The series of residential structures lining Flushing Ave. in Brooklyn are historic treasures, but they are a little the worse for wear and some legislators can't wait to tear them down. Officers' Row, or Admirals' Row, is a feature at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that has admittedly fallen into sad disrepair, but nonetheless has a rich history linking New York harbor to the naval industry that was a cornerstone of building the United States as......

Historical ecologists and research cartographers are using historical pre-Revolution military maps produced by the British to create a 21st Century digital rendering of the topography of Manhattan in the 17th Century, before the arrival of European colonists. The New Yorker has a slideshow of a number of images that are attempts to show Manhattan as it was occupied solely by Lenape Indians. The basis for the topographical model was drawn from this 1782 map*......

Totally weird: Authorities have found a "make-shift" submarine with three men in it near the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. WABC 7 reports that the men may have been trying to "set sail off Brooklyn." Right now, police do not believe there was anything terror-related, as a search did not reveal any suspicious materials. There were oxygen tanks, though. No charges have been filed yet. It seems like one issue is that the sub may have......

The New York Public Library is closed today––it is a national holiday––but New Yorkers should be proud to hear that the main branch on 42nd St. and 5th Ave. has been entrusted with one of two surviving copies of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson himself. The document is a handwritten duplicate of the document signed in Philadelphia 231 years ago, asserting the original thirteen colonies' indepedendence from England and starting the American......

Despite having been defeated in a City Council vote, where his chief of staff heckled Council Speaker Christine Quinn and threatened a black councilman with assassination, Councilman Charles Barron renamed a street in Brooklyn "Sonny Abubadika Carson Avenue" anyway, declaring that the renaming "is official whether they [presumably the city] take that sign down or not." Sonny Carson's name was struck from a list of people who would get honorary street signs earlier this spring.......

The state legislature in Albany is prepared to issue a formal apology for the historic practice of slavery and will be the first northern state in the Union to do so. Several states on the Confederate side of the Civil War have already issued similar apologies. Albany lawmakers are pushing to pass the resolution in time for "Juneteenth", which is an unofficial holiday celebrating the June 19th arrival of federal troops in Texas to......

City schoolkids are woeful underperformers when it comes to taking a statewide history exam. Just over a quarter proved capable of passing an 8th grade exam that covered the U.S. Constitution, major wars the U.S. has fought in, and native cultures. The passing average for the rest of the state was 55%, which is hardly impressive, but twice as good as city kids' scores. We sympathize with the 2006 test takers, because we tried......

A piece of Brooklyn property with a varied and interesting history is going to be turned into mixed-income housing by the city and developers. It is the former site of the Navy Brig in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Located between Flushing and Park Aves. and bounded by Clermont and Vanderbilt Aves., the one-time naval prison is across the street from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Brig was built in the early 1940s and served as a......

As the architect Rafael Viñoly sees it, the Freedom Tower is utterly superfluous. This was the concluding thought of his public presentation on January 18, this year's first Third Thursday lecture sponsored by the Downtown Alliance. Rounding out his half-stoic, half-bitter account of the past five years' WTC design proceedings, he plugged the new book, Think New York: A Ground Zero Diary, which chronicles these affairs from the point of view of the novel......