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Constructing the “Fresh Coast”: Water and the Reinvention of the Post-Industrial City – The Metropole
Editor's note: This is the seventh post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Michael Carriere On December 3, 2008, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett appeared at a day-long symposium on “concentrated poverty” in America, held at the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C. Barrett told…
City Afloat: Rethinking the “Other” Side of Canton, 1757-1949 – The Metropole
Editor's note: This is the sixth post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Qingyun Lin There is no spectacle in the world more wonderful to a stranger's eyes than the river population of the Celestial Empire.[1]—Osmond Tiffany (1823-1895) In May 1844, Osmond Tiffany—a…
The Tides: Maluku’s Untold Stories – The Metropole
Editor's note: This is the fifth post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Fendy Tulodo In the vast archipelago of Indonesia, Maluku stands as a region shaped by both its turbulent history and its deep connection to the sea. Once the epicenter of…
Waterworld: How Water Engineering Became Imperial Japan’s Method of Building Cities – The Metropole
Editor's note: This is the fourth post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Emi Higashiyama The story of Taiwan’s emergence into modernity can be difficult to interpret because it is a story that has been caught in the fierce rivalry between China and…
Nakuru Waters: A New City on the Edge of Kenya’s Great Rift – The Metropole
Editor's note: This is the third post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By Gitonga Njeru Phillip Kilemia, aged 63, was born and raised in Nakuru. The businessman has seen the city grow to what it has become today. "Faced with myriad challenges, it…
Forgotten Urban Currents: The Role of Subterranean Rivers in Shaping Modern Cities – The Metropole
Editor's note: This is the second post in our theme for April 2025, The City Aquatic. For additional entries in the series, see here. By AN In cities across the world, rivers once central to daily life now flow unseen beneath layers of concrete and asphalt. These subterranean rivers--natural waterways that have been buried, diverted,…
Introducing The City Aquatic – The Metropole
Editor's note: This is the first post for April 2025's The City Aquatic theme. See here for additional entries in the theme. Thirty years ago, Universal Pictures released Waterworld, directed by Kevin Reynolds and starring Kevin Costner as a balding amphibious mutant who traverses the world on his trimaran, a boat that film critic Roger…
George Romero’s Pittsburgh: City of the Living Dead – The Metropole
Editor's Note: This is the sixth and final post in our theme for February 2025, "Celluloid City," which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here. By Victoria Timpanaro October 1, 1968 was the world premiere of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living…
THE CITIZEN, FILM, AND INDIA’S NATION-BUILDING PROJECT: A QUEST FOR MODERNITY – The Metropole
Editor's Note: This is the fifth post in our theme for February 2025, "Celluloid City," which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here. By Shruti Hussain We lock eyes with a stream of children, of women and men, peering straight at the camera…
Edward W. Lewis’s Life in Harlem: A City of Contrasts – The Metropole
Editor's Note: This is the fourth post in our theme for February 2025, "Celluloid City," which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here By Alyssa Lopez In March 1935, when sixteen-year-old Lino Rivera pocketed a knife while cutting through the S.H. Kress dime…
Megalopolis and the 15-Minute City – The Metropole
Editor's Note: This is the third post in our theme for February 2025 "Celluloid City" which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here. By Jannat Suleman Since the introduction of the theoretical 15-minute city, there’s been significant nitpicking at the so-called socialist concept…
Building the Golden City: Rome in the Gladiator Films – The Metropole
Editor's Note: This is the second post in The Metropole's theme for February 2025 "Celluloid City" which explores the role of and interplay between cities and film. You can see all posts from the theme here. By Grace Gillies The Rome in both Gladiator films is a landscape of monumental architecture subtly but pervasively inflected…
Introducing Celluloid City: Film and the Metropolis – The Metropole
