BC -1599 | 1600-1649 | 1650-1699 | 1700-1749 | 1750-1799 | 1800-1849 | 1850-1899 | 1900-1949 | 1950-1959 | 1960-1969 | 1970-1979 | 1980-1989 | 1990-1999 | 2000-present

BC-1599 next - top

13,000 BC - Paleo-Indian peoples begin arriving in the New York area; Mostly nomadic hunters

4500 BC - second wave of peoples arrive; Algonquin Indians migrating from Asia

1,100 AD - The approximate date of Indian settlements in the Brooklyn area

Apr 17, 1524 - Verrazano, commissioned by France's Francis I, enters New York bay. First reported contact between New York Natives and Europeans.

1600-1649 next - top

1600 - Population of Natives in tri-state area: Algonkin (Algonquin) tribes is about 6,000, Metoac tribes is 10,000, Iroquois around 20,000.

Sep 2, 1609 - Henry Hudson anchors the Half Moon in the lower end of New York harbor. He explores the area for the next ten days, meeting with the Natives.

Sep 6, 1609 - Hudson sends a small crew ashore on Long Island to explore. On their return to the ship they are attacked by two canoes full of natives. Crewman John Colman is killed, two others injured. The survivors can't find the Half Moon in the dark. Colman becomes the first recorded victim of violence in the area of the future New York City. Henry Hudson takes two Native hostages.

Sep 14, 1609 - Two Native hostages escape while the Half Moon heads north up the Hudson river.

Oct 1, 1609 - The Half Moon is attacked by Indians in Haverstraw Bay. The crew kills two Natives.

1611 - Former Dutch lawyer Adrian Block explores Manhattan Island in the ship Tiger . He returns to Europe with a cargo of furs and two kidnapped Natives, who he names Orson and Valentine.

1613 - The Iroquois sign the Treaty of Taagonshi with the Dutch, agreeing to treat each other as brothers. The Two Row wampum belt is made to symbolize the pact.

1616 - Adriane Block publishes the first map of New York Harbor and Long Island.

1624 - Dutch settlers begin arriving, about 30 families

Jun 1, 1625 - Sarah de Rapaelje is born in Breuckelen (Brooklyn) to Jan Joris Rapaelje and his wife, the first child of European parents born in the New World.

1625 - A second Dutch West India Company ship arrives, carrying over a hundred settlers and 103 head of livestock; The approximate date Brooklyn is first settled; The site of Fort Amsterdam is staked out by Cryn Fredericks, at the southern tip of Manhattan.

1625 - Dutch governor Peter Minuit buys Manhattan island from the Natives.

1626 - The approximate date the Dutch West India Company begins to bring slaves from Africa for the fur trade and construction business.

1632 - The first public beer brewery is set up early in the year by Minuit.

1633 - arrives in New Amsterdam, founds the first school in the colony, founded by Adam Roelantsen. Five stone workshops are built near today's Whitehall Street. Van Twiller settles at Bossen Bouwerie, becoming the first European settler in the future Greenwich Village.

April 22, 1635 - The northwest end of Long Island (Queens) is settled by the Dutch.

1637 - Staten Island is acquired by the Dutch

1638 - Population of European-American around 400. By this time, 60,000 beaver furs were recorded as traded back to Europe. Local Mespaetches (Lenape) Indians sell Brooklyn land to the colonists that will become Bushwick, Greenpoint and Williamsburg. ** An ordinance is passed forbidding adulterous relations with heathens and blacks. ** The court of sessions of the North Riding of Yorkshire (today's Queens County, minus Newtown) is established at Jamaica. ** Willem Kieft replaces Wouter Von Twiller as director general. Kieft begins buying Lenape Indian land in today's Bronx, Queens, Staten Island and Jersey City.

May 15th, 1638 - Jan Gybertsen stabs New Amsterdam gunner Gerrit Jansen in a brawl, killing him; New York City's first recorded European on European murder.

1639 - The Manatus Map is published, detailing the greater New York area. The Dutch West India Company purchases the area known today as the Bronx, to ease future overcrowding.

May 10, 1640 - A militia is formed in New Amsterdam.

1643 - Population of European-American around 800, with 18 languages being spoken. 100 Narragansett Sachem warriors visit Metoac villages in the summer to recruit allies for a war against the Mohegan in Connecticut. New Amsterdam Governor Kieft misinterprets the Indians' intention, convinced a secret uprising is being organized against Europeans, so he declares "pre-emptive" war (the Wappinger War) on the Natives which lasts two years. In one attack alone, the Europeans killed 110 natives (the Pavonia Massacre).

Feb 25, 1644 - A number of African slaves, having worked for the West India company for over 18 years, are granted conditional emancipation.

1645 - Peace is declared between the Dutch and the Natives, after thousands of natives throughout the tri-state area are massacred by mercenaries hired by Governor Willem Kieft, including Mohegan Natives.

1646 - A Native American and African slave trade is set up in new Amsterdam.

