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Every December 31, a billion people worldwide watch a lit-up ball descend over Times Square. The tradition started in 1907 after a fireworks ban — and nearly disappeared during WWII.

New York’s hot dog carts cost more than most people expect — some permits sell for over $200,000. Here’s the immigrant story, the street battles, and the reason New Yorkers still love a dirty water dog.

Since 1976, the Union Square Greenmarket has fed New York’s greatest chefs, revived a neglected park, and launched America’s farm-to-table movement. Here’s the story of how it all started.

Every Labor Day, two million people flood Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn for the largest Caribbean festival in the Western Hemisphere — and most New York visitors have no idea it exists.

How cream cheese, Jewish immigrants, and rival delis turned New York cheesecake into America’s most iconic dessert — a story richer than the filling itself.

On a humid August night in 1973, an 18-year-old named Clive Campbell set up two turntables in the rec room of his apartment building in the Bronx. He played the same record on both. Then he did something nobody had done before. What happened next gave the world an entirely new way to make music. …

The Bronx Block Party That Accidentally Invented Hip-Hop — and Changed the World Read More »

More than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954. Here’s what really happened in those first crucial hours — and the story most Americans get wrong.

Little Italy once covered 40 city blocks in Lower Manhattan. Here’s how it shrank to almost nothing — and why it still refuses to disappear.

Beneath City Hall Park lies New York’s most beautiful abandoned subway station, sealed since 1945 — yet every 6 train still passes through it daily.

Beneath City Hall Park lies New York’s most beautiful abandoned subway station, sealed since 1945 — yet every 6 train still passes through it daily.