ALL ABOUT NEW YORK
History
Post-revolutionary period and early 19th century
Main article: History of New York City (1784–1854)
A portrait of the first inauguration of George Washington in 1789
In January 1785, the assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York City the national capital, shortly after the war.[84] New York was the last capital of the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation and the first capital under the Constitution of the United States.[85] As the U.S. capital, New York City hosted several events of national scope in 1789; the first President of the United States, George Washington, was inaugurated; the first United States Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States each assembled for the first time; and the United States Bill of Rights was drafted, all at Federal Hall on present-day Wall Street.[85]
In 1790, for the first time, New York City surpassed Philadelphia as the nation's largest city. At the end of 1790, the national capital was moved to Philadelphia.[86][87]
During the 19th century, New York City's population grew from 60,000 to 3.43 million.[88] Under New York State's gradual emancipation act of 1799, children of slave mothers were to be eventually liberated but to be held in indentured servitude until their mid-to-late twenties.[89][90] Together with slaves freed by their masters after the Revolutionary War and escaped slaves, a significant free-Black population gradually developed in Manhattan. Under such influential United States founders as Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the New York Manumission Society worked for abolition and established the African Free School to educate Black children.[91] It was not until 1827 that slavery was completely abolished in the state.[92] Free Blacks struggled afterward with discrimination and interracial abolitionist activism continued. New York City's population jumped from 123,706 in 1820 (10,886 of whom were Black and of which 518 were enslaved) to 312,710 by 1840 (16,358 of whom were Black).[93]
Broadway, which follows the Native American Wecquaesgeek Trail through Manhattan, in 1840[94]
Also in the 19th century, the city was transformed by both commercial and residential development relating to its status as a national and international trading center, as well as by European immigration, respectively.[95] The city adopted the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which expanded the city street grid to encompass almost all of Manhattan. The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal through central New York connected the Atlantic port to the agricultural markets and commodities of the North American interior via the Hudson River and the Great Lakes.[96] Local politics became dominated by Tammany Hall, a political machine supported by Irish and German immigrants.[97]
DRIVING DIRECTIONS
