1904 -- The IRT, operated by August Belmont,  runs its first train up the West Side from City Hall to 145th Street on October 27th.   It is destined to be the first-ever underground system with both express and local service.  The initial ride takes about 15-20  minutes and costs 5 cents. Within a  the new system carries  some 150,000 people northward and convinces speculators that the middle class will soon move migrate to upper Manhattan.  But the anticipated migration does not occur.  Hence Blacks avail themselves of available, new and attractive  housing, mostly row houses, and stimulating the development of the Harlem.  Also in this year, the New York Times Building  leaves its original site at  41 Park Row between  Beekman and Spruce Streets and moves into new quarters on 43rd Street near Broadway, and to commemorate this new site as well as the Times' other new site on Broadway and 7th Avenue at 42nd Street the publisher of  the newspaper, Otis Ochs, stages a spectacular New Year's Eve celebration with fireworks,  thereby establishing  a tradition that has continued  into the 21st century. (The first illuminated ball,  however, is   not dropped from the Times Tower until 1907.)   It was mainly due to the moving of the New York Times to this location, and that thereby the center of the City had ostensibly shifted, that in April 1804, the City ceases calling the Broadway and 42nd Street  intersection Long Acre Square and begins calling it Times Square.    In addition in 1904, the Astor Hotel opens  in Times Square and George M. Cohan's song, "Give My Regards to Broadway," is  aired on The Great White Way.  It must be remarked, too, even sadly,  that in 1904 "Typhoid Mary," working as a cook and kitchen helper, unbeknown to anyone, even herself, spreads some 1,300 cases of contagious typhoid.

1905 -- The  City acquires the State Island Ferry from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and gives it  five new boats with the names of the City's boroughs.  The nickel ferry ride continues until 1974, making the Ferry not only reasonably available to State Island commuters, but also to generations of tourists desiring to enjoy and unparalleled view of the highlights in New         York Harbor.  Also in 1905, the National League champion New York Giants baseball team  carries off the pennant for the second year in a row, defeating  the Philadelphia Athletics.  The Giants club was formed way back in 1883 as the New York Gothams, and during financial difficulties incurred in the 1890s moved uptown to the Polo Grounds at Coogan's Bluff on 155th Street, where it abided over the long haul of 67 years.

1906 -- Colonel John Jacob Astor's recently acquired Knickerbocker Hotel opens in October at Broadway and  42nd Street.  The home of both Italian tenor, Enrico Caruso, and America songwriter and vaudevillian, George M. Cohan, the hotel sports such a fashionable bar that in its heyday it becomes known as "42nd Street Country Club."   Another patent sign of             sumptuousness  is the Hotel's gold service for 60.  Also opening in October 1906 is the 69th Regiment Armory  68 Lexington Avenue.

1907 -- The new U.S. Custom House designed in the beaux arts-style by Cass Gilbert and situated on the site of old Fort Amsterdam, facing Bowling Greene,  is dedicated.  Elaborate sculptures  are executed to adorn the monumental building, by Daniel Chester French and Karl Bitter.   Especially remarkable are the French sculptures representing Asia, America, Europe and Africa,  and statues on the 6th-story cornice representing trade with various cities and countries such as Venice and Spain.  The overwhelming importance of the Custom House is probably not as apparent today as it once was, because before the inception of the federal income tax in 1916 the United States derived most of its tax income from customs duties imposed on imports and exports.  Also in 1907, the era of the taxi arrives.  The old horse-drawn omnibuses, and some hansoms powered by huge batteries, are replaced by gasoline-driven buses meters.  Soon drivers strike for a union and improved wages.   Also in this year, Florenz Ziegfeld brings his Follies and long-legged women to the stage of  the New Amsterdam Theater on 42nd Street; and  Scott Joplin moves to New York City, where he publishes numerous works, including his opera Treemonisha.

1908 -- The Singer Building, an ornate skyscraper standing 612 stories tall is completed at 149 Broadway and Liberty Street. Designed by Ernest Flagg to meet new restrictive zoning laws relative to area covered and frontage along the street, it helps signal a new era of setbacks and terrace and, nevertheless, still surpasses previous records, making it for 18 months the world's tallest building. It was demolished in 1967. Also in the year 1908, President Roosevelt starts the first electric-powered train of the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Company, now the PATH line that connects New York with New Jersey, by pushing a button a the White House. The original IRT system to the Bronx is also completed in this year. In addition, The Ambrose Lightship, which is now one of the main vessel displayed at the Reconstructed South Street Seaport, appears in New York Harbor. And City College moves from its original building at 23rd Street, now the home of Baruch College for Business, into new quarters at 145th Street and Convent Avenue. Remarkable as well in this year is the opening of the Belnord Apartment Building, occupying an entire block bounded by Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue and 86th and 87th Streets. Designed as a Renaissance palazzo , it rose 12 stories high and contains 175 apartment suites, configured in suites of eight to fourteen rooms, and features an interior courtyard with carrage vaults that open on the south side of 86th Street. And finally, a couple of New Yorkers write a song they call -- "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

