New York, New York (BUT NOT FORGOTTEN – EXCERPT #3)

“Dis-Astor Place”

Astor Place Riot, May 10th, 1849.

By the middle of the 1800s the Revolutionary War was long over, but in the sixty-six years that had passed between its end and the events of May the 10th, 1849 the tensions and resentment against America’s former rulers had departed the political and the revolutionary realms (the War of 1812 having settled the militaristic question between the two nations once and for all) and, at least among the theatre-going citizens of New York City, had be...