JAZZ AGE 1900-1929

ORIGINS 
COLONIAL
 AMERICAN REVOLUTION
GROWING PAINS
BIRTH OF METROPOLIS
JAZZ AGE
MODERN TIME
 NOW

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1900  Ragtime Era & Jazz Age.

The history of New York City in the beginning of the 20th Century began with consolidation of the five boroughs in 1898.

1901 Theodore Roosevelt becomes president.

​Theodore "T.R." Roosevelt, Jr.  was an American author, naturalist, explorer, historian, and politician who served as the 26th President of the United States. He was the only American president born in New York City. He is noted for his exuberant personality, his range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity. Born into a wealthy family in New York City, Roosevelt was a sickly child who suffered from asthma. To overcome his physical weakness, he embraced a strenuous life. ​He was home-schooled and became an eager student of nature. He attended Harvard University where he studied biology, boxed, and developed an interest in naval affairs. In 1881, just one year out of Harvard, he was elected to the New York State Assembly, where he became a leader of the reform faction of the GOP. His book, The Naval War of 1812, (1882) established him as a learned historian and writer. Roosevelt became Governor of New York in 1898, vice-president in 1900, and, after president McKinley was shot by an anarchist in 1901, president of United States. Historians credit Roosevelt with changing the nation's political system by permanently placing the presidency at center stage and making character as important as the issues. His notable accomplishments include trust busting and conservationism. He is a hero to liberals for his proposals in 1907–12 that presaged the modern welfare state of the New Deal Era, and put the environment on the national agenda. One lasting popular legacy of Roosevelt is the stuffed toy bears—teddy bears—named after him following an incident on a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902. Roosevelt famously refused to shoot a defenseless black bear. After the cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman illustrated the President with a bear, a toy maker heard the story and named the teddy bear after Roosevelt. Bears and later bear cubs became closely associated with Roosevelt in political cartoons thereafter, despite Roosevelt openly despising being called "Teddy". (http://www.geni.com/ Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, 26th President of the USA)

1902 Flatiron Building is built.  Macy’s becomes "largest store on Earth". Met Museum moves to present location.

The Flatiron Building, designed by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, fills the wedge-shaped area at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Broadway. The Flatiron, one of the most recognizable buildings in New York, is the city’s first skyscraper. Macy's, which started as a humble dry goods store on the corner of 14th Street and 6th Avenue in 1858, in 1902 moved to its present location on Herald Square and became "the largest store on earth".

​1900-15 Early Bohemia in Greenwich Village.

​The Village at the turn of the 20th century was quaint, picturesque, and ethnically diverse. By the start of World War I it was widely known as a bohemian enclave with secluded side streets, low rents, and a tolerance for radicalism and nonconformity. Attention increasingly focused on artists and writers noted for their boldly innovative work: books and irreverent “little magazines” were published by small presses, art galleries exhibited the work of the avant-garde, and experimental theater companies blatantly ignored the financial considerations of Broadway. A growing awareness of its idiosyncrasies helped to make Greenwich Village an attraction for tourists. Greenwich Village in the 1910s was known as "America's Bohemia."  Its inhabitants included political radicals (Max Eastman), writers (Theodore Dreiser and Edna St. Vincent Millay), artists (John Sloan), and eccentric characters. Uniting these Villagers was contempt for conventional morality and modern materialism, they advocated radical change to redeem society, which they saw as joyless and corrupt. The Encyclopedia of New York City: Second Edition edited by Kenneth T. Jackson, Lisa Keller, Nancy Flood

