{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/jw86h4f68p/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["How We Name the City"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/010/original/Aviary_QPLlogo_192x192.png?1578574261","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eEach day, millions of people “take” the Major Deegan, the Van Wyck Expressway, the Kosciuszko Bridge, and the Holland Tunnel. Few travelers remember that, before these names became urban shorthand for congestion, they were actual people. But how did this infrastructure get named? Who decided? By what process?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eThis event uses the naming of New York City’s roads, bridges, and civic institutions as a unique window into urban social structure and the City’s ever-changing inhabitants and legal structures. Drawing from her book Naming Gotham: The Villains, Rogues, and Heroes Behind New York Place Names, CUNY Law Professor Rebecca Bratspies introduces the Revolutionary War figures, civil rights heroes, robber barons, and Tammany Hall politicos whose names grace much of our infrastructure, and uses their lives to gain an understanding of New York’s history.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Rebecca Bratspies (Presenter)","Natalie Milbrodt (Producer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2023-11-16 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Video"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright held by Queens Public Library\u003c/p\u003e"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eEach day, millions of people \u0026ldquo;take\u0026rdquo; the Major Deegan, the Van Wyck Expressway, the Kosciuszko Bridge, and the Holland Tunnel. Few travelers remember that, before these names became urban shorthand for congestion, they were actual people. But how did this infrastructure get named? Who decided? By what process?\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eThis event uses the naming of New York City\u0026rsquo;s roads, bridges, and civic institutions as a unique window into urban social structure and the City\u0026rsquo;s ever-changing inhabitants and legal structures. Drawing from her book Naming Gotham: The Villains, Rogues, and Heroes Behind New York Place Names, CUNY Law Professor Rebecca Bratspies introduces the Revolutionary War figures, civil rights heroes, robber barons, and Tammany Hall politicos whose names grace much of our infrastructure, and uses their lives to gain an understanding of New York\u0026rsquo;s history.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright held by Queens Public Library\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Queens Public Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Queens Public Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/010/original/Aviary_QPLlogo_192x192.png?1578574261","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/225/049/small/Bratspies_02_20231116Milbrodt.jpg?1704824832","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/27/collection_resources/119953/file/225049","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - QNE_Bratspies_Forest_Hills_010924.mp4"]},"duration":2562.51733,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/225/049/small/Bratspies_02_20231116Milbrodt.jpg?1704824832","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/27/collection_resources/119953/file/225049/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/27/collection_resources/119953/file/225049/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-queenslibrary.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/225/049/original/QNE_Bratspies_Forest_Hills_010924.mp4?1704824264","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":2562.51733,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/27/collection_resources/119953/file/225049","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/27/collection_resources/119953/file/225049/transcript/63103","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Full Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/27/collection_resources/119953/file/225049/transcript/63103/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"00:00:00:03 - 00:00:03:16\r\nMy name is Natalie Milbrodt, and I’m\rthe Director of the Queens Memory Project.\r\n\r\n00:00:03:21 - 00:00:06:14\r\nThis is Meral Agish.\rShe's our Community Coordinator.\r\n\r\n00:00:06:14 - 00:00:11:06\r\nAnd we're really happy to have you here\rwith us this evening to enjoy this talk\r\n\r\n00:00:11:06 - 00:00:15:22\r\nby Rebecca Bratspies who is going to talk\rabout her wonderful book, “Naming Gotham.”\r\n\r\n00:00:16:00 - 00:00:20:08\r\nSo the book highlights named places\rall over New York City.\r\n\r\n00:00:20:08 - 00:00:25:04\r\nBut today we're going to really focus\ron named places that are in Queens.\r\n\r\n00:00:25:06 - 00:00:28:23\r\nAnd later in the program,\rwe're going to share a special initiative\r\n\r\n00:00:28:23 - 00:00:29:16\r\nthat we started\r\n\r\n00:00:29:16 - 00:00:33:09\r\nas part of the Queens Memory\rProject, called the Queens Name Explorer,\r\n\r\n00:00:33:11 - 00:00:37:07\r\nwhich is an interactive map of Queens\rthat has all of the places\r\n\r\n00:00:37:07 - 00:00:40:07\r\nthat are named after individual people\racross the borough.\r\n\r\n00:00:40:07 - 00:00:44:19\r\nSo there are over a thousand places so far\rthat we've identified, and there are\r\n\r\n00:00:44:19 - 00:00:48:18\r\nsome that are in the immediate area\rthat we need more information about.\r\n\r\n00:00:48:18 - 00:00:50:09\r\nSo we maybe have a little bit\r\n\r\n00:00:50:09 - 00:00:53:23\r\nof biographical information,\rbut we're missing a photo or we’re missing,\r\n\r\n00:00:54:04 - 00:00:56:14\r\nyou know, more information\rabout the person's life.\r\n\r\n00:00:56:14 - 00:01:00:01\r\nSo we're hoping to maybe\rshare them with you and get some insight\r\n\r\n00:01:00:01 - 00:01:04:07\r\nfrom folks who might be familiar\rwith some of these local named places.\r\n\r\n00:01:04:09 - 00:01:07:23\r\nBut to get us started,\rwe will hear from Rebecca\r\n\r\n00:01:07:23 - 00:01:10:14\r\nand learn a little bit\rabout “Naming Gotham.”\r\n\r\n00:01:10:14 - 00:01:11:18\r\nSo thank you so much.\r\n\r\n00:01:21:10 - 00:01:23:13\r\nBut thank you for coming.\r\n\r\n00:01:23:13 - 00:01:25:06\r\nAnd so a little bit about me.\r\n\r\n00:01:25:06 - 00:01:27:10\r\nI'm a CUNY professor.\r\n\r\n00:01:27:10 - 00:01:31:05\r\nI teach in the School of Law,\rand my work is really focused on\r\n\r\n00:01:31:07 - 00:01:35:23\r\nenvironmental protection,\rand that's where most of my writing is.\r\n\r\n00:01:36:00 - 00:01:39:05\r\nSo I write a lot about New York\rand about how we make decisions\r\n\r\n00:01:39:05 - 00:01:43:04\r\nabout infrastructure and how the benefits\rand burdens of that infrastructure\r\n\r\n00:01:43:04 - 00:01:46:09\r\nare divvied up among\rand between communities.\r\n\r\n00:01:46:09 - 00:01:48:15\r\nI’m also a long time Astoria resident\r\n\r\n00:01:48:15 - 00:01:52:00\r\nwith a brief stint in Greenwich Village.\r\n\r\n00:01:52:02 - 00:01:55:01\r\nSo I wrote this book\r\n\r\n00:01:55:01 - 00:01:57:20\r\neven though I'm not a historian.\r\n\r\n00:01:57:20 - 00:01:59:17\r\nIt really took me out of my comfort zone.\r\n\r\n00:01:59:19 - 00:02:04:05\r\nBut it really also changed\rmy scholarship a lot,\r\n\r\n00:02:04:05 - 00:02:09:01\r\nbecause I started to think much more\rabout the history of places.\r\n\r\n00:02:09:03 - 00:02:12:23\r\nSo what I thought we would do \rtoday is start really local.\r\n\r\n00:02:13:01 - 00:02:15:15\r\nAustin Street - right near here.\r\n\r\n00:02:15:15 - 00:02:19:17\r\nThis is the 1913\rsurvey map of Forest Hills\r\n\r\n00:02:19:19 - 00:02:23:19\r\nbefore the named streets\rwere renamed as numbers mostly.\r\n\r\n00:02:23:19 - 00:02:28:04\r\nYou can see the red arrow marks\rwhere Austin Street is,\r\n\r\n00:02:28:04 - 00:02:33:06\r\nand the rough location - \rlocation of the library is there.\r\n\r\n00:02:33:08 - 00:02:35:12\r\nSo who is Austin?\r\n\r\n00:02:35:14 - 00:02:37:21\r\nAnyone know?\r\n\r\n00:02:37:21 - 00:02:42:11\r\nSort of unusual,\rbecause it's actually his first name.\r\n\r\n00:02:42:13 - 00:02:45:11\r\nThe street was named\rafter a guy named Austin Corbin.\r\n\r\n00:02:45:11 - 00:02:49:07\r\nAnd if you look on Wikipedia,\rit will tell you that he was “a wealthy\r\n\r\n00:02:49:07 - 00:02:53:13\r\nbanking and railroad entrepreneur\rwho helped develop Coney Island.”\r\n\r\n00:02:53:15 - 00:02:57:10\r\nAnd according to his obituary\rin The New York Times, he was a Yankee\r\n\r\n00:02:57:10 - 00:03:02:05\r\nboy, who started life\rwith an abundance of brains and courage.