In tonight's lecture, Mike Wallace covered 19 years of NYC history in 29 minutes. Ordinarily it takes him 1,200 pages.
To me, the most interesting tidbit came up in the Q&A. Apparently, NYC itself coalesced in the era of merger mania (around the same time that U.S. Steel and other big ol' monopoly companies were formed). It seems that Brooklyn was on the fence about joining NYC - but its hand was forced by water shortages and the lack of a tax base sufficient to create the basic infrastructure it needed. This reminds me of Tank Girl.
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