May 11, 1647 - Peter Stuyvesant arrives in Nieuw Amsterdam, as Director General, to replace Willem Kieft.

Sep 27, 1647 - Sailing back to Holland aboard the Princess, Governor Willem Kieft drowns when the ship is wrecked in the Britain's Bristol Channel.

1650-1699 next - top

1651 - Peter Stuyvesant receives the deed for a bouwerie (farm) previously belonging to Wouter Von Twiller.

1651 - NYC's first squatter eviction: Peter Stuyvesant has squatter Brandt Van Schlectenhorst jailed for claiming land awarded by Governor Kieft.

Feb 2, 1653 - Peter Stuyvesant incorporates the city of New Amsterdam.

Sep 7, 1654 - 23 Sephardic Jews, refugees from Brazil, arrive in New Amsterdam aboard the French armed vessel St. Charles.

1655 - The city is surveyed and a street grid is prepared.

1655 - Several thousand Hudson River area Indians go on a three-day rampage in the city, as well as on Staten Island and in New Jersey. Over a hundred Dutch settlers are killed. More than 150 are kidnapped.

1655 - Stuyvesant denies Jews the right to serve in the military.

1655 - Brooklyn area Natives, trusting the Dutch to defend them, are completely wiped out by Mohawk Natives.

1656 - Governor Peter Stuyvesant has the first map of the city made and sent to the Netherlands. The first city census is made, it shows 120 houses and about 1,000 inhabitants.

Jan 25, 1658 - Stuyvesant bans tennis during church service hours

March 1658 - Stuyvesant establishes the town of Nieuw Haarlem, in the northern half of Manhattan.

Aug 12, 1658 - New Amsterdam gets its first police force - the Ratelwacht (Burgher Guard).

1659 - Population of Under 500 Metoac Natives remain. Due to adoptions from conquered peoples the Iroquoian population peaks at about 25,000.

1660 - Peter Stuyvesant builds a family chapel at the present day site of St. Marks Church

Sep 8, 1664 - A fleet of English arrives in new Amsterdam, Stuyvesant surrenders.

Feb 2nd, 1664 - New Amsterdam is renamed New York City, after the Duke of York. A cordial transfer ceremony is held.

1665 - Population of European-Americans, about 1500. Peter Stuyvesant is recalled to Holland to explain the loss of New Amsterdam.

1667 - An epidemic (possibly yellow fever) kills many New Yorkers.

1667 - Peter Stuyvesant retires to his farm.

1672 - Population reaches 2,500.

1672 - Peter Stuyvesant dies, and is buried under his private chapel, now St. Marks-in-the-Bowerie Church.

Dec 10, 1672 - Monthly mail service established between New York and Boston.

Jul 30 1673 - A Dutch fleet recaptures New York City, retaking the colony and New Jersey, renaming the city New Orange.

Feb 19, 1674 - The Treaty of Westminster restores New Amsterdam and New Jersey to the English. The city's name reverts to New York.

1674 - Mayor William Dervall levies the colony's first tax.

May 19, 1677 - New York City's council begins taxing the construction of docks and bridges

1678 - census taken, the city contains 384 houses

November 1, 1683 - Kings County (Brooklyn) is formed, with the towns of Brooklyn, Bushwick, Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend and New Utrecht.

Apr 14, 1693 - William Bradford establishes the first printing press in New York City, on Hanover Square.

Mar 19, 1696 - Trinity Church is founded and Angelicism becomes the Colony's official religion.

Aug 9, 1699 - New York City begins fining peddlers twenty shillings for selling on the streets.

1700-1749 next - top

1700 - population reaches 5,000

Apr 7. 1712 - Newly-arrived African Slaves revolt in New York City, killing eight whites and injuring over twenty others.

Apr 12, 1712 - Twenty-one African slaves are burned or hanged after the slave revolt.

1727 - History of the Five Indian Nations , by Doctor Cadwallader Colden, is published.

1732 - The population reaches 8,624.

1741 - The city forms a volunteer firefighting company.

Feb 28, 1741- The Manhattan tobacco shop of Robert Hogg is burglarized. The money is later found at Hughson's Alehouse and rumors spread of a slave insurrection - the "Alehouse Plot". By the time calm is restored, four whites and 25 blacks will have been executed.

Mar 18, 1741 - The 1640 Dutch church on Manhattan is destroyed by rebellious slaves.

Apr 7, 1741 - Journeymen bakers go on strike in New York City, are prosecuted for criminal conspiracy.

1746 - The Evening Post begins publication

1750-1799 next - top

1750 - Population of whites, 13,000; blacks, 2500.

1762 - The first celebration of St. Patrick by Irish-Americans.

Apr 22, 1774 - British tea is burned in New York City.

1775 - The population reaches 25,000

Apr 13 - Washington begins moving his troops to New York City

Jul 2, 1776 - Twelve colonies, New York abstaining, vote to support Richard Henry Lee's resolution for independence.

