Father of Gynecology?

What: A controversial statue of the “Father of Modern Gynecology”
When: 1894
Where: Fifth Avenue and 103 Street
Jul 11, 2017 | Categories: All stories, Consolidation (1855-1897), Health & Medicine, Upper East Side | Tags: Central Park, controversy, gynecology, James Marion Sims, speculum, statue, women's health | Leave A Comment »
Midnight Climax

What: CIA mind control experiments on non-consenting men
Where: 81 Bedford Street
When: 1950s and 60s
Jul 10, 2017 | Categories: All stories, Greenwich Village, Post-World War II (1946-1977), Scientists & Institutions | Tags: CIA, Greenwich Village, LSD, mind control, Operation Midnight Climax, San Francisco | Leave A Comment »
Dental School

What: New York College of Dentistry, third oldest in the country
When: mid-1800s
Where: 161 Fifth Avenue
Jun 14, 2017 | Categories: All stories, Consolidation (1855-1897), Flatiron District, Health & Medicine, Scientists & Institutions | Tags: Andrew Spielman, dentists, Father of Orthodontics, New York College of Dentistry, New York University, New York University's College of Dentistry, Norman Kingsley | Leave A Comment »
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
Jun 13, 2017 | Categories: All stories, Consolidation (1855-1897), Health & Medicine, Upper West Side | Tags: Board of Health, cholera, disease, miasma, Trinity Church, Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum, yellow fever | Leave A Comment »
Pneumatic Subway

What: New York City’s first subway
When: 1870s
Where: Broadway and Warren Street, near City Hall
Jun 13, 2017 | Categories: All stories, Consolidation (1855-1897), Financial District, Technology & Engineering | Tags: Alfred Ely Beach, Broadway, invention, pneumatic subway, Scientific American, subway, trains | Leave A Comment »
The Doctors Riot

What: Armed protest of doctors who were grave robbing for medical dissection
When: 1788
Where: Trinity Church and then Manhattan-wide
Feb 24, 2016 | Categories: All stories, Early America (1784-1854), Financial District, Health & Medicine | Tags: Alexander Hamilton, Columbia College, George Clinton, James Duane, James Thacher, John Hicks, John Jay, Negros Burial Ground, New York Hospital | Leave A Comment »
Harlem Hospital

What: Trained African American physicians and nurses during segregation
When: Founded in 1887
Where: Harlem
Feb 18, 2016 | Categories: All stories, Consolidation (1855-1897), Harlem, Health & Medicine, Scientists & Institutions | Tags: Harlem Hospital, John Cordice, Louis Wright, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., TB | Leave A Comment »
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
Feb 15, 2016 | Categories: All stories, Early America (1784-1854), Health & Medicine, Midtown East | Tags: Alonzo Clark, Bellevue Hospital, childbed fever, Ignaz Semmelweiss, maternal health, opium, puerperal fever, Stephen Smith | Leave A Comment »
Spanish Flu

What: Spanish flu hit New York City less drastically than some other American cities
When: 1918
Where: New York City
Feb 13, 2016 | Categories: All stories, Early 20th Century (1898-1945), Health & Medicine | Tags: 1918, Alfred Crosby, Bergensfjord, public health, Spanish flu | Leave A Comment »
Birth Control Clinic

What: One of Margaret Sanger’s first contraceptive clinics
When: 1930 to 1973
Where: 17 West 16 Street, Manhattan
Jan 24, 2016 | Categories: All stories, Early 20th Century (1898-1945), Flatiron District, Health & Medicine | Tags: American Birth Control League, contraception, Ethel Byrne, Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood | Leave A Comment »
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
Jan 24, 2016 | Categories: All stories, Early 20th Century (1898-1945), Health & Medicine, Outside Manhattan | Tags: East River, George Soper, immigrants, Mary Mallon, North Brother Island, Philip Alcabes, quarantine, Riverside Hospital, Typhoid Mary | Leave A Comment »
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
Jan 20, 2016 | Categories: All stories, Early 20th Century (1898-1945), Environment, Modern (1978-Present) | Tags: dredging, EPA, fishermen, General Electric, Hudson River, Hudson River Foundation, PCBs, Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson, striped bass, Superfund | Leave A Comment »
Malaria Therapy

