1894 -- Brooklyn aggrandizes itself with the annexations of  New Utrecht, Gravesend and Flatbush.  The Flatlands, however, are not annexed until 1896.   Coney Island is by now derogatively nicknamed "Sodom by the Sea," and its political boss            John Y. McKane, convicted of election fraud, is sent off to Sing Sing. 

1895 -- Theodore Roosevelt becomes President of the new Police Board and cleans up the Department.  Stanford White's new Washington Memorial Arch made of marble replaces the old wooden  arch first erected to celebrate the centenary of George Washington's  inauguration. The fabulous era of Coney Island begins with the opening of Sea Lion Park, Coney's first amusement park with entertainments for the whole family featuring water slides and chutes.  In 1895 a trolley-ride fare the whole way to Coney Island cost a mere 5 cents.  Sadly, however,  the corpse of the great architect Calvert Vaux is found in Gravesend Bay on  November  21st   Also in this year, the  battleship Maine was launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  The New York Zoological Society  chartered (it was later renamed the Wildlife Conservation Society).  And the City's first pizzerias open on Spring Street in Little Italy.  In their midst is the Vesuvio bakery which opened in about 1850, and remains at its original site until the present day.. 

1896 -- The American Surety building  at the corner at the corner  of Broadway and Pine Street is completed.  The  21-story stands  312-foot-high.  Also motion pictures are shown for the first time,  using Thomas   Edison's vitascope.  At Koster and Bial's on Broadway theater, the audience cows and starts,  apparently afraid of being soaked, by the image of  waves rolling in at Dover.   Also in 1896, the  Dow Jones Industrial Index is published on a continuous basis, showing a moving average of 12  companies.   In the Bronx, the New York Botanical gardens opens keeping intact indigenous tracts of hemlock  forest and native evergreens.  Finally, the two-wheeler bicycle becomes the rage of  the Gay Nineties.  And the first public golf course opens  in Van Cortlandt Park.

1897 --  In this year also is completed the mausoleum of General Ulysses Grant at 122nd Street and Riverside Drive. Modeled  on the the order of Napoleon's mausoleum and that of Emperor Hadrian, it is the largest in the United States.  Also in 1897, The Jewish Daily Forward, A Yiddish  newspaper,  publishes its first issue.   Founded  by socialists to express their views, under the editorship of Abraham Cahan, the Forward's circulation  increases within three decades  to some 275,000 daily           copies.  And, George Tilyou opens Steeplechase Park in Coney Island at West 17th Street and Surf Avenue, with its famous ride around the Pavilion on mechanical horses attached to iron rails that rise to a level of about 35 feet high.  Designed for the  sake of providing amusements and thrills, Tilyou's sensational complex covers an area of some 15 acres.  It is soon followed by the opening  in 1903 of Frederick Thompson's and Elmer Dundy's  Luna Park at West 10th Street, and by the  opening in 1904 of William H. Reynold's Dreamland at West 5th Street.

1898 -- The five Boroughs of New York City are consolidated into Greater New York.  Also in this William Randolph Hearst's Journal (purchased in 1895) and Joseph Pulitzer's World (purchased  in 1883 from Jay Gould) report on the Spanish-American War, and a circulation war results in the triumph of yellow journalism.  In sports, this year, Charlie Ebbets assumes the presidential helm of the Dodgers and moves the team from East New York into a 10,000-seat stadium built under his direction between 3rd and 4th Avenues and First and Third Streets.  Also in this year George Gershwin, the great American jazz Composer, is born on September 26th, in Brooklyn at 242 Snediker Avenue.

1899 -- Nassau County is formed to include Hempstead, North Hempstead and Oyster Bay.   Also the Park Row Building at 15 Park Row between Ann and Beekman Streets, built by architect R. H. Robertson,  is completed.  The monumental edifice rises 39 stories to a height of 391 feet, making it the tallest in the world (eclipsing the 349-foot World Building), a distinction it holds for almost a decade.  Also in this year, cars were banned from Central Park because it was surmised that they might frighten horses; and the City's first automobile fatality occurs at 74th Street and Central Park West, when Henry H. Bliss is struck by a car as he steps off a streetcar.  Another notable event just before the turn of the century is  the opening of the Bronx Zoo, with William T. Hornaday as the Zoo's first director.                             