1776 - George Washington's army arrives in New York to protect it against British invasion. Wahsington is forced to retreat and the British rule the colony for seven years.

1778 - Peter Stuyvesant's mansion burns down, and his great-grandson sells the remaining chapel and graveyard, now the site of the Episcopal church of St Mark's Church in-the-Bowery

1783 - The British lose control of the colony and retreat back to England.

1783, John Jacob Astor arrives in New York City at the age of 20. He is the son of a butcher, but soon becomes the first millionaire of the new America.

1785 - The New York Manumission Society is founded to abolish slavery.

1788 - The Society of St. Tammany (later Tammany Hall) is founded

September 13, 1788 - New York City became the first capital of the newly formed United States

April 30, 1789 - the first President of the United States, George Washington, was inaugurated at Federal Hall on Wall Street.

1790 - Population, 33,131

1790 - The nations capital moves to Philadelphia.

1799 - New York State enacts Slave emancipation bill.

1800-1849 next - top

1800 - Population , 60,515

1801 - The Brooklyn Navy Yard opens.

1806 - The Public School Society begins educating children of the poor.

1811 - NYC's street grid is rezoned to include all of Manhattan island. Many residents are uprooted.

1820 - The beginning of the great Irish Immigration

April 4, 1824 - John Johnson, a landlord who murdered a sailor for his money, was hanged in front of 50,000 people--a third of New York's population at the time. The corner of E.13th Street and 2nd Avenue was a rural field at the time.

1825 - Daniel D. Tompkins, Vice President of the U.S. under President James Monroe and former Governor of New York, is buried in St. Mark's yard.

1828 - A steeple is added to St. Marks-inthe Bowerie Church. Soon after the two-story fieldstone Sunday School is completed.

1830 - The New York Marble Cemetery is opened on 2nd Avenue, shortly after, the New York City Marble Cemetery opens a block away on 2nd Street.

1831 - New York University is founded.

1831 - Union Square Park opens

The Great Fire destroys 674 buildings.

1833 - LaGrange Terrace (Colonnade Row) was built on Lafayette St.

1833 - 19-25 St Marks Place is built as a German social club, later known as Arlington Hall.

1834 - Tompkins Square Park is landscaped, it does not become a public park until the 1870's.

1842 - Fresh water is piped into the city via the Croton Aqueduct

1845 - A fire destroys 300 buildings.

1847 - The Astor Place Theater is built.

1847 - The 12th Street Baptist Church is built at 110 E.12th Street. Now St. Ann's Catholic Church and Rectory.

1848 - John Jacob Astor dies the richest man in the country, and Americas first millionaire.

1848 - Irish immigrants begin the building of St. Brigid's church on Avenue B at the edge of Tompkins Square Park.

1848 - La Salle Academy, a catholic boys school, opens at 40 2nd Avenue.

May 10, 1849 - The Astor Place Riot. At least eighteen died and hundreds were injured.

1850-1899 next - top

1850 - Population, 515,574

1855 - The beginning of the great German Immigration

1851 - First issue of the New York Times

1851 - Kiehl's apothecary opens at 107 E.13th Street. Still there.

1852 - Most Holy Redeemer Church is built at 173 E.3rd Street. Catholic church built by German immigrants.

1853 - Elizabeth Blackwell, the U.S.'s first licensed female physician opens a dispensary of poor immigrants at 207 E.7th Street.

1854 - McSorley's Old Ale House is opened at 15 E.7th Street.

1857 - Stuyvesant Polyclinic is opened at 135 2nd Avenue to provide medical care to what was then a largely German-speaking neighborhood.

1857 - The museum of the New-York Historical Society opens at 170 2nd Avenue. It eventualy moved to the Upper West Side.

1857 - Bread riots erupt in Tompkins Square Park.

1859 - The Cooper Union opens, providing free classes to the poor

1860 - About a third of the City is Irish. Half the City is foreign-born.

1860 - Abraham Lincoln secured his spot in the Republican party with his Cooper Union Address, an anti-slavery speech, given in The Cooper Union's Great Hall.

1860 - The Ladies' Benevolent Society is formed by women of St. Mark's Church

1861 - The Civil War breaks out.

July 13, 1863 - The Draft Riots begin. More than 125 people are killed and 300 injured.

1866 - The city's Board of Health is the first in the nation.

1866 - Tompkins Square Park is leveled and turned into a National guard parade ground.

1867 - Corrupt political party Tammany Hall opens its headquarters on 3rd Avenue and 14th Street and remains in power until 1917. Now the site of Con Edison facilities.

1867 - The Metropolitan Savings Bank is built at 9 E.7th Street. It has been the First Ukrainian Evangelical Pentecostal Church since 1937.

1868 - Construction begins on elevated train tracks.

1868 - Father's Heart Ministry Center opens its doors at 543 E.11th Street to the community.

1869 - The stock market crashes.

1870 - F.A.O. Schwartz's first toy store opens on the corner of Broadway and E.8th Street.

