Charlie Chaplin promoting Liberty Bonds at a pep rally on Wall Street, April 1918,Courtesy of the National Archives

“Catchphrases like “urban renewal” have a nice ring to them, but none measure up to the tectonic, often brutal metamorphoses that have remade Lower Manhattan over the last century. Downtown’s defining cataclysmic event is undeniably 9/11. Yet we often forget that the original World Trade Center grew out of the wholesale demolition of an entire neighborhood, home to more than 300 electronics businesses employing some 30,000 workers. We forget that the first “worst terrorist attack in American history”—the Wall Street bombing of 1920—claimed 38 lives and triggered a tsunami of anti-immigrant sentiment that swept Warren G. Harding into the White House. We forget that Washington Street was once home to the biggest Arab-American community in the country, known as Little Syria, eventually displaced by the transportation appetite of a burgeoning suburbia.

A Century Downtown raises these and other pivotal events—some mere footnotes to the city’s official history—into sharp relief. It’s a remarkable visual journey guided by a fascinating historical narrative that sheds new light on the evolution of Lower Manhattan over the past hundred years.”

Cover for A Century Downtown

Spread from A Century Downtown

Spread from A Century Downtown

A group of “newsies,” as the newspaper delivery boys were known, February 12, 1908, Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Matt Kapp is an award-winning filmmaker and writer based in Brooklyn. Most recently he wrote and co-produced the critically acclaimed documentary 16 Acres, which told the inside story of the struggle to rebuild the World Trade Center in the decade after 9/11. Among his other producing credits are Valentino: The Last Emperor and The Education of Gore Vidal. Aside from his film and television work, he was a reporter-researcher and Web contributor for Vanity Fair for more than 15 years and has written frequently for Downtown magazine. He is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and a native of Burlington, Vermont.

Chris Mueller is an award-winning creative director and designer based in New York. His work for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and other brands has been recognized by the Society of Publication Designers, ASME, Folio, and the Webby Awards. He studied print and digital design at the Cooper Union, New York University, and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He divides his time between Westchester County and the Western Catskills with his wife, Mary, and their two sons, Oscar and Milo.

Carnage in the aftermath of the Wall Street Bombing, September 16, 1920, Courtesy of Getty Images

Traders bidding at the New York Curb Market, 1925,Courtesy of Getty Images

Men gathered along Cortlandt Street’s Radio Row, circa 1940, Courtesy of Municipal Archives

A woman tossing ticker tape over a balcony during the celebration of Germany’s surrender, May 7, 1945, Courtesy of Getty Images

Senator John F. Kennedy and wife, Jacqueline, October 19, 1960, less than a month before he won the presidency,Courtesy of Getty Images

Shop owners protesting the proposed demolition of Radio Row, July 13, 1962, Courtesy of Getty/Bettmann Images

Architect Minoru Yamasaki and Governor Nelson Rockefeller view a model of the World Trade Center, January 16, 1964, Courtesy of Getty Images

Demolition of Radio Row, 1967, Courtesy ofMagnum/Danny Lyon

Daredevil Philippe Petit walking a wire between the Twin Towers, August 7, 1974, Courtesy of Polaris

Ground Zero, September 11, 2001, Courtesy of Polaris

One of site master planner Daniel Libeskind’s early sketches, 2002, Studio Libeskind

Workers on the glass TK roof of the Oculus, 2015, Courtesy of Joe Woolhead

The new World Trade Center and 9/11 Memorial, May 2018, Courtesy of Joel Woolhead

3 and 4 World Trade Center above the Oculus, July 6, 2018, Courtesy of Joe Woolhead