A Revolutionary War Tour of New York
'Here's where the American Revolution began,' Peter-Christian Aigner said, describing an alley off Gold Street in Lower Manhattan.
No shots fired here were heard 'round the world, because no shots were fired here. The redcoats used bayonets to push through an angry crowd, severely injuring several dozen colonists. Aigner maintains that theirs was the first blood shed in the Revolutionary War. But no one died, so the skirmish 'doesn't get the fame.' The Boston Massacre, which does, wouldn't have unfolded the way it did if not for the earlier encounter in Lower Manhattan, he says.
'Everyone knows the Boston Massacre,' he said. 'New York has this insanely rich history, and yet we do almost nothing with it.'
But in a there's-an-app-for-that world, there's now an app about New York in the Revolutionary War. Aigner, the director of the Gotham Center for New York City History, created the app, NYC Revolutionary Trail, with Ted Knudsen, who teaches history at Queens College and is finishing his doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center.
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