1871 - Department of Public Charities building opens at 11th St. and 3rd Avenue. Now Lowes movie theater.

1872 - St Stanislaus built at 101 E. 7th Street.

1874 - Emmanuel Presbyterian Church was built at 737 E. 6th Street (though reconstructed in 1970.) The congregation was founded in 1852.

1876 - Juliet Corson opens the New York Cooking School at 8 St. Marks Place. It was the first cooking school in the US.

1876 - Henry Street Settlement Day Care opens at 710 E.9th Street.

1877 - The Ladies' Hebrew Lying-In Society, a maternity center founded by the United Hebrew Charities, opens at 58 St. Marks Place.

November 6, 1878 - The body of department store pioneer A.T. Stewart was snatched from the St. Marks Church courtyard and held for $200,000 ransom. The widow eventually regained possession of the corpse in 1881, after bargaining the kidnappers down to $20,000.

1879 - Tompkins Square Park reopens to the public.

1880 - Population, 1,206,299

1880 - The beginning of the great Jewish Immigration from Eastern Europe.

1880 - The Second Avenue Elevated Subway line opens

1883 - St. Mark's Memorial Chapel, designed by St Patrick's Cathedral architect James Renwick Jr. is built at 288 E.10th Street. Now called St, Nicholas Church.

1883 - The first home to have a Christmas tree with electric lights was at 269 E.10th Street. It was owned by Edward Johnson, an Edison associate.

May 24, 1883 - The Brooklyn Bridge is opened.

1884 - The Ottendorfer Library on 2nd avenue is New York City's first free public library

1865 - FDNY Hook & Ladder Co. No. 3 opens at 108 E.13th Street. Still there.

1885 - Block Drugs opens at 101 2nd Avenue. Still there.

1885 - German American Shooting Society is built at 12 St. Marks Place.

1886 - The Statue of Liberty is placed in New York harbor.

1886 - The nations first settlement house

1886 - The original Webster Hall, Americas first modern nightclub, is built on 11th Street. Patrons/artists included Emma Goldman, Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Stella.

1888 - Antonio Flaccomio becomes the first recorded victim of a Mafia hit in NYC at the Italian restaurant, La Trinacria, 8 St. Marks Place.

1890 - American Yiddish Theater begins 50 years of success on the Bowery and Second Avenue. At it's peak, some 200 theaters lined these streets.

1890 - New York Eye & Ear Infirmary building constructed; the institution is the oldest specialized hospital in the Western Hemisphere.

1890 - The 6th Street Industrial School of the Children's Aid Society is built and designed by Calvert Vaux (of Central Park fame) at 630 E.6th Street. Now it is the Trinity Lower East Side Parish & Shelter.

1890 - St. Mark's Hospital of New York City opens at 66 St. marks place. Still there.

1890 - St. Marie and Bonsall buildings are at 321 and 323 E.10th Street are built.

1891 - Middle Collegiate Church erected at 112-114 2nd Avenue.

1891 - Instituto Italiano, an organization founded to promote the welfare of Italian immigrants, opens at 179 2nd Avenue. Now a healthy pizza place.

1892 - The Russian-Turkish bathhouse opens on 10th Street.

1894 - The Third Street Music School Settlement opens. Songwriter Irving Caesar, who wrote "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy," was a student here.

1894 - Veniero's opens at 342 E.11th Street; originally a pool hall that served pastry. Now world famous for its desserts.

April 26, 1895 - In a saloon at 428 E.13th Street, teenager Maria Barbella used a straight razor to slit the throat of her lover, Domenico Cataldo, for reneging on a promise of marriage. He stumbled to the corner of Avenue A before dying.

1895 - Originally built at 345 E.4th Street as a Russian Orthodox Church, it is now home to San Isidoro y San Leandro Orthodox Catholic Church of the Hispanic Rite

1895 - American Bowling Congress was founded at 210 E.5th Street, later to become Beethoven Hall, German-American community center in the early 20th Century.

Jan 1, 1898 - The City consolidates and forms the five boroughs.

1899 - Hebrew Actors Union is founded at 31 E.7th Street, to protect performers in the Yiddish theater district.

1899 - James Cagney is born at 391 E.8th Street.

1900-1949 next - top

1900 - Population, 3,437,202

1900 - Hennington Hall is built at 214-216 E.2nd Street.

1901 - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hid out at 234 E.12th St., on their way to Argentina.

1903 - Emma Goldman moves into 210 E.13th Street. 1913 and ran the offices of Mother Earth magazine out of the apartment until 1913.

1903 - East Side Pharmacy opens at 93 Avenue D. Still there.

1904 - The NY Subway system is opened. (The Interbourough Rapid Transit system)

1904 - Russo's Pasta opens at 344 E.12th Street. Still there.

1904 - Tompkins Square Branch of the New York Public Library opens at its present location at 331 E.10th Street.

June 12, 1904 - Ground is broken on P.S. 64, the future home of Charras/El Bohio.