\r\n\r\n00:03:02:07 - 00:03:07:14\r\nAnd The Times described him as the very\rembodiment of energy and says, you know,\r\n\r\n00:03:07:20 - 00:03:12:10\r\nnot only do we owe the rejuvenated\rLong Island Railroad to him,\r\n\r\n00:03:12:12 - 00:03:16:00\r\nbut we owe almost everything\rthat was good about\r\n\r\n00:03:16:00 - 00:03:19:00\r\nConey Island to Corbin.\r\n\r\n00:03:19:04 - 00:03:23:03\r\nScratch the surface,\rhowever, and you get a really different story.\r\n\r\n00:03:23:05 - 00:03:25:19\r\nHe was a Robber Baron.\r\n\r\n00:03:25:19 - 00:03:29:17\r\nHe was a really significant antisemite.\r\n\r\n00:03:29:17 - 00:03:31:14\r\nThis is an image of \rAustin Corbin.\r\n\r\n00:03:31:14 - 00:03:36:19\r\nHe trained as a lawyer at Harvard in the 1840s.\r\n\r\n00:03:36:21 - 00:03:40:21\r\nAnd then he moved to Iowa,\rwhere he became a partner in a bank.\r\n\r\n00:03:40:22 - 00:03:43:07\r\nAnd he organized...\r\n\r\n00:03:43:07 - 00:03:46:23\r\nhe got a charter\rfor the first national bank\r\n\r\n00:03:47:00 - 00:03:50:13\r\nunder the National Currency\rAct of 1863. Why?\r\n\r\n00:03:50:13 - 00:03:55:02\r\nBecause his cousin was the Secretary\rof the Treasury - Solomon Chase.\r\n\r\n00:03:55:04 - 00:03:57:22\r\nAnd so he made a lot of money\r\n\r\n00:03:57:22 - 00:04:00:21\r\ndoing that, and then he moved to New York in 1865.\r\n\r\n00:04:00:21 - 00:04:03:21\r\nAnd he founded Corbin Banking Company.\r\n\r\n00:04:04:02 - 00:04:07:16\r\nAnd this guy - lovely man that he is - \r\n\r\n00:04:07:16 - 00:04:10:17\r\ninvented the mortgage\rorigination fee.\r\n\r\n00:04:10:19 - 00:04:14:03\r\nSo the fee that you have to pay\ron top of the interest\r\n\r\n00:04:14:03 - 00:04:17:03\r\nassociated with the mortgage - \rthat was his brainchild.\r\n\r\n00:04:17:07 - 00:04:18:01\r\nHe made a fortune.\r\n\r\n00:04:18:01 - 00:04:21:12\r\nHe got sued multiple times\rbecause that violated the usury laws\r\n\r\n00:04:21:12 - 00:04:24:10\r\nthat existed during that era.\r\n\r\n00:04:24:12 - 00:04:29:19\r\nAnd in 1873, legend has it that a doctor\r\n\r\n00:04:29:21 - 00:04:34:23\r\nadvised him that his \rinfant son needed fresh air.\r\n\r\n00:04:35:01 - 00:04:38:01\r\nSo he took the whole family - \rremember this guy is super wealthy - \r\n\r\n00:04:38:06 - 00:04:41:03\r\nto Coney Island.\r\n\r\n00:04:41:03 - 00:04:46:09\r\nAnd at the time, there was one\r“respectable hotel” on Coney Island.\r\n\r\n00:04:46:09 - 00:04:48:00\r\nBut the area was, as the New York Times said,\r\n\r\n00:04:48:00 - 00:04:50:22\r\n“given over to rebels\rof the worst character.”\r\n\r\n00:04:51:15 - 00:04:53:12\r\nAlso there was not \ra lot of development there.\r\n\r\n00:04:53:12 - 00:04:56:02\r\nCorbin looked at the beaches\rand saw an opportunity.\r\n\r\n00:04:56:02 - 00:04:59:04\r\nAnd then he proceeded\rto scam his way into owning the land.\r\n\r\n00:04:59:07 - 00:05:03:22\r\nThis was a modus operandi\rthat he had throughout his career.\r\n\r\n00:05:04:00 - 00:05:09:12\r\nSo he was in cahoots with the town\rsurveyor for the town of Gravesend.\r\n\r\n00:05:09:14 - 00:05:12:08\r\nAnd the land that he wound up getting\r\n\r\n00:05:12:08 - 00:05:15:02\r\nwas held in trust by the town\r\n\r\n00:05:15:02 - 00:05:21:18\r\nfor the heirs of the original owners\runder the Dutch pact.\r\n\r\n00:05:21:20 - 00:05:25:07\r\nAnd the town was supposed\rto rent the land out for seven years,\r\n\r\n00:05:25:07 - 00:05:29:03\r\nwith maximum seven years,\rat the highest price.\r\n\r\n00:05:29:05 - 00:05:33:11\r\nWhat they did instead\rwas sell it to Corbin at a cut rate.\r\n\r\n00:05:33:13 - 00:05:39:16\r\nSo he paid $1,500 for 500 acres\rthat included two miles of ocean front,\r\n\r\n00:05:39:16 - 00:05:43:02\r\ntwo miles of bay front,\rand all of the beaches.\r\n\r\n00:05:43:02 - 00:05:47:21\r\nAt the time, the fair value was closer to $1.5 million.\r\n\r\n00:05:47:23 - 00:05:50:23\r\nSo he got quite a discount.\r\n\r\n00:05:51:20 - 00:05:54:19\r\nYou can see the two swanky \rhotels that he built -\r\n\r\n00:05:54:19 - 00:05:57:17\r\nthe Manhattan Beach Hotel\rand the Oriental Hotel.\r\n\r\n00:05:57:17 - 00:06:02:04\r\nAnd you also can see people in the corner,\ra little bit of the railroad that's been\r\n\r\n00:06:02:04 - 00:06:06:17\r\nbuilt to bring the guests to his hotels,\rbecause he was a railroad magnet.\r\n\r\n00:06:06:18 - 00:06:10:04\r\nNo less a personage than Ulysses Grant...\r\n\r\n00:06:10:06 - 00:06:13:23\r\ncut the ribbon for the opening\rof the Manhattan Beach Hotel.\r\n\r\n00:06:14:05 - 00:06:18:08\r\nAnd a few years later,\rPresident Rutherford B. Hayes\r\n\r\n00:06:18:10 - 00:06:21:16\r\npresided over the opening\rof the Oriental Hotel.\r\n\r\n00:06:21:18 - 00:06:25:21\r\nNow, to keep the riff raff out,\rhe hired Pinkerton guards to patrol\r\n\r\n00:06:25:21 - 00:06:31:18\r\nthe grounds and were sort of aggressive\rin making sure the riff raff was kept out.\r\n\r\n00:06:31:20 - 00:06:34:10\r\nAs I mentioned,\rthe guy was a vocal anti-Semite.\r\n\r\n00:06:34:10 - 00:06:38:06\r\nHe was the secretary for the American Association\r\n\r\n00:06:38:06 - 00:06:40:03\r\nfor the Suppression of Jews.\r\n\r\n00:06:40:03 - 00:06:44:17\r\nAnd he loudly proclaimed\rno Jews allowed in the hotels.\r\n\r\n00:06:44:19 - 00:06:48:01\r\nAnd so anybody with a\rJewish-sounding name...\r\n\r\n00:06:48:03 - 00:06:54:14\r\nwould be told if they went to try to check into\ra hotel, “I'm sorry, but we're all filled up.”\r\n\r\n00:06:54:14 - 00:06:56:03\r\nNow from a story...\r\n\r\n00:06:56:03 - 00:06:59:06\r\nGeorge M. Cohan \rcomes to the hotel -\r\n\r\n00:06:59:06 - 00:07:01:08\r\nMr. Yankee Doodle himself.\r\n\r\n00:07:01:08 - 00:07:07:11\r\nAnd the person, the desk manager, who\rwas checking in doesn't know who he is.\r\n\r\n00:07:07:12 - 00:07:12:01\r\nAnd looks at the name \rand says, “Sorry, we’re full.”\r\n\r\n00:07:12:02 - 00:07:15:15\r\nBut one of the other clerks recognized him\r\n\r\n00:07:15:15 - 00:07:19:04\r\nand ran to the manager saying,\r“We’re turning away George M. Cohan!”\r\n\r\n00:07:19:10 - 00:07:23:05\r\nAnd the manager runs out and says, “Oh,\rthere was a mistake!\r\n\r\n00:07:23:06 - 00:07:26:02\r\nWe have a lovely suite for you \r\n\r\n00:07:26:02 - 00:07:28:22\r\nCohan, Georgia Cohan says...\r\n\r\n00:07:28:22 - 00:07:31:22\r\n“Since you both made a mistake...\rthis is a quote, since you both made a mistake...\r\n\r\n00:07:32:01 - 00:07:37:08\r\nYou mistook me for a Jew, \rand I mistook you for a gentleman.\r\n\r\n00:07:37:08 - 00:07:38:23\r\nAnd he left and never came back.\r\n\r\n00:07:39:07 - 00:07:42:08\r\nHe was also a union buster\r\n\r\n00:07:42:08 - 00:07:45:12\r\nand just a generally super corrupt guy.\r\n\r\n00:07:45:14 - 00:07:49:09\r\nThis is an 1890 Puck magazine\r\n\r\n00:07:49:11 - 00:07:53:01\r\nillustration called, \r“The Selling of the President.”\r\n\r\n00:07:54:01 - 00:07:58:19\r\nYou can't really read it, but the tag on it... it’s the Presidential chair.\r\n\r\n00:07:58:19 - 00:08:03:05\r\nThe tag on the chair says, “ Comes with eight pieces,”\rand the list of pieces\r\n\r\n00:08:03:05 - 00:08:06:22\r\non the ground includes Vice President\rand a bunch of cabinet positions.\r\n\r\n00:08:07:00 - 00:08:12:17\r\nAnd the circle is Austin Corbin \rbidding on the presidency.\r\n\r\n00:08:12:19 - 00:08:17:05\r\nAnd behind him is Russell Sage, \rJay Gould is there...\r\n\r\n00:08:17:05 - 00:08:21:16\r\n...John D. Rockefeller and many other \rrobber barons are in this photo.\r\n\r\n00:08:21:18 - 00:08:25:16\r\nSo he got his position \rin Coney Island\r\n\r\n00:08:25:18 - 00:08:30:06\r\nbasically for land theft,\rand that was really his modus operandi.\r\n\r\n00:08:30:08 - 00:08:34:19\r\nHe gained control\rin 1880 of the Long Island Railroad.\r\n\r\n00:08:34:20 - 00:08:36:07\r\nconsolidating it then with\r\n\r\n00:08:36:07 - 00:08:40:08\r\nthe Montauk Line and the Flushing Line, and\ra bunch of other lines to create what we \r\n\r\n00:08:40:08 - 00:08:43:07\r\nthink of now as the \rLong Island Railroad.\r\n\r\n00:08:43:07 - 00:08:44:11\r\nAnd then he spent 16 years\r\n\r\n00:08:44:11 - 00:08:48:20\r\nexpanding it pretty much without regard\rfor anybody's property rights.\r\n\r\n00:08:48:20 - 00:08:50:13\r\nalong the way.\r\n\r\n00:08:50:15 - 00:08:53:17\r\nHis most infamous \rland grab though\r\n\r\n00:08:53:22 - 00:08:58:12\r\nwas he swindled the Montaukett tribe\rout of nearly 10,000 acres\r\n\r\n00:08:58:14 - 00:08:59:12\r\nnear Montauk.\r\n\r\n00:08:59:12 - 00:09:02:06\r\nAnd he wanted the land,\rbecause he had this brainchild\r\n\r\n00:09:02:06 - 00:09:05:14\r\nthat he was going to make a port\rin Montauk that was going to compete\r\n\r\n00:09:05:14 - 00:09:10:01\r\nwith the New York Harbor, which was I\rmean, first of all, he stole the boat.