It Happened Here
While New York’s Lower Manhattan is best known as a global financial center, it has been America’s town square since the founding of the city as New Amsterdam in 1624. Virtually every aspect of global, local, national, and local significance can be traced to this downtown stage in some manner. Some aspects have been long forgotten, some have been transformative to our culture, and many have fallen in between. It Happened Here captures the multiple and overlapping stories that have been woven throughout the 400-year life of New York. It embraces America’s history along with the museums, monuments, and memorials that dot its streetscape. It highlights the concerns, events, passions, and places that the people who lived, fought, worked, and visited here found important at their moment in time.
It Happened Here seeks to excavate its many historical layers: from its inception as the precolonial Lenapehoking territory (once inhabited by the Munsee Lenape and Wappinger tribes), to the creation of New Amsterdam by the Dutch, to the establishment of the first free African settlement in North America, to the establishment of British control, to the gateway for immigration, to being the site of the American Revolution, to its present-day significance as the nation’s cultural and financial nerve-center.
What better way to commemorate New York City’s 400th anniversary and America’s 250th than to combine them into one special celebration: It Happened Here.
It Happened Here officially began on July 3, 2025, with a naturalization of 10 New Americans at America’s First Capitol: Federal Hall National Memorial. It was followed by a special July 4th weekend with 400 years into 5 days with each day being devoted to a century of the city’s life and history. There will be many more programs and events over the next year, including tours and additional content on cultureNOW’s digital “museum without walls” app.
Museum at Eldridge Street
Museum at Eldridge Street
Sunday, June 23, 2024
1:00 PM 3:30 PM
The Eldridge Street Synagogue was the First synagogue in America purpose-built by immigrants from Eastern Europe. By 1887 when it was constructed, the Lower East Side was in the process of becoming the most densely populated neighborhood on in the world. The building was dedicated a National Historic Landmark in 1987 which inaugurated a decades long preservation project. It was reopened in 2007 Please join cultureNOW, the Lower Manhattan Historical Association, the Federal Hall Conservancy & The Museum at Eldridge Street for an afternoon symposium highlighting the cultural richness of this amazing synagogue.
Event Program
St Paul’s Chapel : Places Over Time
St Paul’s Chapel : Places Over Time
Thursday, March 7, 2024
2:30 PM 4:30 PM
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
Event Program
Lunch & Learn: The Birth of New York City's Municipal Government
Lunch & Learn: The Birth of New York City's Municipal Government
Friday, February 2, 2024
1:00 PM 2:00 PM
An online program of presentations on Dutch colonial records to launch the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of the Dutch in New York.
On February 2, 1653 the States General in the Hague and the Dutch West India Company in Amsterdam issued a charter officially establishing a government structure like those existing in the Netherlands.
Register for the program here
Event Program
8th Annual Independence Day Celebration
8th Annual Independence Day Celebration
Tuesday, July 4, 2023
10:30 AM 12:00 PM
The celebration of Independence Day has been a long standing tradition in Lower Manhattan from the very first days of the Revolution, and especially following the British military's evacuation in 1783. As the celebration of this most important of American patriotic holidays gravitated uptown to other neighborhoods this and other Lower Manhattan historical traditions gradually faded into relative obscurity and finally ceased to be active by the mid-1970s. Understanding only too well how Lower Manhattan holds a place second to none among the cities and States leading the revolutionary cause for independence and appreciating the wealth of historical monuments and American patriot gravesites concentrated in what is often called the "tip of Manhattan" several of the oldest and most respected historical and military organizations with deep ties to the neighborhood formed the Lower Manhattan Historical Association in 2014 for the purpose of reviving the patriotic traditions so closely associated with our beloved city, offer the multiplicity of our communities as well as our many visitors the opportunity to participate and enhance the sentiments of coexisting plurality and unity that define the ideals of great nation.
For its Eighth Parade, festivities will begin with a 10:00 Flag Raising Ceremony led by the Veteran Corps of Artillery of the State of New York and their Annual Salute to the Nation, marchers will assemble at 10:45am for the parade which will end at South Street Seaport Pier 16. In the afternoon, Fraunces Tavern Museum will have an open house from 2:00-5:00pm. There is also the first It Happened Here program at 2:00pm.
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