A faded green ticket for Abraham Lincoln’s watershed campaign speech at Cooper Union on February 27th, 1860. A checker taxicab and a conductor’s baton. Author Sam Roberts chose fifty objects that embody the narrative of New York for a feature article in The New York Times. He has since expanded that article into the book A History of NYC in 101 Objects. Join the author as he chronicles the material history of NYC through items ranging from the Flushing Remonstrance, a 1657 petition for religious freedom that eventually led to the First Amendment, to icons like the bagel, the subway token, and the I Love NY logo.
Sam Roberts is urban affairs correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author or editor of eight other books, including Only in New York: An Exploration of the World’s Most Fascinating, Frustrating and Irrepressible City (2009, co-written with Pete Hamill).