1904 Subway opens. Times Square gets named. General Slocum disaster

Underground subway opens. Times Square gets named. Prior to 1900, horses were used for transportation. There were 200,000 of them in the city, producing nearly 2,500 short tons of manure daily. It accumulated on the streets and was swept to the sides like snow. The smell was quite noticeable. The introduction of motor vehicles was a profound relief. A radically new form of transportation opened in 1904 - the New York City Subway! On Thursday afternoon, October 27, 1904, the mayor of New York City, George B. McClellan, officially opened the New York City subway system. The first subway train left City Hall station with the mayor at the controls, and 26 minutes later arrived at 145th Street. The subway opened to the general public at 7 p.m. that evening, and before the night was over, more than 150,000 passengers had ridden the trains through the underground tunnels. The New York Times moved its offices to Longacre Square, which gets renamed Times Square after the newspaper. The Grand New Year celebration, first held in 1904, is still a New York tradition. ​ General Slocum disaster. The deadliest disaster in New York before 9/11 killed over 1,000 people, mainly women and children, and ultimately erased a German community from the map of Manhattan. On June 15, 1904, the ship chartered by the St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church carried 1,358 passengers to a Sunday picnic. Excitement and anticipation filled the air -  this would be a fun-filled day outside of the city. Most of the passengers were women and children from the German-American community of the Lower East Side. As the ship made its way up the East River, good times turned bad very quickly. There have been varying accounts of how the fire started, but it spread rapidly within a half hour of leaving dock around 9 a.m. The panic was horrific among the passengers as they faced death by drowning or being burned alive on the ship. It was a safe bet that most of the passengers could not swim, and the period clothing of the day worked against them. Only 321 passengers survived from a total of 1,358 passengers. The final death count totaled 1,021. Prior to the Slocum disaster, the German-American community was a vibrant and active neighborhood of the working-class and highly educated. The shock of losing so many loved ones devastated families.  Suicides and depression resulted from such a loss and many residents moved away. Standing in Tompkins Square Park is a Tennessee marble obelisk dedicated to the victims of the General Slocum disaster. The fountain was erected in 1906 by the Sympathy Society of German Ladies. Etched into the marble are these words: "They are Earth's purest children, young and fair."

1906  Stanford White killed

1906 saw one of the greatest social scandals of the century when renowned architect Stanford White, a flamboyant figure and a known womanizer, was shot and killed by Harry Thaw, a millionaire husband of Evelyn Nesbit, a show girl and White's ex-lover. The murder happened in a most operatic way: Thaw shot White in front of dining public during a show at the Madison Square Garden designed by Stanford White himself. Thaw was tried, but acquitted on grounds of insanity.

1909 Manhattan Bridge.  Met Life Tower

Met Life Tower Starting the wild race to be the tallest in the world, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower achieved that distinction in 1909. It was the tallest structure in the world for 4 years, until the Woolworth Building was erected. ​ Manhattan Bridge The Manhattan Bridge was the last of the three suspension bridges built across the lower East River.  Because it was conceived after the Brooklyn and Williamsburg Bridges, it was called Bridge No. 3 in its planning phase. The bridge is distinguished by an elaborate stone portal and plaza styled after the Porte St. Denis in Paris and designed by Carrere and Hastings (the architectural firm that designed the New York Public Library building). The bridge was opened to traffic on December 31, 1909, and was designed and built by Polish bridge engineer Ralph Modjeski with the deflection cables designed by Leon Moisseiff, who later designed the infamous Tacoma Narrows Bridge - which was opened and collapsed in 1940. But don’t worry: this earlier effort of his has withstood the test of time and has been proven structurally secure.

1911 New York Public Library

The NYPL, with its 75 miles of shelves of books, is one of the most important research libraries in the world. It was used by Isaac Bashevis Singer, E.L. Doctorow, Somerset Maugham, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Tom Wolfe, etc. Research for the Xerox copier, the Polaroid camera, and the atomic bomb were all conducted at its desks. The New York Public Library was NOT created by a government statute, but by a philanthropist. New York governor and presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden, John Jacob Astor, and James Lenox left their libraries, along with large sums of money, for the establishment of the Library.

