Father of Gynecology?
What: A controversial statue of the “Father of Modern Gynecology”
When: 1894
Where: Fifth Avenue and 103 Street
Midnight Climax
What: CIA mind control experiments on non-consenting men
Where: 81 Bedford Street
When: 1950s and 60s
Dental School
What: New York College of Dentistry, third oldest in the country
When: mid-1800s
Where: 161 Fifth Avenue
A Rural Cemetery
What: A cemetery to address 19th century bans on downtown burials
When: mid 1800s
Where: 770 Riverside Drive, between 153 and 155 streets
Pneumatic Subway
What: New York City’s first subway
When: 1870s
Where: Broadway and Warren Street, near City Hall
The Doctors Riot
What: Armed protest of doctors who were grave robbing for medical dissection
When: 1788
Where: Trinity Church and then Manhattan-wide
Harlem Hospital
What: Trained African American physicians and nurses during segregation
When: Founded in 1887
Where: Harlem
Opium for Mothers at Bellevue
What: Women suffering from infection during childbirth were treated with high doses of opium
When: Mid Nineteenth Century
Where: Bellevue Hospital
Spanish Flu
What: Spanish flu hit New York City less drastically than some other American cities
When: 1918
Where: New York City
Birth Control Clinic
What: One of Margaret Sanger’s first contraceptive clinics
When: 1930 to 1973
Where: 17 West 16 Street, Manhattan
Typhoid Mary’s Exile
What: Cook Mary Mallon was forcibly detained on North Brother Island to stem the spread of typhoid
When: Early 1900s
Where: North Brother Island, in the East River
Cleaning the Hudson
What: Contamination of the Hudson River with PCBs led to its designation as a Superfund site
When: 1970s to the present
Where: The Hudson River from Hudson Falls down to the harbor
Malaria Therapy
What: A misguided effort to fight one disease, syphilis, with another, malaria.
When: 1930s
Where: The Rockefeller Institute
Steam-fueled Skirmish
What: The patent act of 1790 and commercial competition led to steamboat innovation in New York City waters
When: 1790s to 1820s
Where: New York Harbor
Return of the Bedbug
What: The rise of bedbugs in New York City is related to the decline of DDT use.
When: 1950s to the present
Where: Everywhere
The Low Line
What: Abandoned tracks and an unused terminal are being converted into a subterranean park.
When: 1903 to 1948, and present
Where: Lower East Side, Manhattan
Minetta Brook
What: The path of an underground creek that still runs today.
When: For much of the island’s history, until early the early 1800s
Where: In the West Village, around New York University
The Fly Room
What: Critical work on genetics by Thomas Hunt Morgan and Alfred Sturtevant.
When: Early 20th century
Where: Schermerhorn Hall, Columbia University, 116 Street and Broadway, Manhattan
Lighting the Tree
What: A tradition created in the early 20th century
When: 1931 to the present
Where: 50 Street and Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
Factory Fire Horror
What: A fire that killed 146 employees in a factory in Greenwich Village led to the creation of the American Society of Safety Engineers and improved labor laws.
When: 1911
Where: Washington Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
Ginsing in Gotham
What: Elgin, America’s first public botanical garden, cultivated many plants with medical properties. Centuries later, one of those plants would reappear in medical stores in Chinatown.
When: 1801
Where: Fifth Avenue with 50 Street, Manhattan
Clandestine Abortionist
What: Ann Trow Lohman, known as Madame Restell, ran a 19th century abortion house at a time when physicians advocated for fertility control.
When: 1840
Where: Fifth Avenue and 52 Street, Manhattan
Sandhogs, Fresh Air and the Holland Tunnel
What: First direct connection for automobiles between Manhattan and New Jersey. A National Historic Landmark.
When: 1922 to 1927
Where: Under the Hudson River, close to Soho, Manhattan
Stargazer Gatherings
What: An association created when directors from The American Museum of Natural History began thinking about building a planetarium
When: 1927
Where: American Museum of Natural History, Upper West Side, Manhattan