\r\n\r\n00:09:10:01 - 00:09:13:01\r\nSecond of all, it was not deep enough.\r\n\r\n00:09:13:04 - 00:09:14:20\r\nAnd third of all, he wound up dying,\r\n\r\n00:09:14:20 - 00:09:17:08\r\nbefore he could get the approval to do this.\r\n\r\n00:09:17:08 - 00:09:20:03\r\nSo it never happened.\r\n\r\n00:09:20:05 - 00:09:24:02\r\nJust one more little story about him,\rbecause in 1887,\r\n\r\n00:09:24:02 - 00:09:29:01\r\nJ.P. Morgan appointed Austin Corbin,\rour Austin Street guy,\r\n\r\n00:09:29:01 - 00:09:31:03\r\nas President of Reading Railroad.\r\n\r\n00:09:31:07 - 00:09:34:18\r\nAnd Corbin immediately\rbegan hiring scabs, firing\r\n\r\n00:09:34:18 - 00:09:38:01\r\nworkers, and breaking strikes.\r\n\r\n00:09:38:03 - 00:09:41:20\r\nSo he was called to Washington\rto face a congressional hearing,\r\n\r\n00:09:41:20 - 00:09:44:05\r\nbecause there were allegations\rthat he was instigating strikes.\r\n\r\n00:09:44:05 - 00:09:50:01\r\nHe was like eliciting strikes,\rand he was fixing the price of coal.\r\n\r\n00:09:50:03 - 00:09:51:19\r\nAnd guess how he responded?\r\n\r\n00:09:51:19 - 00:09:56:13\r\nHe tried to bribe the congressional\rmembers who were on the hearing committee.\r\n\r\n00:09:56:15 - 00:09:57:23\r\nSo Eugene Debs, right, \r\n\r\n00:09:57:23 - 00:10:01:22\r\nSocialist labor organizer,\rEugene Debs, called Austin Corbin\r\n\r\n00:10:01:22 - 00:10:06:15\r\n“a repulsive creature of mental\rand moral deformities,”\r\n\r\n00:10:06:17 - 00:10:09:16\r\nand alleged that Corbin believed\rthat his money, “permitted him\r\n\r\n00:10:09:16 - 00:10:14:01\r\nto practice schemes of knavery with\rreckless disregard for the law.”\r\n\r\n00:10:14:03 - 00:10:17:23\r\nAnd it pretty much did,\ror at least be part of it.\r\n\r\n00:10:17:23 - 00:10:23:01\r\nSo these photos are the origin story.\r\n\r\n00:10:23:03 - 00:10:24:17\r\nThis project started in traffic.\r\n\r\n00:10:24:17 - 00:10:27:17\r\nBoth of those are taken\ron the Major Deegan,\r\n\r\n00:10:27:22 - 00:10:31:21\r\nwhere I spend a lot of my life cursing.\r\n\r\n00:10:31:23 - 00:10:36:22\r\nAnd part of the sort of bad\r\n\r\n00:10:36:22 - 00:10:40:20\r\nlanguage coming out of my mouth\rhad to do with what I thought.\r\n\r\n00:10:40:22 - 00:10:43:02\r\nBut I had no idea who this guy was.\r\n\r\n00:10:43:02 - 00:10:45:03\r\nAnd in fact, nobody knew who he was.\r\n\r\n00:10:45:03 - 00:10:50:05\r\nEverybody took the Major Deegan,\rbut nobody had a clue who the guy was.\r\n\r\n00:10:50:07 - 00:10:53:09\r\nAnd my family that's sort of\rsick of listening to me be like, \r\n\r\n00:10:53:10 - 00:10:54:07\r\n“Oh I hate this guy. \rWho was he?”\r\n\r\n00:10:54:07 - 00:10:57:15\r\nAnd finally they said, “Well,\rwhy don't you find out?”\r\n\r\n00:10:57:17 - 00:10:58:11\r\nSo I did.\r\n\r\n00:10:58:11 - 00:11:01:17\r\nAnd it turns out he was way less impressive\rthan you might expect, given\r\n\r\n00:11:01:17 - 00:11:03:07\r\nthat he's got this major road\r\n\r\n00:11:03:07 - 00:11:08:01\r\nthat goes past Yankee Stadium to George\rWashington Bridge named in his honor.\r\n\r\n00:11:08:03 - 00:11:10:13\r\nThis is... It was very hard to find a photograph of him.\r\n\r\n00:11:10:13 - 00:11:13:22\r\nThere are very few photographs\rexisting of Major Deegan.\r\n\r\n00:11:13:22 - 00:11:16:15\r\nBut this is him - William Francis Deegan.\r\n\r\n00:11:16:15 - 00:11:20:21\r\nHe was an architect, and \rhe was a major, at least technically.\r\n\r\n00:11:20:21 - 00:11:25:02\r\nHe served in the American Expeditionary\rForce during World War I.\r\n\r\n00:11:25:04 - 00:11:29:16\r\nBut his expeditions\rdidn't take him out of New York City.\r\n\r\n00:11:29:18 - 00:11:34:15\r\nHe spent the entire war here,\rdesigning fortifications for the city.\r\n\r\n00:11:34:17 - 00:11:39:13\r\nUnder actually\rthe command of General George\r\n\r\n00:11:39:13 - 00:11:43:15\r\nWashington Goethals.\r\n\r\n00:11:43:17 - 00:11:45:11\r\nAnd, you know, that's important work.\r\n\r\n00:11:45:11 - 00:11:46:10\r\nSomebody's got to do it.\r\n\r\n00:11:46:10 - 00:11:48:02\r\nApparently he did it pretty well.\r\n\r\n00:11:48:23 - 00:11:50:19\r\nBut it's hardly the stuff of legend.\r\n\r\n00:11:50:19 - 00:11:51:22\r\nIt's hardly what you imagine\r\n\r\n00:11:51:22 - 00:11:56:00\r\ngets you a road named after you,\respecially a major road like that.\r\n\r\n00:11:56:02 - 00:12:01:05\r\nSo his major claim to fame was he\rhelped form the American Legion in 1919,\r\n\r\n00:12:01:08 - 00:12:05:05\r\nand then he served as the\rfirst New York State Commander.\r\n\r\n00:12:05:07 - 00:12:07:12\r\nAnd in that role, he was\r\n\r\n00:12:07:12 - 00:12:10:16\r\nreally a very passionate advocate\rfor returning veterans.\r\n\r\n00:12:10:18 - 00:12:14:13\r\nHe was attacking the Veterans\rAdministration for sorry...\r\n\r\n00:12:14:13 - 00:12:19:03\r\nIt was Veterans Bureau for not providing\radequate medical care for veterans\r\n\r\n00:12:19:08 - 00:12:22:05\r\nand for not helping them on jobs, \ror things they struggled\r\n\r\n00:12:22:05 - 00:12:26:21\r\nwith to this day,\rin terms of returning veterans.\r\n\r\n00:12:26:23 - 00:12:30:19\r\nHe also, interestingly, was a strong\radvocate within the American Legion\r\n\r\n00:12:30:19 - 00:12:34:08\r\nfor black veterans of the\rAmerican Expeditionary Force.\r\n\r\n00:12:34:10 - 00:12:37:18\r\nAnd he urged black New Yorkers\rto join the William Lloyd Garrison\r\n\r\n00:12:37:18 - 00:12:41:03\r\npost of the American Legion,\rwhich was located in Harlem.\r\n\r\n00:12:41:09 - 00:12:44:09\r\nAnd I'm just going to give you a quote\rfrom a speech he gave.\r\n\r\n00:12:44:10 - 00:12:48:22\r\n“We draw no lines as to race or color\ror nationality before the war.\r\n\r\n00:12:49:03 - 00:12:50:18\r\nWe are all ex-servicemen\r\n\r\n00:12:50:18 - 00:12:53:14\r\nwho have proved our love for our country.”\r\n\r\n00:12:53:14 - 00:12:56:04\r\nNow he was suggesting\rthey join segregated post.\r\n\r\n00:12:56:04 - 00:12:58:00\r\nIt was 1919.\r\n\r\n00:12:58:00 - 00:13:02:15\r\nBut you know, still that was a pretty,\rI think, interesting aspect\r\n\r\n00:13:02:15 - 00:13:06:16\r\nof his character, and one that showed\rthrough for the rest of his life.\r\n\r\n00:13:06:16 - 00:13:08:04\r\nHe didn't live very long.\r\n\r\n00:13:08:04 - 00:13:11:04\r\nBut in 1928, his best friend\r\n\r\n00:13:11:04 - 00:13:15:18\r\nin the world, Mayor Jimmy Walker,\rappointed him to be the Tenement commissioner.\r\n\r\n00:13:15:18 - 00:13:17:13\r\nNow the guy's an architect, right?\r\n\r\n00:13:17:13 - 00:13:19:17\r\nHe's actually qualified\rto be a Tenement commissioner.\r\n\r\n00:13:19:17 - 00:13:24:00\r\nSo it wasn't just, “Hey, my buddy on the job...”\r\n\r\n00:13:24:02 - 00:13:29:04\r\nAnd as Tenement commissioner,\rMajor Deegan was in charge of enforcing\r\n\r\n00:13:29:04 - 00:13:33:15\r\nthe tenant laws\rand making sure that buildings were safe.\r\n\r\n00:13:33:17 - 00:13:38:10\r\nHe immediately declared\rwar on pigeons,\r\n\r\n00:13:38:11 - 00:13:40:04\r\nbecause he thought\r\n\r\n00:13:40:04 - 00:13:44:00\r\nthat pigeon coops on roofs\rwere a fire hazard.\r\n\r\n00:13:44:01 - 00:13:49:21\r\nAnd he also was convinced that pigeons\rspread polio, which they didn’t.\r\n\r\n00:13:49:21 - 00:13:55:04\r\nAlso one of the things that he did as Tenement\rcommissioner, which was, again, I think somewhat\r\n\r\n00:13:55:05 - 00:14:01:02\r\nremarkable, is he made a point of making sure\rthat the protections of the tenement\r\n\r\n00:14:01:02 - 00:14:04:06\r\nlaws were extended to black tenants\ras well as to white tenants.\r\n\r\n00:14:04:07 - 00:14:07:23\r\nIn fact, after he died,\rthe black press really lauded him\r\n\r\n00:14:08:01 - 00:14:11:05\r\nfor, um, the way that he had treated\r\n\r\n00:14:11:05 - 00:14:14:13\r\nblack tenants and taken\rthose responsibilities seriously.\r\n\r\n00:14:14:15 - 00:14:18:16\r\nNow, he also was appointed by \rhis bestie, Mayor Walker,\r\n\r\n00:14:18:16 - 00:14:24:00\r\nto be the head of the Mayor's Committee\ron Receptions to Distinguished Guests,\r\n\r\n00:14:24:01 - 00:14:27:22\r\nwhich was, you know, quite a\r\n\r\n00:14:28:00 - 00:14:29:12\r\ncushy position.\r\n\r\n00:14:29:12 - 00:14:31:23\r\nAnd in that position...\rHe was there for two years.\r\n\r\n00:14:31:23 - 00:14:33:13\r\nHe died in 1932.\r\n\r\n00:14:33:13 - 00:14:36:20\r\nBut in those two years,\rhe managed to rack up $5,000\r\n\r\n00:14:36:20 - 00:14:39:20\r\nworth of flowers, lunches, and cars.\r\n\r\n00:14:39:23 - 00:14:42:19\r\nThat's roughly $85,000 today.