showpiece of the city's new transit system. Tiled Guastavino ceilings rendered as soaring arches, brass chandeliers, and gorgeous leaded glass skylights wowed crowds on opening day October 27, 1904. By the 1940s the station was hardly being used. The nearby Brooklyn Bridge station was more convenient. Likewise the tight curve of this station made it difficult to operate as train technology developed and trains got longer. During the Second World War the skylights were blacked out and in 1945 the station was closed entirely. Renewed interest in the station prompted a plan for restoration and a museum annex location in the 1990s, but safety concerns (it sits directly under City Hall) stymied the plans.

Staats-Zeitung Building, ca. 1895. The New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, a Greman-language newspaper, began publishing in 1834. Originally founded by a by a society of German-American businessmen, it published weekly for the 10,000 German-born citizens in the city. The newspaper grew in length, population, and reputation over the next few decades. In 1852 a woman, Anna Uhl, took over management and five years later purchased a property on "Newspaper Row" (now Park Row). The first Staats building on the site was a simple narrow structure at 17 Chatham Street. In 1873, Anna Uhl and her now-husband and editor, Oswald Ottendorfer, commissioned German-born architect William Schickel to expand the building. The newspaper, which by the 1870s had a circulation comparable to major, local English-language newspapers, remained here until 1907. The headquarters was to be torn down for roadways for the Brooklyn Bridge. The newspaper moved just a few blocks away to a building on Spruce and William Street, which had previously housed the publishing operations of The New York Ledger.

A new chapter in the long Black freedom struggle took shape in New York and elsewhere following World War II. African-American New Yorkers and their allies mobilized against a range of discriminatory policies and practices, including exclusion by employers and banks, whites-only housing, segregated and unequal public schools, and controversial uses of force by police. By the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act, New York had passed anti-discrimination laws in employment and housing, and activists had staged an enormous school boycott protesting segregated schools. Yet racial discrimination remained, and that year, rioting broke out in Harlem after a white policeman fatally shot African-American teenager James Powell. Activists have continued to mobilize in response to police conduct in communities of color, as well as against city schools and housing that remain divided along racial lines.

Often thought of as a "concrete jungle," New York City also has a rich history of environmental activism--from the creation of green spaces to confronting climate change. In the decades following the first Earth Day in 1970 and the birth of the environmental movement, New Yorkers sought to make their city greener with recycling centers, community gardens, and bike lanes. Activist groups also called for improved environmental conditions and air quality that disproportionately affected people of color. Though the city is less polluted today, climate change has posed large challenges that have ignited a new generation of environmental activists. Explore key sites of eco-advocacy in the city from the 1960s to today.

In the United States, power and the ability to pass laws is spread out across three levels of government: the federal, state, and local levels. Each level has different responsibilities and is in charge of a different group of people. Government at the federal level is in charge of the entire nation. Members of the federal government include the President, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. They make laws and deal with issues that affect the whole nation. Members of the state government are in charge of making laws and protecting the interests of people in a specific state, like New York for example. The governor, and state representatives are examples of people involved with state government. Finally, every city, town, or county has their own local government. They deal with the most specific needs of a local group of people, like keeping communities clean and safe. Members of the local government, can include a mayor, city council members, or county executives. Throughout New York City's history different places have served government functions for each level of government. As you look through this story, consider some of the different responsibilities the various levels of government have and how they have changed over time. New York Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards 4.4b,c For Teachers: Different Levels of Government Lesson Plan

Discussions of vaccinations in New York City have an interesting history. The city’s 1947 smallpox outbreak is notable both for being the last smallpox outbreak in America and for spurring the largest mass vaccination effort ever conducted for smallpox in the country.