1913 Woolworth Building.  Grand Central Terminal

Woolworth Building The venerable Cathedral of Commerce, otherwise known as the Woolworth Building, became the tallest in the world in 1913. At 60 stories, and almost 800 feet tall, it stood as the tallest building in the world for 17 years. 100 years after its construction, amazingly, it's still one of the twenty tallest buildings in New York City.    Grand Central Terminal The world-famous Grand Central Terminal opened as the world's largest train station on February 1, 1913, replacing an earlier terminal on the site. The Grand Central Terminal was built to house Cornelius Vanderbilt's railroad network, consolidated in the late 19th century as New York Central. It was envisioned as a gateway to the city, which at the time was mostly located to the station's south. Grand Central with its 67 tracks and 44 platforms became the largest train station in the world by the number of tracks and platforms. Every day, more than 750,000 people pass through Grand Central, which is more than the entire population of Alaska, or slightly less than the population of San Francisco.

1916 Zoning Resolution passed.

The New York City 1916 Zoning Resolution was a measure adopted primarily to stop massive buildings from preventing light and air from reaching the streets below. According to the zoning law the higher the building went the skinnier it had to become. The law was usually interpreted as a series of setbacks. Such design was referred to as ‘wedding cake’.

1920 Wall Street Bombing. Start of Prohibition.

At noon on September 16, 1920, a horse drawn buggy loaded with 100 pounds of dynamite exploded across the street from the J.P. Morgan bank headquarters in downtown Manhattan. The explosion blew out windows for blocks around, killed 30 immediately, injured hundreds of others and completely destroyed the interior of the Morgan building. Those responsible were never found, but evidence—in the form of a warning note received at a nearby office building—suggested anarchists. Start of Prohibition. The 1920s were an age of dramatic social and political change. For the first time, more Americans lived in cities than on farms. The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929, and this economic growth swept many Americans into an affluent but unfamiliar “consumer society.” The most familiar symbol of the “Roaring Twenties” is probably the flapper: a young woman with bobbed hair and short skirts, who drank, smoked and said “unladylike” things. During the 1920s, many Americans had extra money to spend, and they spent it on consumer goods such as ready-to-wear clothes and home appliances like electric refrigerators and radios. By the end of the 1920s, there were radios in more than 12 million households. People also went to the movies: historians estimate that, by the end of the decade, three-quarters of the American population visited a movie theater every week. But the most important consumer product of the 1920s was the automobile. The Ford Model T changed cars from extravagant luxury to everyday necessity. As a soaring stock market minted millionaires by the thousands, young Americans in the nation's teeming cities rejected traditional social mores by embracing a modern urban culture of freedom—drinking illegally in speakeasies, dancing provocatively to the Charleston, listening to the sexy rhythms of jazz music. Prohibition became the law of the land in 1920, and started the so-called 'Speakeasy' age.  Prohibition was a period of nearly fourteen years of U.S. history in which the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor was made illegal. It led to the first and only time an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was repealed. Prohibition was very hard to enforce, and instead of curtailing use of alcohol, it let to illegal manufacturing and sale of liquor (known as “bootlegging”). Throughout the decade the smuggling of alcohol across state lines and the informal production of liquor (“moonshine” or “bathtub gin”) in private homes became a norm along with the operation of “speakeasies”. Before the Prohibition there was 16,000 bars in the New York; after Prohibition became law, there was 32,000. By 1925 there were about 100,000 speakeasies in town. Some called 45th street - "The wettest street in America", since one could get any drink in any house. (http://www.history.com/topics/18th-and-21st-amendments) (http://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties)