What: A misguided effort to fight one disease, syphilis, with another, malaria.
When: 1930s
Where: The Rockefeller Institute
Jan 07, 2016 | Categories: All stories, Early 20th Century (1898-1945), Health & Medicine, Midtown East, Scientists & Institutions | Tags: African-American patients, falciparum, Julius Wagner-Jauregg, malaria, Mark F. Boyd, penicillin, plasmodia, Rockefeller Institute, syphilis | Leave A Comment »
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
Jan 07, 2016 | Categories: All stories, Battery Park City, Early America (1784-1854), Technology & Engineering | Tags: 1790 patent law, Clermont, ferries, Hoboken Steamboat Ferry Co., John Fitch, New York Harbor, Robert B. Livingston, Robert Fulton | Leave A Comment »
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
Jan 07, 2016 | Categories: All stories, Post-World War II (1946-1977), Zoology | Tags: Amarna bedbug, American Museum of Natural History, Bedbugs, Brooke Borel, DDT, Gil Bloom, Louis Sorkin | Leave A Comment »
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
Jan 07, 2016 | Categories: All stories, Early 20th Century (1898-1945), Environment, Lower East Side | Tags: Dan Barasch, James Ramsey, MTA, RAAD, The High Line, The Low Line, Williamsburg Bridge Railway Terminal | Leave A Comment »
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
Dec 31, 2015 | Categories: All stories, Early America (1784-1854), Environment, Greenwich Village | Tags: Minetta Brook, New York University, sewers, Steve Duncan, watershed | Leave A Comment »
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
Aug 13, 2015 | Categories: All stories, Biology, Early 20th Century (1898-1945), Upper West Side | Tags: Alfred Sturtevant, Columbia University, Darcy Kelly, fly room, genetics, Gregy Freyer, Nobel Prize, Thomas Hunt Morgan | Leave A Comment »
Lighting the Tree

What: A tradition created in the early 20th century
When: 1931 to the present
Where: 50 Street and Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
Apr 07, 2014 | Categories: All stories, Early 20th Century (1898-1945), Environment, Midtown West | Tags: Christmas tree, Rockefeller Center | Leave A Comment »
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
Apr 07, 2014 | Categories: All stories, Early 20th Century (1898-1945), Greenwich Village, Health & Medicine | Tags: American Society of Safety Engineers, Chalk, International Women's Day, labor, Michael Hirsch, Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition, Rose Imperato, Ruth Sergel, Shirtwaist Kings, Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, unions | Leave A Comment »
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
Apr 07, 2014 | Categories: All stories, Early America (1784-1854), Health & Medicine, Midtown East | Tags: American ginsing, Chinatown, Chinese medicine, David Hosack, Elgin botanical garden, James Reston, Nixon in China, Panax quinquefollus | Leave A Comment »
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
Apr 07, 2014 | Categories: All stories, Consolidation (1855-1897), Health & Medicine, Midtown East | Tags: abortion, Ann Trow Lohman, birth control, Comstock laws, George Washington Dixon, Madame Restell, Morris Ketchum Jesup, New York Society for the Suppression of Vice | Leave A Comment »
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
Apr 07, 2014 | Categories: All stories, Early 20th Century (1898-1945), Technology & Engineering, Tribeca | Tags: Clifford Milburn Holland, Holland Tunnel, Hudson River, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey | Leave A Comment »
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
Apr 07, 2014 | Categories: All stories, Astronomy, Early 20th Century (1898-1945), Upper West Side | Tags: Albert Einstein, Amateur Astronomers Association, American Museum of Natural History, Marcelo Cabrera, Mars opposition of 1924, Moonwatch team, Sputnik | Leave A Comment »