Ed O’Donnell, the protégé of Kenneth Jackson, a former tour guide of ours, has proved to be quite the wealth of knowledge about the city of New York.  He has now led us on three tours and skillfully crafted discussions about colonial New York and Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park, and New York’s most notable immigrant communities in the Lower East side.  A professor at Holy Cross University, a Jesuit school in Worcester, Massachusetts, but former New York resident, his wisdom about New York City seems notably unmatched.

Ed O'Donnell of Holy Cross University

On our first day with Ed, we witnessed the heart of America’s financial system, a little place called Wall Street.  We saw buildings like the New York Stock Exchange, The Federal Reserve, the Tweed Courthouse, Trump Tower, St. Paul’s Church, The Customs House, and Federal Hall, though rebuilt, the location where George Washington was sworn in as the nation’s first president.  I found  myself imagining it must have been like to be in the crowd the day that he took the oath of the presidency.  It would be interesting to probe student imagination concerning how they think such an event would have looked in the early days of the republic.

New York Stock Exchange

The Wall Street bull. The bull represents a strong market.

Early on in the tour, we also visited the African burial ground.  When thinking of slavery, it is common for most people to immediately think of the south, however it should be noted that slavery was indeed a reality in the north prior to the Civil War.  Up to 20,000 slaves were laid to rest at the burial ground.  Archaeologists have found several artifacts at the site, though it has not been easy, as many have protested the moral fiber of their dig.  The museum at the burial ground emphasized the care that slaves provided their companions as they held their own burials, most of which included the use of coffins.  Such burials must have been secretive as slave codes forbid them from organizing in public.  The museum provided dramatic reenactments of slave burials both on video and display.  Such material will certainly aid in teaching of the overall slave culture either in north or south.

Mock slave burial.

Day two with Ed included a venture through the peripheries of Brooklyn and eventual crossing of architectural genius John Roebling’s Brooklyn Bridge or the “Great Bridge”.  We concluded with a trip through Manhattan’s breathtaking Central Park. 

While crossing the bridge, Ed highlighted some awesome statistics for one of the major architectural achievements in American History.  Four cables consisting of 5,500 wires, which all together were 3,500 miles long.  The wiring alone, if laid flat would exceed the length from coast to coast of the United States.  What a powerful teaching point!  Ed also hinted that when teaching about the Brooklyn Bridge it is imperative to mention that it, for the first time, allowed people to live away from where they worked and really united Brooklyn with Manhattan, two of the country’s major cities, Brooklyn being the third largest up through the 1880s.  The knowledge and pictures that I gained will significantly impact my teaching of the Industrial Revolution and mass transportation in the future.  I hope to gain more to add to it, on this trip, when we reach the Erie Canal.

The Brooklyn Bridge

We next traversed to Central Park.  The lesson here is that while modern conveniences and technology are important, there is also something to be said for the great outdoors.  Our students love ipods and video guides, but do they spend enough time outside?  With emphasis on childhood obesity, teaching of parks like this one could make for a unique thematic unit with a PE teacher.  Central Park it turns out was approved by the New York state legislature in the 1850s and is actually 90% man made.  The idea was to import nature into the crowded city.  As New York’s population swelled, there ultimately became a demand for a place of recreation and rest.  This naturalist idea truly put New York on the map as far as major cities are concerned.  This quiet retreat provided a nice change of pace for the group until my roommate and I were abruptly abandoned at Shakespeare’s theater.  After finding the group we continued the tour.  We went on our own and saw Strawberry Fields and the memorial titled “Imagine” to John Lennon who was assassinated just across the street.  I concluded the evening in style, attending the newly revived West Side Story on Broadway. 

Rowboats at Central Park

For the last day with Ed, we visited several immigrant communities collectively known as the Lower East Side.  This area in New York brings true definition to the word melting pot.  Home to Irish, German, Italian, Jewish, African Americans, and today the Chinese amongst others, its diversity is second to none.  Diversity is great, but there were some drawbacks, like the crime that took place as different immigrant groups competed for jobs in places like Five Points, which at one time was possibly the most dangerous neighborhood in the United States.  Luckily, reformers, like Governor Al Smith who grew up in a tenement on the Lower East Side, fought for improved social conditions for the immigrant people.  We traveled through Chinatown, followed the Bowery, examined the Jewish synagogue and other churches, and ended the day at the Tenement Museum. For dinner, Jed and I went to Lombardi’s for pizza.  They claim to be the oldest pizzeria in the United States.

Chinatown

West Side Story
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