\r\n\r\n00:14:42:19 - 00:14:44:23\r\nIt was a lot of money back then,\r\n\r\n00:14:44:23 - 00:14:47:02\r\nand including among the things\r\n\r\n00:14:47:02 - 00:14:50:10\r\nthat he did was hosting Italy's\rFascist Foreign Minister,\r\n\r\n00:14:50:10 - 00:14:52:14\r\nDino Grandi, and his wife.\r\n\r\n00:14:52:14 - 00:14:54:19\r\nHe also was\r\n\r\n00:14:54:19 - 00:14:59:20\r\none of the pillars of the anti-communism\relite here in New York City.\r\n\r\n00:14:59:20 - 00:15:04:10\r\nHe strongly advocated\rdeporting communists to Russia,\r\n\r\n00:15:04:10 - 00:15:08:18\r\nso sort of a mixed legacy\ris what I would say, but super popular.\r\n\r\n00:15:08:18 - 00:15:11:19\r\nApparently, people really liked him,\rand he died very young.\r\n\r\n00:15:11:19 - 00:15:14:11\r\nIn 1932, he was 49 years old.\r\n\r\n00:15:14:11 - 00:15:17:14\r\nThousands of people attended his funeral.\r\n\r\n00:15:17:16 - 00:15:23:19\r\nHe had a full military funeral\rwith a flyover by the...\r\n\r\n00:15:23:20 - 00:15:25:01\r\nAir Force,\r\n\r\n00:15:25:01 - 00:15:28:05\r\nand Mayor Jimmy Walker\rand two U.S.\r\n\r\n00:15:28:05 - 00:15:30:04\r\nsenators were pall bearers.\r\n\r\n00:15:30:04 - 00:15:33:23\r\nThree thousand people marched off\ras part of his funeral,\r\n\r\n00:15:34:01 - 00:15:36:11\r\nmarched up with them.\r\n\r\n00:15:36:11 - 00:15:38:10\r\nAnd at the time of his death,\r\n\r\n00:15:38:10 - 00:15:41:07\r\nthe numerous\r\n\r\n00:15:41:07 - 00:15:45:12\r\nroads being built from the\rTriborough Bridge, which is now\r\n\r\n00:15:45:17 - 00:15:48:20\r\nthe RFK Bridge to the\rGrand Concourse,\r\n\r\n00:15:48:20 - 00:15:52:17\r\nand that road was \rnamed in his honor - \r\n\r\n00:15:52:17 - 00:15:56:22\r\nthe Major William F Deegan Boulevard.\r\n\r\n00:15:57:00 - 00:15:59:00\r\nAnd that's how we get\r\n\r\n00:15:59:00 - 00:16:01:17\r\nwhat ultimately became the Major Deegan Expressway.\r\n\r\n00:16:01:17 - 00:16:06:10\r\nAnd I just want to tell you just a little bit about \rthe saga involved with building the \r\n\r\n00:16:06:12 - 00:16:08:19\r\nExpressway, because Robert Moses,\r\n\r\n00:16:08:19 - 00:16:12:11\r\nin his infinite wisdom,\rdecided that\r\n\r\n00:16:12:13 - 00:16:15:21\r\nthe Major Deegan Boulevard\rshould first of all, become the Major\r\n\r\n00:16:15:21 - 00:16:20:01\r\nDeegan Expressway,\rand then that it should extend\r\n\r\n00:16:20:03 - 00:16:23:02\r\nto Yonkers.\r\n\r\n00:16:23:06 - 00:16:26:11\r\nNow, to pitch for this that's\rlike the pitch for every other road\r\n\r\n00:16:26:12 - 00:16:30:07\r\nwas that this will \ralleviate congestion.\r\n\r\n00:16:30:09 - 00:16:35:09\r\nSo all of the roads that are now\rsynonyms for congestion were\r\n\r\n00:16:35:11 - 00:16:39:16\r\njustified as ways to\reliminate congestion.\r\n\r\n00:16:39:18 - 00:16:43:02\r\nAnd in extending the \rMajor Deegan to Yonkers,\r\n\r\n00:16:43:04 - 00:16:45:19\r\nwhich by the way, is named\rafter Adrian Vanderbilt.\r\n\r\n00:16:45:19 - 00:16:48:13\r\nHis nickname was Young Sir,\r\n\r\n00:16:48:13 - 00:16:51:12\r\nand Yonkers comes from that.\r\n\r\n00:16:51:12 - 00:16:55:12\r\nSo Moses decided that the thing to do\rwas to run the Major Deegan\r\n\r\n00:16:55:13 - 00:16:58:00\r\nthrough Van Cortlandt Park,\r\n\r\n00:16:58:00 - 00:17:01:10\r\nof course, with no public process\ror any kind of consultation,\r\n\r\n00:17:01:10 - 00:17:06:01\r\nor any of those pesky things\rthat might get in his way.\r\n\r\n00:17:06:03 - 00:17:10:06\r\nSo Van Cortlandt Park bears the \rname of the Van Cortlandt family.\r\n\r\n00:17:10:12 - 00:17:14:08\r\nStephen Van Cortlandt was a two-time \rmayor of New York, and in addition\r\n\r\n00:17:14:08 - 00:17:20:08\r\nto being the home of the wealthy\rintellectual Van Cortlandt family,\r\n\r\n00:17:20:10 - 00:17:24:13\r\nthe land that is now Van Cortlandt Park\rwas also home to generations of enslaved\r\n\r\n00:17:24:13 - 00:17:29:18\r\npeople, both black Africans and Native\rAmericans, going back to the 1600s.\r\n\r\n00:17:29:20 - 00:17:33:09\r\nAnd in fact, very recently, the \rMill Pond at Van Cortlandt Park\r\n\r\n00:17:33:09 - 00:17:37:05\r\nwas renamed Hester and Piero’s Mill Pond to honor\r\n\r\n00:17:37:07 - 00:17:41:15\r\ntwo of the enslaved millers\rwho worked there.\r\n\r\n00:17:41:18 - 00:17:42:15\r\nA lot of them we don't \rhave their names.\r\n\r\n00:17:42:15 - 00:17:45:22\r\nWe do know their names,\rso they are now commemorated.\r\n\r\n00:17:46:00 - 00:17:47:16\r\nSo as I said, Robert Moses’\r\n\r\n00:17:47:16 - 00:17:52:02\r\npitch for this road through the park\rwas that it would relieve\r\n\r\n00:17:52:02 - 00:17:55:07\r\ntraffic on the Henry Hudson\rand Bronx River Parkway.\r\n\r\n00:17:55:12 - 00:17:57:15\r\nAnd it would connect the Bruckner, \r\n\r\n00:17:57:15 - 00:18:02:04\r\nwhich is here,\r\n\r\n00:18:02:06 - 00:18:05:06\r\nright, with the, um,\r\n\r\n00:18:05:11 - 00:18:06:11\r\nthe New York throughway.\r\n\r\n00:18:07:13 - 00:18:10:01\r\nAnd Bronx politicians\rfought this one.\r\n\r\n00:18:10:03 - 00:18:12:05\r\nThere were hearings \rat City Council.\r\n\r\n00:18:12:05 - 00:18:13:19\r\nPeople were organizing\rall over the place.\r\n\r\n00:18:13:19 - 00:18:15:02\r\nThis was at the same time\r\n\r\n00:18:15:02 - 00:18:19:00\r\nthat he was building across the Bronx \rExpressway and devastating the South.\r\n\r\n00:18:19:03 - 00:18:23:03\r\nSo there was a lot of \rpublic outrage over\r\n\r\n00:18:23:05 - 00:18:26:05\r\nall of these highways\rthat would be built in the Bronx.\r\n\r\n00:18:26:05 - 00:18:30:01\r\nAnd the one through Van Cortlandt \rPark got its share of attention.\r\n\r\n00:18:30:02 - 00:18:33:18\r\nOf course, Robert Moses won,\rbecause he almost always did.\r\n\r\n00:18:33:20 - 00:18:37:15\r\nAnd he was assisted \rby Arthur Sheridan,\r\n\r\n00:18:37:17 - 00:18:41:04\r\nwho at the time was a Bronx \rPublic Works Commissioner.\r\n\r\n00:18:41:06 - 00:18:43:11\r\nWhat used to be the\rSheridan Expressway,\r\n\r\n00:18:43:11 - 00:18:46:11\r\nnow Sheridan Boulevard is named\rafter Arthur Sheridan.\r\n\r\n00:18:47:02 - 00:18:52:15\r\nFun fact I was trying to nail down his birth date,\rbecause he had two birth dates that he used, and\r\n\r\n00:18:52:16 - 00:18:56:00\r\nI was trying to figure out if I could figure out\rwhich one he actually was born at.\r\n\r\n00:18:56:02 - 00:18:58:04\r\nAnd so I went to the\rmunicipal archives.\r\n\r\n00:18:58:04 - 00:19:00:15\r\nYou have no idea how many people\rwhose last name is Sheridan\r\n\r\n00:19:00:15 - 00:19:02:18\r\nborn on any given \rday in New York.\r\n\r\n00:19:02:18 - 00:19:04:13\r\nThere are a lot of \rArthur Sheridans.\r\n\r\n00:19:04:13 - 00:19:07:05\r\nBut I think I got the \rright date in the end.\r\n\r\n00:19:07:05 - 00:19:12:04\r\nSo Sheridan wound up dying\rin a really grizzly traffic accident,\r\n\r\n00:19:12:04 - 00:19:15:07\r\nwhich is somewhat \rironic for a guy\r\n\r\n00:19:15:07 - 00:19:20:09\r\nwhose role in life \rwas to design roads.\r\n\r\n00:19:20:11 - 00:19:23:23\r\nSo he was... one of the things\rthat was most notable about Arthur\r\n\r\n00:19:23:23 - 00:19:29:07\r\nSheridan was that he helped\rcreate the professional engineering\r\n\r\n00:19:29:07 - 00:19:33:07\r\ncertification and the Organization\rof Professional Engineers.\r\n\r\n00:19:33:09 - 00:19:36:21\r\nAnd he also was a rabid anti-communist,\rand he saw that as a way\r\n\r\n00:19:36:21 - 00:19:38:19\r\nto stave off unionization\r\n\r\n00:19:38:19 - 00:19:41:17\r\nand Russianization, as he said.\r\n\r\n00:19:41:17 - 00:19:44:04\r\nSo a large portion\r\n\r\n00:19:44:04 - 00:19:49:02\r\nof this new Major Deegan\ropened at the same time that\r\n\r\n00:19:49:04 - 00:19:54:18\r\nthe Cross Bronx Expressway opened\rand part of the Queens Midtown Expressway,\r\n\r\n00:19:54:20 - 00:19:57:19\r\nwhich was the first link on\rthe Long Island Expressway.\r\n\r\n00:19:57:19 - 00:20:01:09\r\nAnd again, this was billed as...\rThis is a quote from Robert Moses...\r\n\r\n00:20:01:11 - 00:20:06:08\r\n“providing immeasurable relief in areas\rlong plagued by congestion.”\r\n\r\n00:20:06:10 - 00:20:08:22\r\nLet me tell you,\rI got here on one of those roads today,\r\n\r\n00:20:08:22 - 00:20:12:22\r\nand that whole...\rthere was no relief from congestion.\r\n\r\n00:20:13:00 - 00:20:16:00\r\nSo I just want to end \rthis slide by pointing out...\r\n\r\n00:20:16:01 - 00:20:19:01\r\n....this over here.\r\n\r\n00:20:19:06 - 00:20:23:01\r\nAt the very edge,\rthat's the Horace Harding Expressway.\r\n\r\n00:20:23:02 - 00:20:25:09\r\nI’m going to tell you a little bit\rabout Horace Harding.\r\n\r\n00:20:26:06 - 00:20:27:16\r\nAnother road that\reverybody takes, but\r\n\r\n00:20:27:16 - 00:20:29:14\r\nno one has a clue \rwho the guy was.