Every Group That Built New York, In Order

A church on East 6th Street was built for German Lutherans in 1847. Today it is a synagogue. What happened in between explains the whole city. On 15 June 1904 its congregation chartered the steamboat General Slocum for the Sunday school picnic. The boat burned in the East River and 1,021 people died, almost all of them women and children from that one church. It was the deadliest day in New York City history until 11 September 2001. The church survived it by thirty-five years and then died of it, and in 1940 the building was sold to a Jewish congregation. Same walls. Same windows. That is not a curiosity — it is how New York has worked for four hundred years. This is the complete history of New York City immigration and settlement, told in the order it happened: every group that built the city, which neighborhoods were theirs, what work they did, where their descendants went, and how to trace a New York family through the records. In this video: The Lenape and the names that survived — Manhattan, Rockaway, Canarsie, Jamaica, Gowanus — and the trail that became Broadway. What the Schaghen letter actually says about the 1626 purchase of Manhattan, and where the "$24" figure really came from. New Amsterdam and the Walloons who founded it. The 23 Jewish refugees of 1654 and Asser Levy's fight for citizenship. The eleven enslaved men granted half-freedom in 1644, and the Black-owned farms where Greenwich Village now stands. The 1712 revolt and the 1741 trials. The Book of Negroes. Seneca Village, and what was built on top of it in 1857. The Famine Irish and Five Points. The Draft Riots of 1863. Kleindeutschland and the General Slocum. The Lower East Side, the densest neighborhood on earth. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Mulberry Street — and Italian Harlem, which was three times larger and has been forgotten. Chinatown and the bachelor society that Exclusion created. Little Syria and the tunnel that erased it. Philip Payton and how Harlem changed hands in twenty years. The Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance. Restrictive covenants, redlining, and Robert Moses. El Barrio, Loisaida and the South Bronx. Brighton Beach, Jackson Heights, Flushing, Washington Heights and Richmond Hill. And the 1898 consolidation, the lost 1890 census, and where New York's records actually live. Chapters 0:00 The church that became a synagogue 3:00 The Lenape and the names that survived 7:00 What the 1626 letter really says 11:00 New Amsterdam 15:00 The first Jews, 1654 18:00 Half-freedom and the Land of the Blacks 22:00 The English take over 26:00 Seneca Village 29:00 The Famine Irish 33:00 The Draft Riots 36:00 Little Germany 39:00 The General Slocum 43:00 The Lower East Side 48:00 Triangle Shirtwaist 50:00 Mulberry Street and Italian Harlem 54:00 Chinatown 57:00 Little Syria 59:00 How Harlem changed hands 63:00 The Great Migration 67:00 Covenants, redlining and Robert Moses 72:00 The Puerto Rican migration 75:00 After 1965 79:00 How the neighborhoods changed hands 83:00 Finding your New York family Tell me in the comments: which layer was your family, and which block? Five Points. Kleindeutschland. Orchard Street. Mulberry Street. East Harlem. Brownsville. The Grand Concourse. Bed-Stuy. Washington Heights. Brighton Beach. Jackson Heights. Put the years in — somebody reading may have lived in the same building. #NewYorkHistory #NYC #Genealogy #EllisIsland #LowerEastSide #AmericanHistory