New York City is a place where you can spend $19 on a salad, pay approximately the GDP of a small country for a studio apartment, and watch a man dressed as Spider-Man argue with a guy dressed as Elmo in Times Square. It is also one of the most historically fascinating cities in the world. Behind the yellow taxis, luxury department stores, Broadway marquees, and people aggressively speed-walking as if they’re late to save civilization is a history spanning Indigenous communities, colonialism, revolution, immigration, industrialization, cultural reinvention, and some truly spectacular real estate decisions. New York wasn’t built in