1909 -- The Queensboro Bridge opens, spanning the East River between 59th Street in Manhattan and Long Island City in Queens via a link on Roosevelt Island. Designed by Gustav Lindenthal and Henry Hornbostel to function with dual cantilivers, the Queensboro became the first major bridge in New York City to depart from the suspension principle and the 3rd of eight across the East River. Also in this year the Metropolitan Life Tower opens at Madison Square, rising to a height of 700 feet andd thereby surpassing the record established by the Singer Building as the world's tallest building just one year before. Also notable in 1909 is the opening of the Grand Concourse in the Bronx November 24th, as wide as its name suggests, and covering a 4.5 mile stretch stretch uptown from 138th Street and Mosholu Parkway. In 1909 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) if formed by a merger of W.E.B. Du Bois' Niagara movement with a group of prominent white liberals, liberals Jane Addams and John Dewey, who are angered by a race riot in Springfield, Illinois. Discussions for the new organization began at the National Negro Conference in New York, held on the centenary of the birth of President Abraham Lincoln. Once established The NAACP's headquarters remained in New York City until 1986.  In additions, the African-American newspaper, the Amsterdam News, is founded in 1909.  This year was also significant  for the  New York "Tawk" lexicon, with the coining of such terms as "melting pot," by Israel Zangwill in a play by the same name, and "Tin Pan Alley," in a reference by Monroe Rosenfeld to to the area on 28th Street between 5th Avenue and Broadway as inhabited by a cluster of composers, lyricists and publishers and others involved in the music business. Later on the meaning of the "Tin Pan Alley" broadened, of course, to include 42nd Steet, 45thStreet, and so on, wherever in fact a concentration of composers and songwriters gathers and dwells.

1910 -- Mayor William A. Gaynor is shot on August 9th by a discharged dockworker while boarding an ocean liner destined for Europe. Just prior, Gay had dismissed some 400 no-shows from the City's payroll. After the shooting, Gaynor continues in office, but never fully regains his health and dies in 1913. Another important even in this was the strike by some 60,000 garment workers on July 7th and endured until September 2nd. The strike was finally terminated when ILGWU and manufacturers| accepted a "Protcol of Peace" agreement respecting wages and working conditions. Finally in 1910, as excavation continues for Pennsylvania Station, tracks are laid some 20-feet under a concourse for the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). The Progress of this project was hastened by earlier legislation banning steam locomotion on passenger trains, and Penn station was completed in 1911, facilitating the mass movement of commuters along the East Coast and to Long Island. McKim, Mead and White design a monumental gateway to Penn Station, and model the interior of the station complex after the Baths of Caracalla in Rome which even in ancient times could accommodate about 1600 bathers.  The tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire kills hundreds of workers, mostly young Jewish and Italian women, sparking labor NYC labor reform..

1911 -- A fire erupts on March 25th in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company  on the corner of Washington Place and Greene, in what is now New York University's Main Building.  About 150 young Jewish and Italian workingwomen  are either consumed in the smoke and flames or jump out of the building, some from the upper stories.  The owners who had locked the exits, are never prosecuted.  But the New York State legislature forms and Investigating committee, and copious legislation is brought forth in the next few years to prevent the recurrence of such  an appalling accident.  Also in this year, the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street is dedicated on May 23 by U.S. President William Howard Taft.  Carrere & Hastings designed the building in the then-popular Beaux-Arts style.  The outside of the building features Romanesque Columns, a great tiered staircase, and elaborate sculptures of  truth and beauty, philosophy, romance, religion, poetry, drama and history.  Perhaps what attracts the public's attention most, however,  are the two great stone lions created by  E.C. Potter that preside over the entrance.  On  May 11th of  1911, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden opens  to the Brooklyn Museum along Washington and Flatbush Avenues on a plot that has previously been used as an ash dump.  Originally part of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, the Brooklyn Garden emphasized research in plant physiology and genetics, and has always concerned itself with the education
of the public. 

1912 -- On April 14-15th, the British luxury linter, the Titanic,  carrying some 2,200 passengers on her maiden voyage from Southhampton to New York strikes an iceberg  in waters about 400 miles south of Newfoundland and east of New York.  The White Star liner, at that time the largest and most sumptuous vessel afloat, then sinks about  2.5 hours later shortly before midnight, dragging down with her  into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean  some 1500 people, including  New York millionaires Colonel John Jacob Astor, Isidor and and Ida Straus and Benjamin Guggenheim.  It has been alleged that  The Californian which was less than 20 miles away all night, could have come to assist the distressed vessel, but apparently wireless signals were not heard because the radio operator was off duty.  It was, instead, the Carpathia, a Cunard liner that arrived about an hour and half after the tragic accident occurred and rescued survivors.  Also important in this year, was the desegregation of NewYork City theaters.   In addition, in 1912, the City enjoyed the advent  of  "Alexander's Ragtime Band," which
makes a racket in Tin Pan Alley and  builds its reputation with the music of American songwriter Israel Baline, better known as Irving Berlin..  And, the Jewish Daily Forward Building, designed by George Boehm, opens at 175 Broadway featuring reliefs of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. (The Forward moved again in 1974 to 49 East 33rd Street.)