\r\n\r\n00:20:29:14 - 00:20:32:02\r\nI was really surprised,\rwhen I found out about him.\r\n\r\n00:20:32:02 - 00:20:34:12\r\nSo this is James Horace Harding.\r\n\r\n00:20:34:12 - 00:20:38:15\r\nOne of his claims to fame was probably\rthat he is the only person\r\n\r\n00:20:38:17 - 00:20:43:14\r\nwho chose to go by Horace,\rwhen he could’ve gone with James.\r\n\r\n00:20:43:16 - 00:20:47:03\r\nHe was born in \rPhiladelphia in 1862.\r\n\r\n00:20:47:03 - 00:20:49:08\r\nHis father owned the\rPhiladelphia Inquirer,\r\n\r\n00:20:49:11 - 00:20:54:10\r\nso he grew up in main line society,\rvery wealthy, and he became a banker.\r\n\r\n00:20:54:12 - 00:20:58:12\r\nIn 1898, he married a woman \rnamed, Dorothea Barney,\r\n\r\n00:20:58:14 - 00:21:01:13\r\nand joined his father-in-law's commercial\r\n\r\n00:21:01:13 - 00:21:04:17\r\nfirm, Charles D. Barney and Co.\r\n\r\n00:21:04:19 - 00:21:08:22\r\nAnd so he was, you know, they work in \rCharles D. Barney’s company.\r\n\r\n00:21:08:22 - 00:21:13:14\r\nAnd then about a decade later,\rhe engineered its merger with the\r\n\r\n00:21:13:17 - 00:21:17:20\r\nEdward B. Smith Company\rto create Smith Warren.\r\n\r\n00:21:17:22 - 00:21:19:02\r\nGot a lot of money.\r\n\r\n00:21:19:02 - 00:21:23:12\r\nAnd then in 1923, he became \rthe Chair of American Express.\r\n\r\n00:21:23:14 - 00:21:26:14\r\nHe was also a director\rfor multiple railroads.\r\n\r\n00:21:26:15 - 00:21:29:15\r\nHe and Corbin overlapped \ra little bit in that.\r\n\r\n00:21:29:15 - 00:21:33:16\r\nFor example, he and,\rof course, Harding replaced\r\n\r\n00:21:33:16 - 00:21:38:09\r\nWilliam Rockefeller, John D.’s brother,\ras a director of the New Haven Railroad,\r\n\r\n00:21:38:09 - 00:21:41:20\r\nwhen it was under federal investigation\rfor corruption.\r\n\r\n00:21:41:21 - 00:21:46:03\r\nAlso a place with lots of congestion.\r\n\r\n00:21:46:03 - 00:21:50:11\r\nSo Harding was besties with Henry Frick,\r\n\r\n00:21:50:13 - 00:21:53:13\r\nthe renowned...\r\n\r\n00:21:53:15 - 00:21:56:00\r\nstrike breaker,\ramong other things.\r\n\r\n00:21:56:00 - 00:21:56:14\r\nRight?\r\n\r\n00:21:56:14 - 00:22:02:03\r\nMade his fortune,\rmultiple fortunes, in steel railroads\r\n\r\n00:22:02:05 - 00:22:06:22\r\nand famously got into...\r\n\r\n00:22:06:23 - 00:22:09:23\r\nmassive conflict with Rockefeller.\r\n\r\n00:22:09:23 - 00:22:11:14\r\nNot in the book\rbecause I ran out of room.\r\n\r\n00:22:11:14 - 00:22:16:01\r\nIt turns out that if you're\rwriting not an academic book?\r\n\r\n00:22:16:01 - 00:22:17:23\r\nSo I'm an academic, and \rI write academic books.\r\n\r\n00:22:17:23 - 00:22:22:05\r\nAnd when you write an academic book, you\rsay, “Well it's going to be 60,000 words.”\r\n\r\n00:22:22:05 - 00:22:24:22\r\nAnd then you give them 100,000\rand they're like, “Okay.”\r\n\r\n00:22:24:22 - 00:22:28:11\r\nYou can’t do that, it turns out, \rwith regular presses.\r\n\r\n00:22:28:12 - 00:22:30:04\r\nNow 55,000 is \rhow many you get.\r\n\r\n00:22:30:04 - 00:22:34:21\r\nSo I had to cut a bunch of chapters, so I’m going to \rtell you about some people who aren’t in the book.\r\n\r\n00:22:34:23 - 00:22:36:03\r\nSo anyway...\r\n\r\n00:22:36:03 - 00:22:39:16\r\nHe was besties with Henry Frick,\rand they had a shared passion\r\n\r\n00:22:39:16 - 00:22:41:19\r\nof art collecting, and \rthey would travel together\r\n\r\n00:22:41:19 - 00:22:44:14\r\naround the world,\rand they would purchase stuff.\r\n\r\n00:22:44:14 - 00:22:49:03\r\nAnd in fact, when Frick died, not\ronly was Harding one of his pallbearers,\r\n\r\n00:22:49:05 - 00:22:52:02\r\nbut he also became\rone of the trustees of his will,\r\n\r\n00:22:52:02 - 00:22:54:05\r\nand one of the trustees\rof the Frick Collection.\r\n\r\n00:22:54:05 - 00:22:58:14\r\nNow Horace moved in\rreally highfalutin circles.\r\n\r\n00:22:58:16 - 00:23:00:19\r\nRemember that\r\n\r\n00:23:00:19 - 00:23:02:20\r\nPuck cartoon I showed \ryou with the Goulds\r\n\r\n00:23:02:20 - 00:23:06:01\r\nand Rockefellers \rand Russell Sage?\r\n\r\n00:23:06:03 - 00:23:08:01\r\nYeah, those are the \rpeople he hung out with.\r\n\r\n00:23:08:01 - 00:23:13:02\r\nHe was a member of the\rJekyll Island Social Club, and\r\n\r\n00:23:13:04 - 00:23:16:04\r\nhe was very much part\rof the social elite. \r\n\r\n00:23:16:04 - 00:23:18:13\r\nSort of funny, because nobody \rhas a clue who he is now.\r\n\r\n00:23:18:13 - 00:23:22:21\r\nBut in his day, he was very\rmuch a part of the social elite.\r\n\r\n00:23:22:23 - 00:23:24:22\r\nHe and his wife had four kids.\r\n\r\n00:23:24:22 - 00:23:27:00\r\nHe had two sons \rand two daughters.\r\n\r\n00:23:27:00 - 00:23:27:21\r\nThe two sons,\r\n\r\n00:23:27:21 - 00:23:29:05\r\nwho were sort of \rinteresting themselves,\r\n\r\n00:23:29:05 - 00:23:30:08\r\nthey followed him into business,\r\n\r\n00:23:30:08 - 00:23:33:17\r\nand they wound up in finance\rfor a very long time.\r\n\r\n00:23:33:19 - 00:23:36:06\r\nHis daughters, he was completely \runinterested in them,\r\n\r\n00:23:36:06 - 00:23:40:13\r\nexcept as chess pieces that he could\rmaybe marry off advantageously.\r\n\r\n00:23:40:13 - 00:23:43:08\r\nHis older daughter\rhe managed to do that with.\r\n\r\n00:23:43:11 - 00:23:47:11\r\nHe convinced her to marry a guy\rthat she wound up divorcing two years later,\r\n\r\n00:23:47:17 - 00:23:54:01\r\nalleging abuse and...\rpart of the cigarette family.\r\n\r\n00:23:54:03 - 00:23:56:05\r\nHis second daughter, however,\rbecame an actress.\r\n\r\n00:23:56:05 - 00:23:58:05\r\nShe was quite the rebel.\r\n\r\n00:23:58:05 - 00:24:01:10\r\nAnd she apparently \rwas somewhat decent.\r\n\r\n00:24:01:12 - 00:24:06:01\r\nShe and Katharine Hepburn were lovers,\rand Laura was her name.\r\n\r\n00:24:06:01 - 00:24:10:00\r\nShe helped Katharine Hepburn\rlaunch her career, and for a time, Laura\r\n\r\n00:24:10:00 - 00:24:14:08\r\nand Katharine Hepburn referred to Laura\ras Ms. Hepburn's husband.\r\n\r\n00:24:14:10 - 00:24:15:19\r\nAnd in fact, when she got her first...\r\n\r\n00:24:15:19 - 00:24:19:13\r\nwhen she went to Mexico to get her\rfirst divorce, Laura moved down there with\r\n\r\n00:24:19:13 - 00:24:22:18\r\nKatharine, was with her in the hotel room\rthe whole time they were there.\r\n\r\n00:24:22:20 - 00:24:26:06\r\nSo anyway, back to the road.\r\n\r\n00:24:26:08 - 00:24:32:07\r\nThis road owes its existence to graft\rand the way that political elites\r\n\r\n00:24:32:07 - 00:24:37:07\r\nthink about their\rright to public resources.\r\n\r\n00:24:37:09 - 00:24:39:07\r\nHarding and his golfing\r\n\r\n00:24:39:07 - 00:24:43:07\r\nbuddies wanted an easy way\rto get to their golf course.\r\n\r\n00:24:43:09 - 00:24:49:02\r\nHarding and his buddies proposed\rthis road in 1923 that basically goes from\r\n\r\n00:24:49:04 - 00:24:53:01\r\nthe Midtown Tunnel to \rtheir golf course.\r\n\r\n00:24:53:03 - 00:24:56:09\r\nAnd Queens says, “No. Thank you, but no.”\r\n\r\n00:24:56:11 - 00:24:58:21\r\nSo they then commissioned\r\n\r\n00:24:58:21 - 00:25:01:21\r\nthe surveys that you \rneed to do for a road.\r\n\r\n00:25:01:23 - 00:25:06:00\r\nThey mapped out the route of the road,\rand then they presented to the Queens\r\n\r\n00:25:06:00 - 00:25:09:03\r\nPlanning Commission as,\r“Here, you should do this.”\r\n\r\n00:25:09:03 - 00:25:12:10\r\nAnd then they all used their\rinfluence to make it happen.\r\n\r\n00:25:12:12 - 00:25:17:05\r\nSo construction began\rduring Mayor Walker's term - not exactly\r\n\r\n00:25:17:05 - 00:25:22:19\r\na time known for sort of attention\rto corruption in New York history.\r\n\r\n00:25:22:21 - 00:25:25:18\r\nAnd the road...\r\n\r\n00:25:25:18 - 00:25:29:00\r\nagain connected Queens Boulevard \rhere with Nassau County.\r\n\r\n00:25:29:06 - 00:25:34:14\r\nAnd it was pitched once again\ras a way to relieve the congestion.\r\n\r\n00:25:34:16 - 00:25:37:10\r\nWhen the Long Island Expressway\rwas built in the 1950s,\r\n\r\n00:25:37:10 - 00:25:40:12\r\nRobert Moses put it on the \rroute of the Horace Harding\r\n\r\n00:25:40:12 - 00:25:45:07\r\nExpressway, obliterating most of it, but\rsome of it is still there as the access road.\r\n\r\n00:25:45:09 - 00:25:47:19\r\nSo I wanted to show you this map.\r\n\r\n00:25:47:19 - 00:25:48:22\r\nThis is a map of Queens\r\n\r\n00:25:48:22 - 00:25:51:19\r\nin 1899 - step back \rin time a little bit.\r\n\r\n00:25:51:19 - 00:25:54:03\r\nThen a couple more people,\rand we’ll be done.\r\n\r\n00:25:54:03 - 00:25:58:21\r\nSo this map was created right\rafter Queens joined Brooklyn\r\n\r\n00:25:58:21 - 00:26:02:19\r\nand Manhattan to form the\rCity of Greater New York.\r\n\r\n00:26:04:00 - 00:26:06:08\r\nAnd notice how rural Queens is.