June 15, 1904 - over 1,000 people, mostly German Immigrants, perish on a boat after leafing the 9th Street dock in the Slocum Disaster

1905 - Little Germany disappears within a year after the General Slocum disaster wiped out the social core of its community.

1905 - The Hebrew Technical School for Girls opens at 240 2nd Avenue, now Manhattan Comprehensive Day and Night High School.

1906 - P.S.64, future home of Charas/El Bohio, is opened on 9th Street.

1906 - Charles "Lucky" Luciano moved to 265 E.10th Street from Italy when he was 9 years old.

1907 - Wanamaker's department store opens on E.8th Street between Broadway and Lafayette. It remains a local landmark until 1954.

January 9, 1908 - Abraham Goldfaden, "Father of Yiddish Theater," dies at 318 E.12th Street.

1909 - Pasta Palace Italian restaurant opens at 247 E.10th Street, and doesn't close until 2005.

1910 - The begining of the great Italian Immigration.

1910 - The Anshe Meseritz synagogue is built at 415 E.6th Street.

March 25, 1911 - The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire took the lives of 146 garment workers

1911 - P.S. 64 became the first Public School in the City to offer free open-air professional theater to the public. It was the first school in the city to have electric lights in its yard.

1911 - Big Jack Zelig shot to death Julie Morrello of the Sirocco gang, making Zelig "the most feared man in New York," at the Stuyvesant Casino at 140 2nd Avenue. The building is now home to the Ukrainian National Home and Restaurant.

1911 - One of the worlds earliest cinemas opens at 110 3rd Avenue

1911 - The anarchist Modern School opens at 6 St. Marks Place with nine students and Emma Goldman on its Board of Directors.

October 5, 1912 - Big Jack Zelig, the leading gangster of his day, was shot to death on a streetcar at E.13th Street and 2nd Avenue, by small-time pimp Red Phil Davidson-- a murder that conveniently kept Zelig from testifying against crooked cop Charles Becker.

1913 - The Jefferson Theater opens on 13th Street, a vaudeville venue that featured acts like the Marx Brothers, Mae West, Jack Benny and Fred Allen. George Burns called it "the toughest house in New York." A cinema from the 1930s to the '60s; demolished 1999. Now a vacant lot.

1914 - the Hebrew National Orphan Home opens at 57 E.7th Street.

1914 - Famous shootout between Dopey Benny Fein's gang and Jack Sirocco's mob at Arlington Hall, 19-25 St. Marks Place.

1917 - The Boys Club of NY opens on 10th Street.

1918 - Gringer & Sons appliances opens. Still there.

1922 - Joe "The Boss" Masseria, head of the Italian mob, survived an assassination attempt in front of his home at 80 2nd Avenue, by Umberto Valenti's gang by ducking into a millinery shop.

August 11, 1922 - Gangleader Joe "The Boss" Masseria had rival crimelord Umberto Valenti killed on the corner of 2nd Avenue and E.12th Street in retaliation for an earlier attempt on Masseria's life.

1924 - Best Housekeeping, appliances opens at 17 Avenue A. Still in business.

1925 - New York City became the most populous city in the world

1925 - Mary Help of Christians Catholic school is built at 435 E.11th Street.

October 10, 1928 - Salvatore D'Aquila, then head of what would become the Gambino crime family, was gunned down outside a doctor's office at 211 Avenue A.

1928 - The Christadora House, a settlement house is opened. A young George Gershwin gave his first public performance here. Iggy Pop wrote Avenue B while living here, and Olympic medalist/Actor Johnny Weismuller practiced in its Olympic size swimming pool. Became the focus of community decent as condominiums in the 1980's, as a symbol of gentrification.

December 3, 1935 - The nation's first low-income public housing projects, The First Houses, is created at 112-138 E.3rd Street.

1936 - Tompkins Square Park is redesigned by Robert Moses.

1936 - Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla lived at 313 E.9th Street when he was 15 years old.

1937 - The Bowery Boys premiere in the move Dead End, about a comedic group of Lower East Side street-tough youth.

1939 - Robert Moses opens East River Park and the FDR Drive.

1940 - US spies Julius & Ethel Rosenberg lived at 103 Avenue A.

1942 - The Second Avenue Elevated Subway line is torn down.

1946 - The beginning of the great Puerto Rican immigration to NYC. By 1964, the Puerto Rican community made up 9.3 percent of the total New York City's population.

August 1, 1947 - The first building of Stuyvesant Town is erected.

1949 - The Jacob Riis Houses, a large public housing complex is built on Avenue D. Named for a Danish-born photojournalist whose work documenting New York tenement life, especially his book How the Other Half Lives, helped educate people of inner-city hardships.

1950-1959 next - top

1950 - Population, 7,891,957

1950 - Jazz legend Charlie Parker moves to 151 Avenue B.

1950 - Two teachers from P.S. 64, out of a group of 8 citywide, were accused by the Board of Education of being Communists.

1951 - Expressionist Joan Mitchell moves into 60 St. Marks Place.