Nathan Hale Statue, 1911. Designed by Frederick MacMonnies, the 13-foot-tall bronze statue of Nathan Hale was dedicated in City Hall Park in November of 1893. Hale, a 21 year old American soldier and spy for the Continental Army, infiltrated the British army in an attempt to gather information about the enemy’s Long Island military installations. Caught in September of 1776, Hale was hanged for treason. The figure was cast without life portraits for reference (as none existed) and unveiled by the Sons of the Revolution of New York State on November 25, 1893, which had long been celebrated as Evacuation Day, the date on which the final members of the British army finally left New York following the Revolutionary War.

New York Post Office, 1912.

While New York is now one of the safest cities in the country, it still has had its share of notorious murders, here are but a few!

51 Chambers Street ARCHITECT: Raymond F. Almirall DATE: 1908-12 STYLE: Beaux-Arts The Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, established in 1850, was an important aid to Irish immigrants settling in New York during the second half of the 19th century. This building, the third for the institution on the same site, was designed by Raymond Almirall, a noted New York architect. Almirall’s Beaux-Arts style design represents an important stage in the early development of the design of skyscrapers. He pioneered the use the “H”-plan to provide good interior lighting.

100 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, a 24-year-old black New Yorker stood her ground on a streetcar. With courage and perseverance, she won the first recorded legal victory for equal rights on public transportation. This story appeared in its original format here.

Take a look through some of our partners' favorite stories from this year.

Oy! 2020 has been a whirlwind, but we sure made a lot of interesting discoveries along the way. Here's a round-up of our partners' favorite historical photos and finds from the year. More to come over the next few weeks!

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.

One sure-fire way to lose a presidential election? Become the mayor of New York City first. Running the country’s most populous city seems like an excellent résumé booster, but every NYC mayor who’s tried has failed to secure the nation’s highest office. By Serena Troshynski, Reference Librarian, NYPL Milstein Division of U.S. History, Local History, and Genealogy.

While New York is the setting of an enormous amount of films, some scenes define a space and some spaces define a scene. Either way, they happened in New York. 🎬

A walking tour through Lower Manhattan's skyscraper canyons and more than a century of high-rise construction. This walk focuses on the buildings around City Hall. This story is adapted from the Skyscraper Museum's "Ten Tops" exhibition.

We delve deep into the ghost stories, murder plots, and haunted location lists to bring you the most thorough collection of New York City's spookiest spots! Check out the historic photographs of the city's most haunted sites, from Psycho-esque mansions to abandoned lunatic asylums. How many have you visited? Proceed at your own risk!💀💀💀

Uptown entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge station of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line (4/5/6), ca. 1910. Originally known as Brooklyn Bridge, and later as Brooklyn Bridge—Worth Street, the station was connected to the BMT Nassau Line in 1914, a year after the Chambers Street station was completed.

The UK born, Cambridge educated, Israeli diplomat Abba Aubrey Solomon Eban was one of those diplomatic rock stars whose show stopping oratory seemed to articulate an entire era. For at least one week in 1953, along with the local milk driver's strike, he was in the Forward's headlines nearly daily.

City Hall Post Office and Courthouse, May 25, 1938. Construction on the City Hall Post Office and Courthouse — nicknamed “Mullett’s monstrosity” for architect Alfred B. Mullett — began in 1869, but was not completed until 1880, by which time the building’s elaborate French Second Empire design had fallen out of fashion. By the early 20th century, calls for the reviled building’s demolition were frequent. It was finally torn down in 1938, about one month after Berenice Abbott took this photograph.

New York City Hall, 1917.

New Yorkers are known for having strong opinions, but sometimes things get out of hand. This collection examines riots throughout New York's history, from the start of the LGBTQ movement at Stonewall to the race riots of the Civil War to a good old fashioned brawl between actors' fans.

