From the Seaport to Silicon Alley : A History of Technology in New York City, 1820-2000
By Thorin Tritter, Ph.D.

1) The Brooklyn Bridge took the title in 1883, then the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903, the Manhattan Bridge in 1909, the George Washington Bridge in 1931, and the Verrazano Narrows in 1964.

2) In addition to Central Park, the duo worked on Riverside Park, Prospect Park and Fort Greene Park.

3) New York's tallest buildings have included: The Pulitzer Building (1890), Park Row Building (1899), Singer Tower (1908), Metropolitan Life Tower (1909), Woolworth Building (1913), Bank of the Manhattan Company (1929), Chrysler Building (1930), Empire State Building (1931), and World Trade Center (1976).

4) In the twentieth century, New York has maintained its population more than most urban areas because the movement out to the suburbs has been countered by a continual flow of new immigrants into the city. Since the 1940s, its population has stood at over seven million people. By 1998, New York, with its 7.420 million residents, was more than twice the size of Los Angeles, the second largest city in the country with a population of 3.598 million. See Nathan Kantrowitz, "Population" in Kenneth T. Jackson, Editor, The Encyclopedia of New York City (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1995). Also see U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1999 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1999).

5) For more details about New York's role in the gathering of news see Allan R. Pred, Urban Growth and the Circulation of Information: The United States System of Cities, 1790-1840 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1973). For information on the newspaper industry in New York see Thorin Tritter, Paper Profits: Money Making in the New York Newspaper Industry, 1830-1930 (Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 2000).

6) The best source for the details on the rise of New York's port is Robert G. Albion, The Rise of New York Port, 1815-1860 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939). Also see Kenneth T. Jackson, "New York Through the Centuries," The Great Metropolis: Poverty and Progress in New York City (New York: American Heritage Custom Publishing, 1993).

7) For information on the Erie Canal see Evan Cornog, The Birth of Empire: DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience, 1769-1828 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862 (New York: Hill & Wang, 1996); and Arthur G. Adams, The Hudson Through the Years (Westwood, New Jersey: Lind, 1985).

8) A general study of investment banking can be found in Vincent Carosso, Investment Banking in America: A History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970).

9) See David G. McCullough, The Great Bridge (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972).

10) See Thomas P. Hughes, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970 (New York: Viking, 189); Wilbert E. Moore, Editor, Technology and Social Change (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1972); Perry Pascarella, Technology: Fire in a Dark World (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co, 1979).