\r\n\r\n00:26:06:08 - 00:26:08:06\r\nLike if you look on the \redge of Manhattan\r\n\r\n00:26:08:06 - 00:26:11:10\r\nand Brooklyn, there are so\rmany streets and so dense.\r\n\r\n00:26:11:12 - 00:26:14:19\r\nBut Queens was really pretty rural.\r\n\r\n00:26:14:21 - 00:26:19:17\r\nSo you can see...\rHere's the line...\r\n\r\n00:26:19:19 - 00:26:24:19\r\nthat mapped the edge\rof the city of Greater New York.\r\n\r\n00:26:24:21 - 00:26:29:03\r\nEverything outside of that line\rhad been part of Queens County,\r\n\r\n00:26:29:03 - 00:26:34:16\r\nbut it seceded for Nassau County, because\rthey didn't want to join with Manhattan.\r\n\r\n00:26:34:18 - 00:26:37:17\r\nAnd a couple of things \rare really interesting.\r\n\r\n00:26:37:17 - 00:26:42:18\r\nSo let me show\ryou... Jamaica,\r\n\r\n00:26:42:20 - 00:26:45:02\r\nOne of the things I found out - \r“Let's do this book...\r\n\r\n00:26:45:02 - 00:26:49:05\r\nIt’s so interesting.” - is that\rit has nothing to do with the country.\r\n\r\n00:26:49:07 - 00:26:52:23\r\nThe word “Jamaica” \rcomes to us from one of\r\n\r\n00:26:52:23 - 00:26:54:03\r\ntwo Lenape words.\r\n\r\n00:26:54:03 - 00:26:55:23\r\nThere are different theories.\r\n\r\n00:26:55:23 - 00:26:59:04\r\nOne word is “He-mai-ko,”\rwhich is the word for beaver,\r\n\r\n00:26:59:06 - 00:27:02:11\r\nand the other is “Ja-may-ko,”\rwhich is the word for heaven.\r\n\r\n00:27:02:13 - 00:27:04:09\r\nSo “beaver heaven!”\r\n\r\n00:27:07:09 - 00:27:09:01\r\nAnd then another thing I wanted\r\n\r\n00:27:09:01 - 00:27:12:01\r\nto point out is Elmhurst here.\r\n\r\n00:27:12:06 - 00:27:14:23\r\nIf you look at Elmhurst,\rmaybe you can't see it, but it's too small.\r\n\r\n00:27:14:23 - 00:27:18:21\r\nBut underneath Elmhurst,\rit says in italics “Newtown.”\r\n\r\n00:27:18:23 - 00:27:23:23\r\nWhy? Because Elmhurst in 1896\rchanged its name.\r\n\r\n00:27:23:23 - 00:27:27:07\r\nIt had been Newtown,\rbut it wanted to dissociate itself\r\n\r\n00:27:27:07 - 00:27:32:23\r\nfrom the Newtown Creek,\rwhich was already unbelievably polluted.\r\n\r\n00:27:33:01 - 00:27:37:07\r\nIt had been a dumping ground really\rsince the Civil War.\r\n\r\n00:27:37:07 - 00:27:39:21\r\nAnd among the first \rpolluters, among\r\n\r\n00:27:39:21 - 00:27:43:15\r\nthe more serious of the early \rpolluters was Peter Cooper,\r\n\r\n00:27:43:17 - 00:27:46:11\r\nwho I was sort of a fan girl of in the book,\rbecause I really liked a lot about him.\r\n\r\n00:27:46:11 - 00:27:50:04\r\nAnd I don't go as much into his role\rin polluting Newtown Creek,\r\n\r\n00:27:50:06 - 00:27:54:01\r\nbut he had a bunch of glue factories,\rand he was ordered to move them\r\n\r\n00:27:54:01 - 00:27:56:00\r\nfrom Manhattan to Newtown Creek.\r\n\r\n00:27:56:00 - 00:27:58:23\r\nSo as you can imagine, the stench\rthat was associated with that.\r\n\r\n00:27:59:04 - 00:28:01:15\r\nSo Elmhurst changed its name.\r\n\r\n00:28:01:15 - 00:28:05:02\r\nI want to point out one other\r\n\r\n00:28:05:04 - 00:28:07:03\r\ndetail on this map, and that's\r\n\r\n00:28:07:03 - 00:28:10:03\r\nyou see that line the purple arrow goes to?\r\n\r\n00:28:10:07 - 00:28:12:07\r\nThat is Jackson Avenue.\r\n\r\n00:28:12:07 - 00:28:13:22\r\nIt was built in 1859\r\n\r\n00:28:13:22 - 00:28:17:19\r\nby John Clews Jackson,\rwho was a pottery importer\r\n\r\n00:28:17:21 - 00:28:22:01\r\nand an agriculturalist\rand, not incidentally, husband\r\n\r\n00:28:22:01 - 00:28:26:03\r\nto Mary Riker, who was the\ronly child of Andrew Riker,\r\n\r\n00:28:26:03 - 00:28:28:03\r\nwho we’ll talk about in a minute.\r\n\r\n00:28:28:03 - 00:28:34:07\r\nShe was the wealthiest heiress\rin this part of New York area.\r\n\r\n00:28:34:09 - 00:28:36:23\r\nSo Jackson built this road,\rconnecting his Long Island\r\n\r\n00:28:36:23 - 00:28:41:04\r\nhome - “The road should go\rfrom where I am to where I want to go.”\r\n\r\n00:28:41:06 - 00:28:44:06\r\nSo his Long Island City home\rand the Hunters Point\r\n\r\n00:28:44:12 - 00:28:48:05\r\nFerry Terminal to the \rport in Flushing.\r\n\r\n00:28:48:07 - 00:28:51:04\r\nAnd it was a private \rtoll road until 1871,\r\n\r\n00:28:51:04 - 00:28:53:20\r\nwhen the state legislature\rused the power of eminent domain\r\n\r\n00:28:53:20 - 00:28:56:20\r\nto take the road\rand turn it into a public road.\r\n\r\n00:28:56:23 - 00:29:00:04\r\nThey paid him, at the time, \r$70,000, which is like\r\n\r\n00:29:00:10 - 00:29:04:07\r\n$1.8 million in 2020 dollars.\r\n\r\n00:29:04:09 - 00:29:07:07\r\nSo let's talk about the Rikers.\r\n\r\n00:29:07:07 - 00:29:11:14\r\nSo the book is called,\r“Naming Gotham: the Villains, Rogues,\r\n\r\n00:29:11:14 - 00:29:15:09\r\nand Heroes Behind New York Place Names,”\rand that's the villain.\r\n\r\n00:29:15:11 - 00:29:17:23\r\nI mean there are other ones, \rbut he's the real one - \r\n\r\n00:29:18:01 - 00:29:19:14\r\nRichard Riker.\r\n\r\n00:29:19:14 - 00:29:23:12\r\nSo first I’ll tell you about Andrew \rRiker and then Richard Riker.\r\n\r\n00:29:23:18 - 00:29:26:18\r\nSo they're both part of a family,\ra Dutch family.\r\n\r\n00:29:26:20 - 00:29:28:12\r\nThey were the Von Rykens.\r\n\r\n00:29:28:12 - 00:29:32:13\r\nBut when the British took over\rNew Amsterdam, they anglicized their names,\r\n\r\n00:29:32:13 - 00:29:34:23\r\nbecause they were very much\rgo-with-the-flow kind of people.\r\n\r\n00:29:34:23 - 00:29:37:23\r\nThey were significant enslavers.\r\n\r\n00:29:38:00 - 00:29:43:06\r\nThey had about 12 enslaved people,\rwhich was a lot for New York.\r\n\r\n00:29:43:08 - 00:29:47:14\r\nAnd they got wealthy off of the labor\rthat they stole from the people they enslaved.\r\n\r\n00:29:47:16 - 00:29:52:21\r\nAnd then they parlayed that wealth\rinto political and social prominence.\r\n\r\n00:29:52:22 - 00:29:55:22\r\nAnd they were very much\ramong the social elite\r\n\r\n00:29:55:22 - 00:29:58:09\r\nof New York.\r\n\r\n00:29:58:09 - 00:30:00:09\r\nAndrew Riker was a sailor.\r\n\r\n00:30:00:09 - 00:30:04:01\r\nAnd during the War of 1812,\rhe became a privateer,\r\n\r\n00:30:04:03 - 00:30:07:16\r\nwhich is basically a pirate\rwith a license from the government.\r\n\r\n00:30:07:17 - 00:30:11:04\r\nSo what a privateer does is they have\rwhat's called a letter of mark,\r\n\r\n00:30:11:07 - 00:30:15:10\r\nwhich is authorization for them\rto take any ship\r\n\r\n00:30:15:10 - 00:30:18:10\r\nflying the enemy combatant’s flag.\r\n\r\n00:30:18:15 - 00:30:21:07\r\nNow, that could be a warship,\rbut it also could be merchant ships,\r\n\r\n00:30:21:07 - 00:30:23:02\r\nand there were a lot...\r\n\r\n00:30:23:02 - 00:30:26:00\r\nAnd this was a very\rlucrative thing to do...\r\n\r\n00:30:26:00 - 00:30:27:19\r\nIf you caught merchant ships,\r\n\r\n00:30:27:21 - 00:30:31:20\r\nnot only would you as a privateer,\r\n\r\n00:30:31:22 - 00:30:34:13\r\nonce you brought it into the prize court\rand get awarded\r\n\r\n00:30:34:13 - 00:30:38:01\r\nthe ship, but you also would\rget most of the value of the cargo.\r\n\r\n00:30:38:01 - 00:30:41:05\r\nThe government took its cut\rand then applied it to your government’s.\r\n\r\n00:30:41:07 - 00:30:43:19\r\nSo Andrew Riker\r\n\r\n00:30:43:19 - 00:30:46:04\r\ndecided with sort of scrappy,\r\n\r\n00:30:46:04 - 00:30:51:07\r\nYankee entrepreneurial\rspirit, to sell shares in his\r\n\r\n00:30:51:09 - 00:30:52:17\r\nprivateering enterprises.\r\n\r\n00:30:52:17 - 00:30:55:17\r\nSo what you see in the middle\ris one of the shares\r\n\r\n00:30:55:21 - 00:30:58:22\r\nfor $56,000.\r\n\r\n00:30:58:22 - 00:31:03:21\r\nYou could buy into... \ryou could buy into his\r\n\r\n00:31:03:23 - 00:31:05:03\r\nship - the Yorktown.\r\n\r\n00:31:05:03 - 00:31:08:01\r\nAnd then you were entitled\rto a significant share of whatever\r\n\r\n00:31:08:01 - 00:31:10:17\r\nhe managed to grab.\r\n\r\n00:31:10:17 - 00:31:12:11\r\nHe died\r\n\r\n00:31:12:11 - 00:31:17:17\r\nrelatively young and his only child,\rMary, inherited all of his wealth.\r\n\r\n00:31:17:17 - 00:31:22:05\r\nAnd then when she married John Clews Jackson,\rhe became an extremely wealthy man.\r\n\r\n00:31:22:07 - 00:31:27:03\r\nBut Richard Riker, who is Andrew's\ryounger brother, he was a lawyer.\r\n\r\n00:31:27:05 - 00:31:31:14\r\nHe was the first DA of New York,\rand then he became the first Recorder.\r\n\r\n00:31:31:14 - 00:31:36:04\r\nRecorder was akin to \ra municipal judge.\r\n\r\n00:31:36:06 - 00:31:39:15\r\nAnd as municipal judge...\rhe was municipal judge for a long time.\r\n\r\n00:31:39:15 - 00:31:44:01\r\nAnd in that role, it was his job\rto enforce the Fugitive Slave Act\r\n\r\n00:31:44:03 - 00:31:46:10\r\nin the run up to the Civil War.\r\n\r\n00:31:46:12 - 00:31:47:07\r\nAnd he was\r\n\r\n00:31:47:07 - 00:31:51:08\r\nreally eager and willing to \renforce the Fugitive Slave Act.