NYC Revolutionary Trail Launch

Uncovering the NYC Revolutionary Trail

All Images Courtesy of the Gotham Center for New York City History

Join Untapped New York’s Chief Experience Officer Justin Rivers at the New York City Fire Museum as he interviews Peter-Christian Aigner and Ted Knudsen, creators of the New York City Revolutionary Trail.

  • Explore the exhibits on display at the New York Fire Museum, including “The Colonial FDNY & the American Revolution”
  • Hear why New York — not Boston or Philadelphia — was the “city at the heart of the Revolution”
  • Learn why shifting this geographic lens means telling a radically different, far more diverse and complicated story of this “first civil war”
  • Discover some of the least known historic sites in New York, like Golden Hill where “the first blood of the Revolution” was shed (today, an alley used for garbage) and Wallabout Bay, where the skulls of America’s first POWs (11-18,000) lay on the beach for many years like “pumpkins in autumn”
  • Meet some of the largely forgotten characters who defined this period, “King” Sears, the radical head of New York’s extremely influential Sons of Liberty;” Joseph Brant, Daniel Ninham, and Joseph Louis Cook, perhaps the most famous Indigenous leaders in the colonies; Boston King, Rev. Peter Williams Sr., and the other Black Founders who established some of the first abolitionists groups in the US; Margaret Corbin, Elizabeth Burgin, and the other “lady rebels” of the war and occupation

About the event:

Join the Gotham Center for New York City History for the launch of NYC Revolutionary Trail. This multimedia walking tour, created by the Gotham Center, explores New York City’s experience with the American Revolution from 1763 to 1789. The 90-minute walk through lower Manhattan includes 75 minutes of audio narration, with site information and character profiles at each location, plus 40 minutes of video and free access to a far larger store of material online — nearly 50,000 words of text with imagery and lesson plans for grades 6-14.

At this launch event, Justin Rivers of Untapped New York will interview the creators, Peter-Christian Aigner and Ted Knudsen, about the project and its next phase, development into an interactive, immersive app. 

About the Speakers

Peter-Christian Aigner is an historian and director of the Gotham Center for New York City History at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. 

Ted Knudsen is a PhD Candidate in History at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and co-founder of NYC Revolutionary Trail.

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