PBS “New York” documentary series (8 episodes) (Amazon streaming)



Watch the episodes at this link >>


This eight part miniseries by Ric Burns chronicles the history of New York City from the time Manhattan was a wooded wilderness in the year 1600 up until 2001.  It is a very well-produced and engrossing documentary, every episode is interesting.



Episode 1: TOPICS EXPLAINED IN THIS EPISODE INCLUDE: The discovery and settlement of Manhattan by the Dutch explorer Henry Hudson in 1609;  The colonization of Manhattan by the Dutch West India company to use it as a trading post called New Amsterdam in 1620;  The exploitation and decimation of the native population in the area;  The strict governorship of Peter Stuyvesant in 1647 that brought order to the settlement but also established slavery there;  The seizing of the island by the English without a shot being fired, renaming it to New York and establishing the 13 original colonies;  The expansion of the use of slavery and the brutal treatment of them;  The Revolutionary war in 1776 with battles fought in Brooklyn and Manhattan;  The rebuilding of the city after the war by Alexander Hamilton establishing it as a banking and manufacturing center;  The creation of new wealthy families such as the Astors and the Vanderbilts;  The leadership of Dewitt Clinton setting the course of New York by imposing the grid system of streets in the early 1800’s and also his ambitious building of the Erie Canal in 1820 that opened the inner wealth of the United States to New York.


Episode 2: TOPICS EXPLAINED IN THIS EPISODE INCLUDE: How the building of the Erie canal and the influx of immigrants starting in the 1820’s transformed the city from being simple and rural to being the biggest city in the US;  How a wave of Irish immigrants were discriminated against and turned against the Black population;  The writings of Walt Whitman describing New York;  The massive public works project of creating Central Park in the 1860’s;  The rise of the Civil War in 1861 and associated violent working class anti-draft riots;  The creation of food and housing safety laws.


Episode 3: TOPICS EXPLAINED IN THIS EPISODE INCLUDE: The major influx of wealth and construction after the Civil War due to new technologies and unregulated stock market speculation;  The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge starting in 1869;  The notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall “Boss Tweed” political machine;  The bust of the economy in 1876 that empowered the monopoly capitalist J.P. Morgan;  Thomas Edison’s creation of the first power plant in the world in 1886;  The creation of the Statue of Liberty;  Photographic documentation of widespread poverty conditions in the city, leading to reforms;  The creation of many landmark buildings such as Madison Square Garden and the Metropolitan Museum of Art;  The consolidation of the five boroughs.


Episode 4: TOPICS EXPLAINED IN THIS EPISODE INCLUDE: The invention of movie cameras widely documenting daily life in the city at the turn of the century;  A new influx of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe being processed at Ellis Island;  The invention and start of the widespread building of skyscrapers;  Crowding of impoverished immigrants into tenements in the city;  The building of the subway system;  The harsh unregulated sweatshop garment industry and the tragic fire at the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory that killed 146 women and girls, leading to the creation of widespread safety regulations throughout the city;  The election of the non-formally educated Irish immigrant Al Smith as Governor of New York, who created many improvements in the lives of the immigrant population.


Episode 5: TOPICS EXPLAINED IN THIS EPISODE INCLUDE: New York becoming the financial center of the world after World War I;  The writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote “This Side of Paradise”;  The industrial revolution in the 1920s;  New York becoming the media center of the world with the invention of motion pictures, radio, and records;  Black musicians and artists becoming established in Harlem in the Jazz age;  The Presidential campaign of Al Smith in 1928;  Out of control stock market speculation and the skyscraper construction boom in the 1920’s;  The stock market crash in 1929;  The construction of the Empire State Building during the great depression.


Episode 6: TOPICS EXPLAINED IN THIS EPISODE INCLUDE: Bread lines and shantytowns in the city during the great depression of the 1930s;  The Italian and Jewish Mayor LaGuardia elected in 1934 who dismantled much of the corrupt Taminy political machine and instituted much construction of public works;  Massive modernization of the city by Robert Moses in order to accommodate automobile traffic;  The decay of Harlem and the segregation of the neighborhoods of the city during the depression;  The 1939 Worlds Fair.


Episode 7:  TOPICS EXPLAINED IN THIS EPISODE INCLUDE: Film documentation of ethnic New York neighborhoods in the 1950s by Helen Levitt;  Post WWII celebrations;  The construction of the United Nations building;  Massive expansion of office space in Midtown;  Immigration of African Americans from the South in the late 1940’s;  Immigration of Puerto Ricans in the 1950’s to the city during its transitional to a post-industrial economy which made living in the city difficult for them due to blue collar jobs leaving the city;  Robert Moses destroying low income neighborhoods during the 1950’s using eminent domain;  Serious damage caused to established Manhattan neighborhoods such as the Bronx by the construction of Robert Moses expressways;  The flight of populations and jobs out of the city in the 1950’s;  The destruction of Penn Station for the construction of Madison Square Garden that outraged New Yorkers;  Plans in 1961 by Robert Moses to destroy Greenwich Village and Soho to build expressways that were pushed back by protesters such as Jane Jacobs;  Widespread racial and social tension in the 1960’s and 1970’s;  Financial problems of NYC in the 1970’s;  Graffiti culture being born in the city in the 1970’s;  The economic rebound of the city in the 1980’s and 1990’s.


Episode 8: TOPICS EXPLAINED IN THIS EPISODE INCLUDE: This episode focuses entirely on the World Trade Center and issues associated with it, with plans for it being initiated by the Rockefeller family in the 1950’s, its public subsidized construction starting in 1966, its completion in the early 1970’s, a tightrope walker that crossed the span between the buildings in the 1970’s, and the 9/11 attacks that occurred in 2001.



This article is a part of the summary article “A Summary of the History of the World, in Videos.”