\r\n\r\n00:31:51:10 - 00:31:55:19\r\nNot only was he very happy to send people\rwho liberated themselves from slavery\r\n\r\n00:31:55:19 - 00:31:59:16\r\nback to the South to enslavement,\rbut he participated in\r\n\r\n00:31:59:16 - 00:32:01:19\r\nwhat came to be known\ras the Kidnapping Club,\r\n\r\n00:32:01:19 - 00:32:05:12\r\nalong with the Chief of Police\rand a couple other government officials,\r\n\r\n00:32:05:14 - 00:32:11:02\r\ngrabbing random black people\roff the streets of New York and denying them\r\n\r\n00:32:11:02 - 00:32:14:19\r\nthe right to habeas corpus to demonstrate \rthat they weren't in fact fugitives,\r\n\r\n00:32:14:21 - 00:32:17:21\r\nand sending them \rback to slavery.\r\n\r\n00:32:17:21 - 00:32:20:21\r\nSo that's why I think \rhe’s the biggest villain\r\n\r\n00:32:20:22 - 00:32:22:04\r\nin the book.\r\n\r\n00:32:22:04 - 00:32:27:02\r\nNow full disclosure,\rI'm really involved in the Renewable Rikers\r\n\r\n00:32:27:02 - 00:32:31:21\r\nProject, which is the plan to turn Rikers\rIsland into a renewable energy\r\n\r\n00:32:31:21 - 00:32:36:04\r\nstorage and generation,\rafter the jail shuts.\r\n\r\n00:32:36:06 - 00:32:40:18\r\nSo I'm doing a lot of things around\rRikers Island and actually\r\n\r\n00:32:40:18 - 00:32:44:14\r\nlearning this history was part of\rwhat got me involved in this process.\r\n\r\n00:32:44:16 - 00:32:49:06\r\nSo I'm just going to tell you about a couple \rmore people - very much Queens people, Shea.\r\n\r\n00:32:51:00 - 00:32:53:00\r\nWilliam Alfred Shea,\r\n\r\n00:32:53:00 - 00:32:56:13\r\nthe man who brought the\rNational League back to New York.\r\n\r\n00:32:56:15 - 00:32:58:09\r\nSo he was a very smart guy.\r\n\r\n00:32:58:09 - 00:33:03:02\r\nHe held degrees from Georgetown, both\ran undergraduate degree and a law degree.\r\n\r\n00:33:03:04 - 00:33:04:12\r\nHe also was a real jock.\r\n\r\n00:33:04:12 - 00:33:10:20\r\nHe played basketball and football and\rlettered in both, while he was in college.\r\n\r\n00:33:10:22 - 00:33:14:13\r\nHe was very active in local Democratic\r\n\r\n00:33:14:13 - 00:33:17:13\r\npolitics, but always in a behind\rthe scenes kind of way.\r\n\r\n00:33:17:18 - 00:33:21:03\r\nHe was known as like the matchmaker,\r the guy behind the scenes.\r\n\r\n00:33:21:08 - 00:33:24:12\r\nEverybody described him\ras the unofficial chairman\r\n\r\n00:33:24:12 - 00:33:27:12\r\nof the unofficial permanent\rgovernment of New York,\r\n\r\n00:33:27:17 - 00:33:30:22\r\nwhich was basically a group\r of wealthy white men.\r\n\r\n00:33:31:00 - 00:33:35:09\r\nSo he was a confidant to governors\rand mayors and was like a go-between.\r\n\r\n00:33:35:11 - 00:33:38:07\r\nThat is his job - \rhe made things happen.\r\n\r\n00:33:38:07 - 00:33:42:11\r\nAnd when in 1957, New York\rsuffered the catastrophe\r\n\r\n00:33:42:13 - 00:33:46:07\r\nthat the Giants and the \rDodgers left the city,\r\n\r\n00:33:46:09 - 00:33:47:05\r\nMayor Richard\r\n\r\n00:33:47:05 - 00:33:52:11\r\nWagner appointed Shea to lead a committee\rof prominent citizens whose task\r\n\r\n00:33:52:11 - 00:33:54:11\r\nwas to get the \rNational League back.\r\n\r\n00:33:54:11 - 00:33:59:18\r\nAnd to force their hand, Shea \rproposed creating his own league.\r\n\r\n00:33:59:19 - 00:34:02:22\r\nHe was going to create the Continental \rLeague, and he could do that,\r\n\r\n00:34:02:22 - 00:34:05:22\r\nbecause he had really\rserious financial backing.\r\n\r\n00:34:06:02 - 00:34:08:19\r\nOne of his major backers\rwas Joan Whitney Payson,\r\n\r\n00:34:08:19 - 00:34:12:19\r\nwho was the niece \rof Gertrude Whitney.\r\n\r\n00:34:12:20 - 00:34:16:05\r\nI should say, Gertrude \rVanderbilt Whitney.\r\n\r\n00:34:16:06 - 00:34:20:19\r\nShe was the oldest grandchild\rof the oldest son of the commodore,\r\n\r\n00:34:20:21 - 00:34:24:03\r\nfabulously wealthy person,\ralso married Whitney,\r\n\r\n00:34:24:03 - 00:34:26:23\r\nwho was extremely \rwealthy as well.\r\n\r\n00:34:26:23 - 00:34:30:22\r\nSo there was a lot of money behind this\rproposal to create their own league.\r\n\r\n00:34:31:00 - 00:34:34:07\r\nThe National League caved, created\rtwo expansion teams,\r\n\r\n00:34:34:09 - 00:34:39:08\r\nthe New York Mets and the Houston Colt 45s.\r\n\r\n00:34:39:10 - 00:34:41:21\r\nNow the Astros.\r\n\r\n00:34:41:21 - 00:34:45:14\r\nAnd Joan Whitney Payson actually \rbecame the first owner of the Mets.\r\n\r\n00:34:45:20 - 00:34:49:11\r\nAnd interestingly of the eight cities... \rShea had this idea we’re going to have eight cities,\r\n\r\n00:34:49:11 - 00:34:51:03\r\nwhere we're going to have expansion teams.\r\n\r\n00:34:51:03 - 00:34:53:20\r\nThere are seven of them have\r\n\r\n00:34:53:20 - 00:34:56:20\r\nthriving National League teams.\r\n\r\n00:34:57:02 - 00:35:00:09\r\nAnd the eighth, Buffalo, has\ra very popular AAA team.\r\n\r\n00:35:00:09 - 00:35:05:20\r\nSo he was right about where,\rum, teams would be successful.\r\n\r\n00:35:05:22 - 00:35:09:16\r\nAnd then when Shea Stadium\rwas built in Willets Point,\r\n\r\n00:35:09:16 - 00:35:13:15\r\nit was a site that was\rselected by Robert Moses,\r\n\r\n00:35:13:17 - 00:35:14:19\r\nand he spearheaded the...\r\n\r\n00:35:14:19 - 00:35:17:18\r\nMoses spearheaded the\rcampaign to have\r\n\r\n00:35:17:19 - 00:35:20:03\r\nthe new stadium \rnamed after Shea,\r\n\r\n00:35:20:03 - 00:35:24:05\r\nbecause of the services he\rprovided to the citizens of New York.\r\n\r\n00:35:24:07 - 00:35:26:13\r\nAnd in fact, in 1964, New York\r\n\r\n00:35:26:13 - 00:35:30:05\r\ndid name Shea Stadium\rafter William Shea.\r\n\r\n00:35:30:07 - 00:35:35:04\r\nAnd Shea, the first thing he said\ris, “Fifteen minutes after I'm\r\n\r\n00:35:35:04 - 00:35:37:14\r\ndead, they’ll change the name.”\r\n\r\n00:35:37:16 - 00:35:39:19\r\nWhich actually didn't happen,\r\n\r\n00:35:39:19 - 00:35:42:12\r\nbecause he died in 1991,\r\n\r\n00:35:42:12 - 00:35:45:12\r\nand they didn't knock \rit down until 2006.\r\n\r\n00:35:45:16 - 00:35:48:04\r\nSo it stayed Shea Stadium\rlong after he died.\r\n\r\n00:35:48:04 - 00:35:50:15\r\nIt also gave birth to the idea\r\n\r\n00:35:50:15 - 00:35:53:18\r\nof arena rock concerts.\r\n\r\n00:35:53:18 - 00:35:59:16\r\nThe Beatles, the Who, the\rRolling Stones, the Police,\r\n\r\n00:35:59:17 - 00:36:02:04\r\namong so many others.\r\n\r\n00:36:02:04 - 00:36:05:10\r\nBut those are some of the blockbuster\rconcerts at Shea Stadium.\r\n\r\n00:36:05:10 - 00:36:08:15\r\nHowever, it was really a\rbadly designed stadium.\r\n\r\n00:36:08:16 - 00:36:11:08\r\nI don’t know if you guys have seen\rbaseball games there.\r\n\r\n00:36:11:08 - 00:36:15:18\r\nBut I remember even as a kid being like, \r“I think there are better stadiums.”\r\n\r\n00:36:15:20 - 00:36:17:21\r\nAnd when they knocked it down,\r\n\r\n00:36:17:21 - 00:36:19:19\r\nso in The New York Times,\rthey were lamenting.\r\n\r\n00:36:19:19 - 00:36:25:07\r\nThey're like, “Yeah, nobody ever called\rShea Stadium a cathedral or anything,\r\n\r\n00:36:25:09 - 00:36:27:04\r\nunlike the Yankee Stadium.”\r\n\r\n00:36:27:04 - 00:36:30:21\r\nSo let me tell you about... I have two more \rpeople to tell you about, and then I’ll stop.\r\n\r\n00:36:31:21 - 00:36:33:15\r\nThis woman, only woman\r\n\r\n00:36:33:15 - 00:36:37:15\r\nthe only person who’s alive\rin my book - Billie Jean King.\r\n\r\n00:36:37:15 - 00:36:38:12\r\nI have to talk about her,\r\n\r\n00:36:38:12 - 00:36:41:15\r\nbecause as a little girl, I watched her \rwipe the floor with Bobby Riggs\r\n\r\n00:36:41:16 - 00:36:46:05\r\nin the Houston Astrodome in the “battle of the sexes.”\r\n\r\n00:36:46:06 - 00:36:48:18\r\nIt was the most watched\rtennis match.\r\n\r\n00:36:48:18 - 00:36:50:09\r\nIt attracted 30,000 people,\r\n\r\n00:36:50:09 - 00:36:53:10\r\nwatching it live and\r 90 million viewers.\r\n\r\n00:36:55:08 - 00:36:59:07\r\nIt was a moment that really inspired\rand empowered a generation of girls\r\n\r\n00:36:59:07 - 00:37:01:05\r\nand women.\r\n\r\n00:37:01:05 - 00:37:04:18\r\nInterestingly, she took up tennis\rat the age of 11, but she came from a blue-\r\n\r\n00:37:04:18 - 00:37:08:11\r\ncollar family, and tennis was very much\ra country club kind of thing.\r\n\r\n00:37:08:11 - 00:37:09:21\r\nShe couldn't afford lessons.\r\n\r\n00:37:09:21 - 00:37:12:18\r\nIn fact, she swept floors \rto earn enough money\r\n\r\n00:37:12:18 - 00:37:16:23\r\nto buy herself a racket,\rand it cost $8.29.\r\n\r\n00:37:17:00 - 00:37:18:17\r\nBut she had to work\rreally hard for that money,\r\n\r\n00:37:18:17 - 00:37:20:12\r\nbecause her family just\rcouldn't afford it.\r\n\r\n00:37:20:12 - 00:37:22:02\r\nShe got free lessons in the park.\r\n\r\n00:37:22:02 - 00:37:23:23\r\nSo if you ever hear...\r\n\r\n00:37:23:23 - 00:37:26:17\r\n“Oh yeah, why are we wasting money\ron lessons in the park?”