History Through Midtown Manhattan

PETER LASKOWICH

“I strive to link your ordinary experience – what you see, hear and feel – with the history and culture of New York.”

Peter Laskowich: Historian, Lecturer and Guide

Classes, Lectures & Tours

History Through Midtown Manhattan

Clues to the past hidden in plain sight

History is everywhere: in dull textbooks, yes, but also in the bend in a road, the shape of a building or the site of a church. Hidden in plain sight and scattered all over are clues that tell of life gone by.

Lower Midtown for example is rich with these features. A fence that is cow-high and pig-tight suggests that the area was once a quite different place. A special advantage to the home teams at Madison Square Garden points to a most significant predecessor building. A simple street intersection shows what the neighborhood was long ago, and suggests how New York became primary to world affairs.

A commercial building meant to frighten people away, a mark in the road for television performers, a mooring mast for zeppelins (!) and various other forms and structures demonstrate the continuing character and ethic of New York City.