1900 -- Along Broadway, thousand of electric lights replace gas, and New York City's central artery, flooded with brightness of the new illumination,  now becomes known as "The Great White Way." Also in this year, a riot took place in Hell's Kitchen on the West Side in which neighbood men, mostly Irish, attacked blacks and invaded their homes, while the police apparently stood by. On November 4th, The first automobile show was held in Madison Square Garden. And, the Internatioanl Ladies' Garment Workers' Uniont (ILGWU) was founded in New York City in 1900. At first consisting mostly of Jewish and Italian immigrant women, it led effective strikes of shirtwaist workers in 1909 and, then, of cloakmakers in 1910. Finally, in this year composer Aaron Copland was Born in Brooklyn on November 14th. The son of Russian jewish immigrants he studied with Rubin Goldmark at 140 West 87th Street from 1917-1921, before going to Paris to continue his studies with Nadia Boulanger. He is now remembered for his Billy the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942) and Appalachian Spring (1944), as well as several other works composed during the autumnal years of a long life (d. North Tarrytown, NY, Dec. 2nd, 1990).

1901 -- The Chamber of Commerce Building at 65 Liberty Street is completed, replete with paired columns, sculptured figures, bull's-eye windows, carved garlands and ornaments. On May 11th, Carnegie Steel is sold to J.P. Morgan and Associates, and Andrew Carnegie immediately bestows upon the City a gift of 5.2 million dollars, mainly for the use of its public libraries with the New York Public Library inheriting the lion's share. It was in this year, too, that Carnegie buil his 5th Avenue Mansion at 91st Street. Also in 1901, John D. Rockefeller founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, which opened its doors on Avenue A and 65th Street in 1906 and, eventually, in 1965 became Rockefeller University. Also remarkable in this year, was the dedication on May 30th of the Hall of Fame of Great Americans on New York University's Heights campus in the Bronx. The Beaux-Arts Colonnade was designed by Stanford White and funded by Helen Gould.

1902 --  Two of five Studebaker Brothers, Clement and John, bring the wagon manufacturing business they developed in Indiana during the Civil War and Reconstruction to New York City, settling in their headquarters at a 10-story factory they had built for operations at Broadway and 48th Street. Thus the Studebakers set the stage for the development of of Automobile Row, a strip along Broadway of some 20 blocks running from about 40th Street into the 60s.  Commercial residents along this strip later in the twentieth century  include General Motors, REO, Cadillac, Packard, Ford, Peerless and Fisk, as well as the Goodrich and U.S. Tire companies.  In 1902, also the Fuller Building, better known as  the "Flatiron" Building  on account of its flat-iron-like shape, is  completed.  Standing on a small triangular plot of land, at the junction of  Fifth Avenue and Broadway on 23rd Street, it rises 20 stories high up to a  height of 300 feet and for a brief time claims the distinction of being the tallest building in the world.  In addition in 1902, the Alonquin Hotel opens on West 44th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, decorated with early American furnishings. During the 1920s and 1930s, the hotel became associated with the New Yorker magazine and hosted the famous Algonquin Round Table group that included Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley among others. They convened in the hotel's Oak Room until the manager, Frank Case, moved them to the Rose Room in order to make them more visible to the public. Notable, as well, in 1902 was the dedication on Memorial day of the 100-foot-tall Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument originally proposed for Grand Army Plaza at 5th Avenue and 59th Street but then placed at 89th Street on Riverside Drive in an esplanade lined with cannons. The monument was first proposed in 1893, by a board of commissioners established by the City to find a means of honoring fallen military and naval heroes. Finally in this year, the short-story writer William Sydney Porter, more familiarly known as O. Henry, leaves Pittsburgh and comes to New York City, settling down at 55 Irving Place and writes 100 stories in a period of about four years.

1903;-- The ew York Highlanders, forerunners of the New York Yankees, play their first game on April 22 in Washington D.C.and lose to the Senators 3-1. The Highlanders were former from an older Baltimore Orioles club, purchased and brought to New York by Frank Farrell and Bill Devery. The Club continued to play under the Highlanders name until 1913, when it was renamed the New York Yankees.  On Memorial Day, Augustus Saint-Gaudens monumental statue of General Sherman at 5th Avenue and 59th Streets is dedicated (the base was designed by Charles McKim.) Also notable in this year, in the New York City Police Department, was the appointment of Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino to lead a secret service squad dedicated to the investigation of bombings and extortions relating to the Sicilian gang known as the Black Hand. After arresting scores of Black Hand members, Petrosino was murdered in Palermo during a a deportation inquiry. In addition, in this year, the The Williamsburg Bridge opens in December, spanning the East River between Delancey Street on the Lower East Side and Marcy Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. And finally, we might mention, that the Polar Bear Club is founded in Coney Island.