\r\n\r\n00:37:26:17 - 00:37:30:18\r\nThat's how Billie Jean King\rlearned how to play tennis.\r\n\r\n00:37:30:18 - 00:37:33:19\r\nIn 1959, at the age of 15,\r\n\r\n00:37:33:19 - 00:37:36:18\r\nshe made her Grand Slam \rdebut in the U.S. Championship.\r\n\r\n00:37:36:18 - 00:37:39:11\r\nTwo years later, she had to miss \rher high school graduation.\r\n\r\n00:37:39:11 - 00:37:45:08\r\nWhy? Because she was playing in the Wimbledon,\rwhere she won the doubles title.\r\n\r\n00:37:45:10 - 00:37:47:23\r\nShe was the number three tennis player\rin the United States,\r\n\r\n00:37:47:23 - 00:37:51:01\r\nbut when she graduated\rfrom high school, didn't go,\r\n\r\n00:37:51:01 - 00:37:52:22\r\nbut, you know, she still \rgot her diploma.\r\n\r\n00:37:52:22 - 00:37:57:09\r\nBut going to college was really a struggle,\rbecause she came from a very blue-collar\r\n\r\n00:37:57:09 - 00:38:02:06\r\nfamily, and there were no scholarships\rfor women, for athletics.\r\n\r\n00:38:02:08 - 00:38:05:08\r\nTitle IX was not even \ra distant dream yet,\r\n\r\n00:38:05:12 - 00:38:10:00\r\nwhich was championed by\rNew York's Shirley Chisholm\r\n\r\n00:38:10:02 - 00:38:13:12\r\nIn 1966, she was the number one\rtennis player in the world.\r\n\r\n00:38:13:12 - 00:38:16:00\r\nShe won Wimbledon \rthree years in a row.\r\n\r\n00:38:16:00 - 00:38:20:08\r\nIn fact in 1968, she won Wimbledon\rboth singles and doubles,\r\n\r\n00:38:20:10 - 00:38:23:15\r\nand she got paid a fraction\rof what the male winner had.\r\n\r\n00:38:23:15 - 00:38:24:22\r\nShe was really fed up with that.\r\n\r\n00:38:24:22 - 00:38:30:02\r\nSo she joined with eight other women's\rtennis players to launch their own tour.\r\n\r\n00:38:30:04 - 00:38:31:22\r\nScrew this. \rWe're doing it ourselves,\r\n\r\n00:38:31:22 - 00:38:34:18\r\nbecause we can do better.\r\n\r\n00:38:34:18 - 00:38:38:16\r\nSo they called themselves\r“The Original Nine,” and the male\r\n\r\n00:38:38:16 - 00:38:42:17\r\nleadership of the National Tennis\rAssociation, at that time it was the U.S.\r\n\r\n00:38:42:17 - 00:38:47:21\r\nAssociation said, “You do this,\rand you're not playing ever again.”\r\n\r\n00:38:47:21 - 00:38:51:23\r\nBut of course they were the best players,\rso could he really ban them?\r\n\r\n00:38:52:01 - 00:38:55:05\r\nIn 1973, they started the Women's\rTennis Association, and their goal\r\n\r\n00:38:55:05 - 00:38:56:11\r\nwas to organize tournaments\r\n\r\n00:38:56:11 - 00:39:00:03\r\nthat would give them more opportunity,\rand they could earn more money.\r\n\r\n00:39:00:05 - 00:39:03:17\r\nToday, the Women's Tennis Association\rthat they organized is the governing body\r\n\r\n00:39:03:17 - 00:39:05:11\r\nfor women's tennis and the U.S.\r\n\r\n00:39:05:11 - 00:39:08:18\r\nOpen, which was the first major tennis\r\n\r\n00:39:08:20 - 00:39:11:19\r\ntournament to offer equal prizes\r\n\r\n00:39:11:19 - 00:39:13:09\r\nfor men and women.\r\n\r\n00:39:13:09 - 00:39:14:18\r\nIt’s obviously held in the Billie\r\n\r\n00:39:14:18 - 00:39:18:05\r\nJean King National Tennis Center\rhere in Flushing Meadows Park.\r\n\r\n00:39:18:07 - 00:39:21:16\r\nAnd this fall, when Coco Graff \rwon, she publicly\r\n\r\n00:39:21:16 - 00:39:25:14\r\nthanked Billie Jean King for this work,\radvocating for gender equity.\r\n\r\n00:39:25:16 - 00:39:29:04\r\nBy contrast, the soccer association,\r\n\r\n00:39:29:04 - 00:39:32:02\r\nthe women still make\rmassively less than men.\r\n\r\n00:39:32:02 - 00:39:37:08\r\nIn 2009, President Barack Obama\rawarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom\r\n\r\n00:39:37:10 - 00:39:41:11\r\nto honor her work championing\rgender equality and also her work\r\n\r\n00:39:41:11 - 00:39:45:08\r\non behalf of the \rLGBTQIA community.\r\n\r\n00:39:45:10 - 00:39:47:15\r\nSo last person, and then\rI’m going to pause.\r\n\r\n00:39:48:12 - 00:39:51:11\r\nThis is someone who's \ralso not in the book,\r\n\r\n00:39:51:11 - 00:39:54:11\r\nand she's not in the book,\rbecause nothing is named after her yet.\r\n\r\n00:39:54:12 - 00:39:56:11\r\nThis is Jane Matilda Bolin.\r\n\r\n00:39:57:01 - 00:39:58:06\r\nShe was the first\r\n\r\n00:39:58:06 - 00:40:01:06\r\nblack woman to serve as a\rjudge in the United States.\r\n\r\n00:40:01:10 - 00:40:03:11\r\nAnd for the first 20 years,\r\n\r\n00:40:03:11 - 00:40:07:19\r\nshe was the only black woman\rto serve as a judge in the United States.\r\n\r\n00:40:07:21 - 00:40:11:04\r\nAnd for perspective\ron how recent all this is.\r\n\r\n00:40:11:06 - 00:40:13:05\r\nShe was two years older\rthan my grandfather.\r\n\r\n00:40:15:04 - 00:40:16:01\r\nThis photograph\r\n\r\n00:40:16:01 - 00:40:19:11\r\nis in 1939, in the Mayor's Office\r\n\r\n00:40:19:11 - 00:40:23:03\r\nat the City of New York\rbuilding at the World's Fair.\r\n\r\n00:40:23:05 - 00:40:25:17\r\nMayor Fiorello LaGuardia \ris swearing Bolin\r\n\r\n00:40:25:17 - 00:40:31:04\r\nin as a judge on the New York City Domestic \rCourt, which became Family Court.\r\n\r\n00:40:31:04 - 00:40:32:19\r\nLaGuardia was himself\r\n\r\n00:40:32:19 - 00:40:34:18\r\nthe first Italian-American\rto serve in Congress\r\n\r\n00:40:34:18 - 00:40:37:15\r\nand the second to be a mayor \rof a major U.S. city.\r\n\r\n00:40:37:15 - 00:40:41:22\r\nNow, before she got to this\rmoment, this historic first,\r\n\r\n00:40:42:00 - 00:40:46:00\r\nthere were lot of other really \rmomentous historic firsts in her life.\r\n\r\n00:40:46:01 - 00:40:47:21\r\nShe attended Wellesley.\r\n\r\n00:40:47:21 - 00:40:49:13\r\nShe was one of two \rblack students there.\r\n\r\n00:40:49:13 - 00:40:53:12\r\nShe got into a bunch\rof other schools.\r\n\r\n00:40:53:12 - 00:40:56:22\r\nBut then when they realized she \rwas black - “No you can’t come.”\r\n\r\n00:40:57:00 - 00:40:59:19\r\nShe was forced to live off campus,\rbecause Wellesley had segregated\r\n\r\n00:40:59:19 - 00:41:01:02\r\ndorms and wouldn't let her in.\r\n\r\n00:41:01:02 - 00:41:05:02\r\nAnd she graduated \rnumber one in her class.\r\n\r\n00:41:05:02 - 00:41:09:04\r\nIn 1931, she was the first black woman\rto graduate from Yale Law School.\r\n\r\n00:41:09:05 - 00:41:12:18\r\nShe was one of three women at Yale,\rand one of two black people\r\n\r\n00:41:12:20 - 00:41:14:13\r\nat Yale at the time.\r\n\r\n00:41:14:13 - 00:41:19:01\r\nBoth institutions now proudly\rclaim her as an alum,\r\n\r\n00:41:19:03 - 00:41:21:12\r\nand tout themselves \rfor admitting her.\r\n\r\n00:41:21:12 - 00:41:24:21\r\nBut her experiences at Yale\rand Wellesley were really fraught\r\n\r\n00:41:24:21 - 00:41:27:21\r\nwith racial and gender hostility.\r\n\r\n00:41:27:23 - 00:41:31:10\r\nAnd if you think just like couple of years\rback, some really ugly slurs\r\n\r\n00:41:31:10 - 00:41:33:10\r\nthat were thrown at \rJustice Brown Jackson\r\n\r\n00:41:33:10 - 00:41:36:08\r\nduring her confirmation hearing,\rin terms of her abilities\r\n\r\n00:41:36:08 - 00:41:39:08\r\nand her qualifications, it's\rsort of a slight window into what\r\n\r\n00:41:39:08 - 00:41:42:16\r\nJudge Jane Bolin probably\rfaced on a daily basis.\r\n\r\n00:41:42:18 - 00:41:46:06\r\nSo she passed the bar her first time \rright after she graduated,\r\n\r\n00:41:46:08 - 00:41:49:07\r\nbecame the first black woman to \rjoin the New York City Bar Association\r\n\r\n00:41:49:07 - 00:41:52:16\r\nand first to work for New York's\rCorporation Council.\r\n\r\n00:41:52:18 - 00:41:56:17\r\nAnd every legislative session\rsince 2017, Assemblymember Aubrey\r\n\r\n00:41:56:17 - 00:41:57:19\r\nhas introduced a bill\r\n\r\n00:41:57:19 - 00:42:01:16\r\nto the New York State Assembly to rename\rthe Queens-Midtown Tunnel in her honor.\r\n\r\n00:42:01:18 - 00:42:03:02\r\nAnd I'd like to highlight that,\r\n\r\n00:42:03:02 - 00:42:06:10\r\nbecause wouldn't it be great\rif that was the Jane Bolin Tunnel?\r\n\r\n00:42:06:12 - 00:42:11:01\r\nIt would not reduce congestion, but\r\n\r\n00:42:11:03 - 00:42:13:09\r\nas you’re sitting there stuck in traffic,\r\n\r\n00:42:13:09 - 00:42:16:12\r\nyou could at least think...\rthis is named after Jane Bolin.\r\n\r\n00:42:16:12 - 00:42:17:08\r\nThat's impressive.\r\n\r\n00:42:17:08 - 00:42:19:20\r\nShe's impressive, so...\r\n\r\n00:42:21:02 - 00:42:24:04\r\nThe guy who made this \rfor me is right here - Charlie.\r\n\r\n00:42:24:04 - 00:42:26:05\r\nThis map is the front \rpiece of the book.\r\n\r\n00:42:26:05 - 00:42:29:21\r\nIt identifies all of the places\rthat the book talks about.\r\n\r\n00:42:29:23 - 00:42:32:06\r\nAnd with that, I am done.\r\n\r\n00:42:32:06 - 00:42:33:06\r\nSo thank you!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/27/collection_resources/119953/file/225049#t=0.0,2562.51733"}]}]}]}