Richard Thompson

Montclair, N.J.

The backyard clothes line clothespin

Health, hygene & education.

dan k

chelsea

see below:

1.Brooklyn bridge
2.Yellow taxi
3.Graffiti
4.Steam pipe exhaust tube on the street
5.Subway car
6.Flatiron bldg.
7.Wall st bull
8.Grand central clock (or ceiling)
9.The oyster (tied to the origins of our wealth)
10.the Cyclone (don’t underestimate the importance and influence Coney Island had on our country)

richard burten

Oradell, New Jersey

The Flushing Remonstrance

This is the foundation of both New York's and the US Constitution

andrew bain

manhattan

A slave shackle.

Without it the story would be incomplete.
There is this illusion that slavery was
only a southern phenomena, whereas
unpaid labor built New York from day one.

Jill

East Side/NYC

The oyster!

It was the food of the native Indians, and later both the poor and the rich harvested from our rivers in abundance. We're still finding the shells when we excavate. We're literally built on the oyster.

Mary

Bronx

Any "Ray's Original Pizza" sign

It shows the "I'm first/I'm best" spirit of New York--exasperating, humorous, infectious

Rachel

Brooklyn

The window catwalks in grand central terminal

Just one of the many spectacular features of GCT. The zodiac ceiling and the whispering hall are also special.

Dan Higgins

Westchester

A Spaldeen (others have done this already)

By the way - if you called it a "Spalding", you didn't live in the part of the Bronx I did! (Wakefield)

Every child in NYC played with one (before video games)

You will find them EVERYWHERE in the city - on rooftops, in sewers, on El tracks, on fire escapes.

Off the point / Stickball / Punchball / Boxball / Hit the stick all required a Spaldeen.

You would stand in the 5&10 holding one ball in each hand head-high. Drop them both, then take the higher-bouncer. Then take another out of the box, and repeat until you had the highest bouncer in the box.

And you had a straightened coat hanger with a loop on the end to fish them out of the storm drains.

Joby Jacob

Hollis Hills, NY

The Flushing Remonstrance

The Flushing Remonstrance was the letter the people of Flushing sent to Governor Stuyvesent asking that he leave the Quakers alone. As far as they were concerned if the Quakers didn't bother anyone they could not in good conscience persecute them. It influenced the First Amendment and presages the unique New York attitude about religion.

Jill

Upper West

The yellow taxi...

...from the checker to the hybrid. They're every where (and many natives never learn how to drive!). You know the movie scene is a New York street if the majority of the cars are yellow.

Matthew Yanchuk

Brooklyn

NYC subway map

It is read by millions from New Yorkers to visitors and you get o know the lay out of the city in one page.

Elizabeth S. Titus

Upper West Side/CPW

NPR podcast of show about Walt Whitman, his life in NYC at a pivotal time in history, his most famous poem, Song of Myself

Song of Myself

XXIV

by Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them,
No more modest than immodest.

Elizabeth S. Titus

upper West Side/CPW

Vintage postcard of Chelsea Piers showing Lusitania

Transatlantic travel began in NYC, and the Lusitania sailed from Chelsea Piers on the doomed voyage that led the US into WW1.

Rich Koch

UCNJ

Any manhole cover

Why? Because it was the infrastructure of New York - the sewers, the piped in water, and later gas, electricity and communications - that allowed New York to expand north from the Battery, to become the battery the country's explosive growth. And it was the ability to put it all under our feet that allowed our city to become an architectural and by extension cultural powerhouse.

Elizabeth S. Titus

upper West Side/CPW

Section of plank and rail from the High Line

The best of the best of NYC! Who doesn't love the High Line? It has layers of the city's history, plus, it shows what anyone with the gumption can do to make things happen in the city!

"The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan's largest industrial district. No trains have run on the High Line since 1980. Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, formed in 1999 when the historic structure was under threat of demolition."

Elizabeth S. Titus

Upper West Side/CPW

The Unisphere

The Unisphere sits in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens. It is a famous sight and is visible to drivers on the LIE, the Grand Central, and Van Wyck, as well as to airline passengers arriving and departing from LaGuardia and JFK.

Laura Benin

Queens

The Pigeon

During my childhood in NYC, pigeons greeted me every day as I walked home from school. Their very abundance on the streets made me think that they were a special city bird. Of course, my mother advised me to stay away from them because they were "dirty," thus making me fearful of all birds and all animals in general.

JESSA KRICK

Tarrytown, New York

The object I am nominating is an edition of Washington Irving's Diedrick Knickerbocker's History of New-York (1809).

This book was Irving's first great literary success, launching the author's career as the noted American author of his day. In addition, thanks to this book, "Knickerbocker" has become synonymous with New Yorker. Beer, short pants, even bread shared this name over the years. Today it lives in the name of our basketball team, the New York Knicks!

Peter

New Jersey

Steel Cable

Invisible to many and found in every building with an elevator... in every major bridge.
Without it the city couldn't move... or have been built to such size... or extend its influence into its environs.

Almost every city resident or worker uses it daily without touching it!

Christina

Allendale, NJ

The "M" Metropolitan tab

What would NYC be without it's museums.