1952 - Allen Ginsberg moves into 206 E.7th Street. Gregory Corso and William Burroughs were roommates; Burroughs started Naked Lunch here.

1953 - Services for Julius & Ethel Rosenberg were held at the Sigmund Schwartz Gramercy Park funeral home, at 152-154 2nd Avenue, following their execution for spying on the United States.

1954 - The 2nd Avenue Deli, a Jewish delicatesent, opens on 2nd Ave and 10th Street.

1954 - Iglesia Cristiana Misionera, one of the oldest Latino Evangelical congregations on the Lower East Side (established in 1947), moves into 247 E.7th Street.

1955 - Joseph Papp founds The Public Theater

1956 - Alan Ginsberg publishes Howl.

1957 - St. George's Ukrainian Catholic School is built on shevchenko place and E.6th Street.

1958 - Allen Ginsberg moves into 170 E. 2nd Street, where he wrote "Kaddish" and edited Naked Lunch.

April 2, 1958 - The term Beatnik was coined, as a derogatory term, by Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle.

1959 - Beat poet Frank O'Hara moves into 441 E.9th Street, where he lives until 1963.

1960-1969 next - top

1961 - Ellen Stewart opens LaMama Experimental theater Club.

1961 - Jonas Mekas becomes manager of the Charles Theater at 193 Avenue B (formerly the Bijou), becomes a center of the underground film movement.

1962 - The jazz club Five-Spot opens at 2 St. Marks place

1963 - Bouwerie Lane Theater opens in a landmark 1874 cast-iron building at 330 Bowery.

1964 - Sam Shepard has his first two plays, "Cowboys" and "Rock Garden" produced at St. Marks Church.

1964 - Poet Allen Ginsberg moves to 704 E.5th Street. Frequent guests included Jack Kerouac, Andy Warhol, Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary.

1964 - Lenny Bruce moves into 13 St. marks Place after the completion of his federal obscenity trial.

1965 - The East Village Other is published, its offices housed at the Tompkins Square Studio on Avenue A.

1965 - The Jazz club Slugs opens at 242 E.3rd Street. The Sun Ra Arkestra performed every Monday.

1965 - Police close down the Bridge Theater at 4 St. Marls Place for screening Flaming Creatures

October 9, 1966 - Swami Prabhupada, founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, held the religion's first outdoor chanting session outside of India; participants in the ceremony include included Beat poet Allen Ginsberg.

1966, The Poetry Project and The Film Project (later to become the Millennium Film Workshop), were founded at St. Marks Church.

1966 - Love Saves the Day, vintage clothing and great kitsch collectibles opens at 119 2nd Avenue.

1966 - A bandshell was erected in Tompkins Square Park, played host to such bands as The Greatful Dead and Jimi Hendrix.

1967 - The "Groovy Murders" at 169 Avenue B. "Hippies" James "Groovy" Hutchinson and Linda Fitzpatrick were bludgeoned to death by two drifters in this basement. Now houses the offices of prominent housing activists GOLES (Good Ol' Lower East Side).

1967 - The Public Theater opens with the musical Hair, housed in the old Astor Place Library.

1967 - Tony Rosenthal's The Alamo (The Cube") is installed in Astor Place.

1967 - Abbie Hoffman invented the Yippies in the basement apartment of 30 St. Marks Place, where he lived with his wife Anita.

1967 - The Village East Towers, a 25-story co-op is built at 411 E.10th Street.

1967 - The Electric Circus opens at 19-25 St. Marks Place and features featuring Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, and more. Closes in 1973.

1967 - Police close down the Bridge Theater at 4 St. Marls Place for the burning of an American flag during a performance.

March 7, 1967 - You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown premieres at Theater 80 at 80 St. marks Place. Now Pearl Theater Company.

March 1968 - The Fillmore East opens on 6th Street and 2nd Avenue.

1968 - The Peace Eye Bookstore opens at 147 Avenue A.

March 30, 1968 - Former child star Bobby Driscoll was found dead of a drug overdose in an abandoned tenement at 371 E.10th Street.

1969 - Hilly's On The Bowery is opened, will become CBGB's in 1974.

1969 - Chicago-based Young Lords Party, a Puerto-Rican socio-political organized street gang begins activity on the Lower East Side.

1969 - Oh! Calcutta premiers at the Phoenix Theater at 189 2nd Avenue (now Village East Cinema.)

1970-1979 next - top

November 30, 1970 - Anthology Film Archives opens at Joseph Papp's Public Theater.

June 27, 1971 - The Fillmore East final night performance with the Allman Brothers, The Beach Boys and others.

1969 - Grease premiers at the Phoenix Theater at 189 2nd Avenue (now Village East Cinema.)

January 27, 1972 - Police officers Gregory Foster and Rocco Laurie were assassinated on the corner ofr 11th Street and Avenue B by the Black Liberation Army. A communique described the killings as a retaliation for the 1971 Attica prison massacre.

