The New Yorkers: 31 Remarkable People, 400 Years, and the Untold Biography of the World’s Greatest City

New York is the largest city in the United States and was the entry point for many people who immigrated from Europe, and other countries, into the United States. While the history of New York often dovetails with the history of the larger United States, not everyone gets to enter the history books if they are a minor player in New York.

This book collects the lives and stories of people who might have gained notoriety in their own time but are not well known today while all calling New York their home at some point in their life, whether they were born and bred or immigrated from another country. Each story shows how these individual New Yorkers played their part in a larger historical story happening around them, even if they are not mentioned in the history textbooks.

The book largely follows a chronological order, from the early European explorers into the 20th century. Each chapter is focuses on one person and provides enough detail for someone to answer a question correctly at a trivia contest but not get bogged down in the details.