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8 Episodes 1999 - 2003
Episode 1
Sun, Nov 14, 1999 120 mins
"The Country and the City: 1609-1825" (Part 1 of seven). New York, notes narrator David Ogden Stiers, "was a business proposition from the very start," when Henry Hudson, exploring for the Dutch East India Company, sailed into its harbor. Part 1 also focuses on New Yorker Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary; and Gov. DeWitt Clinton, who built the Erie Canal. "All America," says Stiers, "now met in New York."
Episode 2
Mon, Nov 15, 1999 120 mins
"Order and Disorder: 1825-1865" (Part 2 of seven) recalls a period of tremendous growth (New York was "one gigantic construction zone," says writer John Steele Gordon) and ferment. Most of the new arrivals were Irish immigrants (100,000 by 1842---and that was before the potato famine), and the subsequent overcrowding led to the construction of Central Park (1857-58). But that didn't quell the ferment, which exploded in 1863 with the racially charged draft riots. "It was the largest incident of civil disorder in U.S. history," notes historian Mike Wallace. "It was the devil's own work," wrote Walt Whitman.
Episode 3
Tue, Nov 16, 1999 120 mins
"Sunshine and Shadow: 1865-1898" (Part 3 of seven). During the Gilded Age, New York "was home to the greatest concentration of wealth in human history," says narrator David Ogden Stiers. And, he adds, "the greatest concentration of poverty." This episode surveys that dichotomy, from Fifth Avenue mansions to slums documented by Jacob Riis in "How the Other Half Lives." Also recalled: the fall of William H. "Boss" Tweed ("he took a fall for the system," claims Pete Hamill); the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge ("the beginning of 'heroic New York'," says historian David McCullough); and the 1898 consolidation, which united Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx into "Greater New York."
Episode 4
Wed, Nov 17, 1999 120 mins
"The Power and the People: 1898-1914" (Part 4 of seven) recalls the era of mass immigration. "The entire world would arrive on the city's doorstep," says narrator David Ogden Stiers (1.2-million in 1907 alone). "There was a message," says writer Pete Hamill. "Come here, everything is possible." The program also follows the political career of "Happy Warrior" Al Smith; and charts the construction of the subways and the rise of skyscrapers in the clogged city. "Confined on all sides," wrote Lincoln Steffans, "the only way out is up."
Episode 5
Thu, Nov 18, 1999 120 mins
"Cosmopolis: 1914-1931" (Part 5 of seven) recalls the WWI years and the "Roaring '20s" in the city that F. Scott Fitzgerald called "the land of ambition and success." Of course, an egg was laid on Wall Street in 1929, but before that happened the city gave rise, narrator David Ogden Stiers says, "to a new culture, a mass culture" that was broadcast live on radio networks headquartered in New York. And rising in the city was the Empire State Building. But when it was completed at the time of the Depression, it, too, was a commercial failure.
Episode 6
Mon, Oct 1, 2001 120 mins
Filmmaker Ric Burns polishes off his 14 and one-half hour history of the Big Apple with two concluding episodes that take New York City through the 20th century. The first: "City of Tomorrow (1929-45)" focuses on Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who used his close ties to FDR to make the city "a gigantic laboratory of civic reconstruction"; and master builder Robert Moses, who "adapted a 19th century city to 20th century circumstances," says historian Kenneth Jackson. The biggest one: the car. Says narrator David Ogden Stiers: "It challenged all previous assumptions about urban life."
Episode 7
Mon, Oct 8, 2001 150 mins
Conclusion: "The City and the World" begins in 1945, with New York "at the pinnacle," says historian David McCullough. By 1975 it was: "Ford to City: Drop Dead," as a Daily News headline put it. The program charts the city's decline as it follows what narrator David Ogden Stiers calls "a maelstrom of destruction in the name of urban renewal." Part and parcel of it were the highways Robert Moses built, many through vibrant neighborhoods. The city rebounded in the '80s.
Episode 8
Tue, Sep 9, 2003 120 mins
Filmmaker Ric Burns' poignant 2003 chronicle of the World Trade Center's rise and fall recounts the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001 wrenchingly, but it's mostly about the Center's rise. This isn't a pretty story either; it's one of economic, political, architectural and engineering labyrinths that led to a critical and commercial flop. It did overcome that shaky start but, says historian Kenneth Jackson: "It's more important to history now that it's gone." David Ogden Stiers narrates.