February 19, 1972 - Trumpet player Lee Morgan was murdered at the jazz club Slugs, by his wife, prompting the club to close.

1973 - Bowery Houston Community Farm & Garden Opened. Renamed Liz Christy Community Garden in 1985.

1973 - The Nuyorican Poets Cafe is created in Miguel Algarin's living room.

December 1973 - Hilly Kristal opens CBGB's on the Bowery.

March 31, 1974 - Television begins their Sunday night residency at CBGB's.

1974 - Chino Garcia and Bimbo Rivas, christen their adopted home east of Avenue B with the name Loisaida, to signify the area’s Puerto Rican heritage and identity.

August, 1974 - Blondie (Angel & The Snakes) and The Ramones make their debut at CBGB's.

October 18, 1974 - LaMama E.T.C. opens is large theater annex.

December 23, 1974 - A white supremacist is killed at 102 St. Marks Place in a shootout with police.

1975 - The Nuyorican Poets Cafe takes over the Sunshine Cafe, an old Irish bar on 6th Street.

1975 - The Danspace Project is founded at St. Marks Church.

February 14, 1975 - Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye make their debut at CBGB's.

February 24, 1975 - Led Leppelin releases the Physical Graffiti album which features the facade and art deco of the building at 98 St. Marks Place.

1976 - The Ukraininan Museum opens on 2nd Avenue.

1976 - St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church opens on Shevchenko Place and E.7th Street.

1976 - Madina Masjid/Islamic Council of America opens at 401 E.11th Street.

1977 - 17 year old Jean-Michel Basquiat begins spraying burnt-out buildings under the name Samo.

1977 - Bob Holman, Sara Miles and Susie Timmons create the NYC Poetry Calendar.

1977 - A woman was thrown to her death from the roof of this old Hell's Angel's clubhouse at 72 E.3rd Street.

July 2, 1977 - Firefighter Marty Celic dies fighting a fire in a tenement on E.8th Street. A Firefighters Memorial is set up at 364 E.8th Street.

July 27, 1978 - A fire nearly destroys St. Mark's Church. It will take eight years to raise funds and rebuild.

1978 - TV Party, a cable access TV show featuring many East Village artists and personalities and hosted by Glenn O'Brien and Chris Stein, begins and runs until 1982.

1978 - Sidewalk Cafe opens at 6th Street and Avenue A. Becomes a famous place for singer songwriters; hosted the "anti-folk" scene of the 1990's.

1978 - The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas premiers at the Phoenix Theater at 189 2nd Avenue (now Village East Cinema.)

1979 - P.S. 122 opens with it's first public performance

1979 - The Anthology Film Archives opens its new location in a Courthouse building at 32 2nd Avenue.

1979 - P.S. 64 closes and is reopened as El Bohio Cultural & Community Center, which housed the community group CHARAS and played a major role in the Loisaida cultural renaissance.

1979 - Club 57 opens, and soon becomes home to Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, John Sex, Wendy Wild, The Fleshtones, Klaus Nomi, Fab Five Freddy, and more.

1980-1989 next - top

May 1st, 1980 - The Ritz takes over Webster Hall and quickly becomes a famous showcase venue for emerging rock acts. Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, Prince, Sting, KISS, B.B. King, and Guns N' Roses all performed on it's stage.

1980 - The Nuyorican Poets Cafe moves to it's present location on 3rd Street.

1980 - The Saint, a popular gay niteclub, opens in the old Fillmore East space at 105 2nd Avenue. It closes in 1989.

1981 - 51X, an art gallery which specialized in graffiti and urban art by the likes of Keith Haring, Basquiat and Johnny Rotten, and many more, opens for a short time at 51 St. Marks Place.

1981 - The Binibon murder took place on 2nd Avenue and 5th Street. Author Jack Henry Abbot stabbed to death 22 year old Binibon Café night-manager Richard Adan, just weeks after Abbot's release from prison on a work release program. The morning after the fatal stabbing, Abbot received a favorable review in the Sunday New York Times. The reviewer gave thanks to the murderer’s mentor, Norman Mailer, for his help in getting the book published and for his role in getting the convict out on parole. The victim was also a writer.

1983 - Work begins on the 6th and B garden.

1983 - The short-lived but popular club 8BC opens at 337 E.8th Street.

1984 - Lady Bunny and a group of drag queens create Wigstock, held the following year at Tompkins Square Park.

1985 - Bowery Houston Community Farm & Garden is renamed Liz Christy Community Garden in honor of garden activist, Liz Christy.

1985 - Jean-Michel Basquiat appears on the cover of New York Times Magazine.

1985 - An FBI raid at the Hells Angels club house on 3rd street was botched, and the Hells angels were awarded at least one million dollars in a legal settlement.

1985 - Finyl Vinyl, a connoisseurs' used record store is opened at 208 E.6th Street.

1986 - The Ritz niteclub relocates, and Webster Hall is reopened.

1986 - NYU builds Alumni Hall dormitory at 3rd Avenue and 9th Street.