1923 Harlem Renaissance and the Jazz Age

The 1920s were labeled the Jazz Age but the music was only a part of it: Social rules were being rewritten, and in Manhattan, downtown was going up as white society and dollars poured into Harlem every night. By 1920, New York was home to more blacks than any other northern city, including Chicago. Most of them lived uptown, in a particularly beautiful old neighborhood called Harlem. Nightclubs and dance halls began presenting entertainment that delivered a romanticized (and often quite derogatory) view of black culture: floor shows, revues with skits and musical numbers and music for dancing. Jazz musicians were drawn to Harlem, too. There were plenty of theater and nightclub and dance hall jobs — and Broadway and the record companies were only a subway ride away. Piano wars called "cutting contests" were regularly fought at Harlem rent parties — all-night dances, held in crowded apartments, where the cost of admission helped hold off the landlord. As poet Langston Hughes recalled, "The Saturday night rent parties that I attended were often more amusing than any nightclub... the piano would often be augmented by a guitar, or an odd cornet, or somebody with a pair of drums walking in off the street... And the dancing and singing and impromptu entertaining went on until dawn came in at the windows." Harlem was also known for its booming nightclub scene — so well known, in fact, that it began to draw the attention of wealthy whites, eager to experience Harlem's supposedly "primitive" excitement. "Harlem's night life now surpasses that of Broadway itself," wrote Variety. "From midnight until after dawn it is a seething cauldron of Nubian mirth and hilarity." Nightclub owners made an effort to lure white clientele, and arguably, no club in Harlem was more alluring than the Cotton Club. While the Cotton Club (opened in 1923 by the gangster Owney Madden) was Harlem's most glamorous nightclub, the community's biggest and most beautiful ballroom was the Savoy. It covered a whole city block on Lenox Avenue between 140th and 141st Streets, employed two bands at once so that the music need never stop, and was so popular with dancers that its maple-and-mahogany floor had to be replaced every three years. Just 50 cents on weeknights — 75 cents on Sundays — the Savoy billed itself as "the Home of Happy Feet." The Cotton Club featured such performers as Louis Armstrong; its house band was led by Duke Ellington, and later by Cab Calloway.    Chick Webb was the leader of the best known Savoy house band during the mid-1930s. A teenage Ella Fitzgerald, fresh from a talent show win at the Apollo Theater in 1934, became its vocalist. Harlem was at some point home for such Jazz legends as Count Basie, Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, and many others. ​ (http://www.pbs.org/jazz/places/places_new_york.htm New York: America's Jazz Capitol Primarily excerpted from Jazz: A History of America's Music, with contributions by Loren Schoenberg, Jazz Historian) (PBS.org Savoy Ballroom From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

​1926 James Walker becomes mayor.

Dapper Jimmy Walker presided over New York during the great age of Gatsby and perfectly embodied that moment of indulgence: the public servant who favored short workdays and long afternoons at Yankee Stadium, who left his wife and their Greenwich Village apartment for a chorus girl and a suite at the Ritz-Carlton. A songwriter before getting into politics—anything to avoid the bar exam upon finishing law school—Walker’s biggest hit had been “Will You Love Me in December (As You Do in May)?” Jimmy Walker was known as "The Midnight Mayor" for his love for afterhours entertainment and liquor during Prohibition. While the roaring 20s were still roaring, he easily won his re-election over Fiorello LaGuardia. However, after Stock Market Crash of 1929, when the nation had a collective hangover, Walker, under pressure from then Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, resigned. True to character, Jimmy Walker went on a grand tour of Europe with his mistress, Ziegfeld girl, Betty Compton. Walker stayed in Europe until the danger of criminal prosecution appeared remote. He married Compton, returned to New York and lived till 1946. (http://nymag.com/news/features/scandals/jimmy-walker-2012-4/) (http://nymag.com/ Hizzoner’s Disgrace! Crusading judge wipes smile off Jimmy Walker’s face. By Jonathan Mahler Published Apr 1, 2012)

​1929 Wall Street crash.

1929 Wall Street Crash was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States. The crash plunged the country into the Great Depression which lasted until World War II​

1930, 31 Chrysler Building. Empire State Building.

New York City became known for its daring and impressive architecture, most notably the skyscrapers.  In 1930 two skyscrapers were locked in dead heat competition to be the tallest in the world. Famously 40 Wall claimed its honor for 2 weeks only, when the Chrysler pierced New York sky with its 125 foot Art Deco spire. It became the first in the world to rise higher that 1000 ft., and, yes, it was the tallest in the world for all of 11 months.  In 1931, after only 14 month of construction, the engineering wonder, the first building ever to exceed 100 stories, the Empire State Building was finished.  These days, there are structures that are much higher. However, none has been able to hold its record for as long as Empire State. It stood the tallest in the world for 41 years!

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