New York City will be at the center of celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the United States, thanks to the largest-ever flotilla of tall ships to sail into New York Harbor — a reminder of the city’s storied maritime history. It will be like ghosts of the past returning from a long voyage.
But this is just the latest in a long line of patriotic parties that the city has hosted since the early 19th century, when citizens gathered in a former potter’s field (later renamed Washington Square) to mark the 50th anniversary of the nation’s birth.
The 100th birthday of the United States gifted New York the arm of the Statue of Liberty (a decade before she was fully assembled) and a treasured landmark located in Central Park today.
The parade of tall ships, known as Operation Sail, first assembled in New York waters for the 1964 World’s Fair, and later for the big Bicentennial of 1976.
The city had a lot going on that year, most notably a financial crisis and a public spat with President Gerald Ford.
But when television cameras turned to film the big event, they saw not just majestic ships, but a diverse array of New Yorkers, reinventing what it meant to be American.
Tom and Greg are joined on this show by Captain Jonathan Boulware, the President and CEO of the South Street Seaport Museum, to discuss the Seaport’s unique connection to Operation Sail and the museum’s latest exhibition, The Promise of Liberty: Words That Shaped a Nation, which places the nation’s most important documents in a unique waterfront context.
LISTEN NOW: PARTY LIKE IT’S 1976!
If you want to walk the footsteps of New Yorkers during the American Revolution:
Echoes of the Revolution multimedia 90-minute walking tour in downtown Manhattan and will be a free city-scale augmented reality experience for mobile devices utilizing the detailed historical environments of Assassin’s Creed® III (set during the American Revolution).
That comes out June 29, but you can use NYC Revolutionary Trail now.
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