August 6, 1988 - police riot erupted in the park when police attempted to clear the park of homeless people; 44 people were injured

1988 - Jean-Michel Basquiat dies of a heroin overdose in his Great Jones Street studio.

1988 - The Rock, headquarters of a cocaine-selling operation at 507 E.11th Street run by Alejandro "The Man" Lopez, who took in $4 million a year, was shut down by police.

1989 - Nirvana's NYC debut at the Pyramid Club.

1989 - One of the first squats on the Lower East Side (319 E.8th Street) was demolished by police.

1990-1999 next - top

1990 - Iconic artist Keith Haring dies of an HIV-related disease.

1990 - A 14-year-old boy was killed in a vacant lot on 3rd street when a Hells Angel ignited a drum filled with fireworks.

February 22, 1991 - East Village Resident Daniel Rakowitz was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1990 murder of his roommate, Monica Beerle, a Swiss dancer and student. He said that he had boiled her head and made soup from her brain. Rumor is he served the soup to the homeless in Tompkins Square Park.

1991 - Mayor David Dinkins closes Tompkins Square Park for 14 months' of renovations. The bandshell is deemed unsafe and destroyed.

1992 - The Earth School opens, a public elementary school on Avenue B with an environmental and peace focus.

1993 - Continental opens its doors on 3rs Ave at St. Marks place. Soon becomes home to local rock and roll scene.

1995 - Squatter at both 541 and 545 E.13th Street were evicted military style. At least one incident included a NYPD tank.

March 4, 1996 - 2nd Avenue deli owner and Holocaust survivor Abe Lebewohl is murdered in an unsolved robbery. A memorial is dedicated to Abe Lebewohl in the courtyard of St. Marks Church.

1996 - The ABC/Jardin Garden at 308 E.8th Street was bulldozed.

April 5, 1997 - Allen Ginsberg dies in his East Village loft of liver cancer via complications of hepatitis. He was 70 years old.

May 10, 1997 -A Danish woman was arrested at BBQ's on 2nd Avenue for leaving her baby outside in a stroller while she dined inside.

1997 - The Fifth Street Squats (535-539 E.5th Street) were demolished by the city.

1998 - The Giuliani administration sells PS 64/Charas/El Bohio to a private developer in for $3.15 million, closing a well loved and important community center.

1999 - St. Marks-in-the-Bowerie Church celebrates its 200th anniversary.

April 3, 1999 - Community activist, Democratic District Leader, and Charas/El Bohio founder Armando Perez is beaten and murdered by two men almost half his age outside Perez’s wife’s apartment complex in Long Island City, Queens.

2000-Present   top

2000 - Population, 8,008,278

April 15, 2001 - Joey Ramone (Jeffry Hyman) dies of lymphoma at the age of 50.

2001 - El Bohio Cultural & Community Center, was shutdown by landlord Gregg Singer despite much community protest.

June 5, 2002 - Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Glenn Colvin) dies of a heroin overdose at the age of 50.

2002 - Squatters receive the legal title to 544 E.13th Street.

2002 - The Rainbow Co-op squat is legalized at 247 E.7th Street.

June 16, 2002 - A gunman takes all patrons of Bar Veloce hostage. Hostages fought back and four people were shot during the mele, including the gunman, but no one was killed.

April 13, 2003 - Avenue B hotspot Guernica bouncer Dana Blake was killed by a knife-wielding patron while enforcing the new city smoking ban.

October 26th, 2003 - La Plaza Cultural, located at Ave C and E.9th Street, is renamed for activist Armando Perez.

November 30, 2003 - East 2nd Street is officially renamed Joey Ramone Place.

January 16, 2004 - Resident Jodie Lane is electrocuted and killed on a E.11th Street Con Edison service hatch while trying to rescue her dog from the same fate.

April 16, 2005 - East Village resident Marla Ruzicka is killed in Iraq while ironically researching civilian casualties.

August 2nd, 2005 - Resident Steven Vincent, an activist and writer, was murdered in Basra, Iraq, days after publishing a New York Times op-ed warning that occupation forces were tolerating death-squad activity.

January 1, 2006 - Second Avenue Deli closes its doors after a substantial rent increase.

August 2006 - Squatters of The Cave at 120 St. Marks Place were forcibly evicted. The Cave was one of the last squats on the Lower East Side and home to East Village artist Jim Power.

September 30th, 2006 - Continental closes it's doors

October 15, 2006 - CBGB's closes it's doors with a final performance by Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye.

October 17, 2006 - Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village are sold to Tishman Speyer Properties and the real estate arm of BlackRock for 5.4 Billion dollars, the biggest deal for a single American property in modern times.

October 27, 2006 - East village resident, activist and photographer Brad Will dies in Oaxaca, Mexico, while working as a journalist for the global Indymedia network. He was shot in the torso while documenting an armed, paramilitary assault on the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca.

January 6, 2007 - Liz Christy Community Gardens reopens to the public after being closed for three years due to nearby development.

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