Gracie Mansion<\/a>, which shipowner Archibald Gracie built in 1799, is getting on. Even our former Gov. Eliot Spitzer now possibly maybe could be peels off his long black socks during sex.<\/p>\nSo how did the mightiest city on Earth begin?<\/p>\n
Since I was there at the start, I know. 1664 to honor the Duke of York it became the province of New York. We do not confuse this with England\u2019s bad boy the current Duke of York who just got bumped and now isn\u2019t. So forget him.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re always ready to trade up<\/p>\n
Our old beginning New York was unclean disorderly \u2014 unlike today\u2019s modern unclean disorderly New York. But the Dutch trappers were aging, they no longer wanted their beaver pelt cash stashed inside wooden shoes. They needed stuff unloaded. Money. Guilders. So to navigate this new land came streets. Straight lines. Forget Broadway, which is as straight as a few of its commissioners.<\/p>\n
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Of course they didn\u2019t think of traffic, bicycles, deliveries, ambulances, visiting presidents, double-parked cars, cranes. Then there\u2019s The Bronx, Brooklyn, parking around Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden, Queens, Times Square, Fifth Avenue, Lexington Avenue, uptown, downtown, crosstown, GW Bridge, Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, Freedom Tower, Brooklyn Bridge. Plus skyscrapers, Staten Island, Ellis Island, street food, Michelin-starred restaurants, best bagels, best steaks, best cheesecake and \u2014 if you\u2019re lucky \u2014 a recorded speech by Mrs. Crapdammy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Started here<\/p>\n
Wait. How about AT&T, which got itself together here. Or our famous library lions. Or Wall Street. How about Knickerbocker beer, the Ruppert Brewery, opened 1867. Manhattan? Smallest chunk of this state yet it controls world neighborhoods. Don\u2019t like it? Then move to Kansas, which nobody will notice and whothehell cares. Fashion? We are not talking downtown Arkansas. Little Italy? Please, we got more people than Sicily.<\/p>\n
No city limits<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, note that the first apartment got itself built 1869. Also that year brought a rocking chair which you can get in but not get out. Even if you need to tenderize your Cream of Wheat, you know that Hunter College opened in NYC in 1870. Also, that\u2019s about when we even got oyster bars.<\/p>\n
New York University? Trust me, it did not begin in Kentucky. Metropolitan Museum of Art 1870. Lincoln\u2019s first visit here \u2014 1857. The subway system? Oh, please, forget about it.<\/p>\n
So, happy birthday, America. And where will the big celebrations be?<\/p>\n
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s national party time Happy birthday, America. July Fourth, we are 250 years old. And congratulations to Mrs.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[33453,9,24,55,54,56,299],"class_list":{"0":"post-204263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-america-250","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-opinion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}