The Public Design Commission (PDC) was established as the Municipal Art Commission by the New York City Charter in 1898 (following the consolidation of NYC). The Commission was tasked with the oversight of all public artworks and monuments, but its purview quickly expanded to include public structures and open spaces. Renamed in 2008, the PDC reviews the design of permanent works of architecture, landscape architecture, and art proposed on or over City-owned property. Projects are submitted by City agencies and include the construction, renovation, or restoration of buildings; the creation or rehabilitation of parks, playgrounds, and plazas; installation of lighting and other streetscape elements; signage; and the installation and conservation of artwork, including monuments and memorials. The Commission also acts as caretaker and curator of the City’s public art collection, which is located throughout the city’s public buildings and open spaces, and maintains an extensive archive documenting the history of New York City's public works. The PDC Archive maintains a collection of projects reviewed by the Commission since 1902, documenting more than 7,000 sites throughout New York City and providing a unique view into the history of the City’s public works. The designs that have been reviewed by the PDC throughout its over 120-year history are representative of the policies and focus of Mayoral administrations while simultaneously following historical trends in public design, public health, and artistic and cultural movements in the city and country at large. The following examples illustrate the breadth of projects under the PDC's purview, from large scale developments to streetscape fixtures that often go unnoticed. For an in-depth history of the Public Design Commission, see Michele H. Bogart’s book, "The Politics of Urban Beauty."

The story of the New York World Building begins directly after the Civil War.

World Building, ca. 1910. In commissioning the controversial New York World Building (1890), Joseph Pulitzer hoped to assert his paper's dominance in American journalism. George B. Post's design stood out, not only for its imposing height (it was the tallest building in New York City in 1890), but also for its colorful facade and iconic dome. The building was 309 feet tall (349 at the tip of the spire). The building was condemned in 1953 and razed in 1955 for a new car entrance ramp onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

New York City Hall. Quite aside from its position as the key governmental building of Great New York, City Hall is an architectural treasure without peer. It was ostensibly designed by the architects Mangin and McComb, working together. However, it is now well established that this delicate creation, with its ample fenestration and curving double staircase, was principally the work of the Frenchman Joseph Francois Mangin.

From its beginning, the Forward covered sports – the sports of chess and fishing, that is. In fact, its early highbrow sports coverage was a bit of a joke around town. But by the 1920s, the Forward’s sports pages began to give its readers the baseball news they wanted.

New York City Hall ARCHITECT: Joseph-François Mangin; John McComb, Jr. DATE: 1802-11 STYLE: Federal, French City Hall displays unusual architectural detail throughout representing both Federal and French influences. It is a marble building executed in the best tradition of fine craftsmanship. It is a building which – for over one hundred and fifty years – has provided the dignified setting in which the most important events in the history of the City have taken place. It is basically C-shaped in plan with two end wings projected forward at the front. It consists of two stories above a high basement. At the center, an attic story rises above the main roof level and is surmounted by a handsome domed cupola.

After the 1929 stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression, selling apples became a popular way to help now-unemployed New Yorkers eke out a living.

Architect John McComb, who had designed Castle Clinton in Battery Park, joined forces with Joseph Francois Mangin, an emigré architect from France, to win the competition to design a new home for the city government. McComb and Mangin eschewed the standard English forms and simple materials that had until then defined the architecture of the new republic. Instead, their design referenced French sources reflecting post-revolutionary politics City Hall Park has recently undergone extensive remodeling which created an open space with a nineteenth-century character. The elaborate tiled fountain and gaslights at the center of the park are reproductions of the park's mid-nineteenth-century fixtures.

By Harold Schechter When Joseph Pulitzer purchased the New York World in May 1883, a typical front page consisted of a half-dozen columns of densely packed type, unrelieved by illustrations or eye-catching headlines. Viewed from a slight distance, the page resembled a solid block of gray print, so dreary in appearance that the layout was referred to as a “tombstone.” The content was equally numbing. On May 10, 1883—its last day under the ownership of the financier Jay Gould—the World ran page-one stories on the recent nominations submitted to the Board of Aldermen, the forthcoming dedication of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the election of the executive committee of the American Cocker Spaniel Club. Little wonder that the paper had a daily circulation of fewer than 12,000 copies and was losing $40,000 a year. Read this in its original format here.