Editor's note: The theme for February 2025, "Celluloid City," explores the interplay between cities and film. This overview kicks off the month with subsequent pieces by contributors to follow. You can see all posts from the theme here. Nearly five years ago, The Metropole spent the month of April 2020 thinking about “The Visual City.”…
Diyarbakır: Contested City in Turkey’s Kurdish heartland – The Metropole
By William Gourlay If you present a map of Turkey to a traveler and ask them to pinpoint key cities, chances are they will immediately identify İstanbul, the great metropolis on the Bosphorus. Some would also be able to highlight Ankara, the capital, but beyond that choices may be limited. Few cities in Turkey’s Anatolian…
Aging Gang Members in Southern California – A Review of “The Marvelous Ones: Drugs, Gang Violence, and Resistance in East Los Angeles.” – The Metropole
Randol Contreras. The Marvelous Ones: Drugs, Gang Violence, and Resistance in East Los Angeles. Oakland: University of California Press, 2024. By Dianne Violeta Mausfeld East Los Angeles is an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County with a population that is over 95 percent Latino, overwhelmingly Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans. Mexican immigrants settled in this…
Soundscapes: The Music that Created New York – The Metropole
Launched in 2024, Soundscapes N.Y.C. is a podcast about how music created in New York has shaped the history of the city and how throughout its history the city itself has been an incubator for new music. It is a bi-monthly podcast series in which Sarah Lawrence College historian Ryan Purcell, talks with artists, music…
Call for Papers: Metropole Theme Months 2025 – The Metropole
With 2024 just about in the rear view mirror, The Metropole's editorial staff wanted to let our readers know that we have three theme months planned for the first half of 2025. Check out our calls below and drop us a line at themetropole@urbanhistory.org if you have a pitch for us! Twin-Lite [i.e. twi-lite] Cinema…
Congratulations to Our 2024 Graduate Student Blogging Contest Winner! – The Metropole
Once again, we had a record number of entries in our graduate student blogging contest! Our 2024 theme, “Connection,” inspired submission by twelve students whose work intersects with urban history. Online publications such as The Metropole can provide an outlet for writing that allows for creativity and experimentation, both in content and how information is…
Magical and Exiled Urbanisms in Miami – The Metropole
Editors note: This is our final entry in our theme month on The Latinx City. You can see all other entries for the theme month here. Additionally, readers interested in more on Miami can see other posts on the city published at The Metropole here. By Daniel Richter In 1987, Joan Didion published her book…
Latinx Entrepreneurs in Philadelphia – A Legacy of Resilience and Growth – The Metropole
Editor’s note: This is the fourth post in our theme for November, The Latinx City. By Stephanie Rivera-Kumar Philadelphia, one of the oldest cities in the United States, has a vibrant history shaped by immigrant contributions that continue to affect its neighborhoods and economy. In recent years, Latinx immigrants from countries such as the Dominican…
Creature of the Night: A Review of “Midnight Rambles: H. P. Lovecraft in Gotham” – The Metropole
David J. Goodwin. Midnight Rambles: H. P. Lovecraft in Gotham. New York: Fordham University Press, 2023. Reviewed by Peter C. Baldwin The horror fiction of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, which sends delightful chills down the spines of his many fans, draws its power from its monsters and creepy settings, not from human characters. Lovecraft’s florid prose…
The Metropole Bookshelf: Writing the Golden State: the New Literary Terrain of California – The Metropole
The Metropole Bookshelf is an opportunity for authors of forthcoming or recently published books to let the UHA community know about their new work in the field. Other entries in the series can be viewed here. By Romeo Guzmán I’m a historian who is weary of origin stories. In presenting Writing the Golden State: the New…
The “World City” at Work: How Street Vendors Transformed Global L.A – The Metropole
By David Helps Jorge Cruz Cortes was still a teenager when the Los Angeles Police Department arrested him for selling household goods without a license in 1989. The eighteen-year-old from Oaxaca, Mexico had been in L.A. long enough to know how the legal system treated workers in the growing informal economy. An arrest meant fines…
Chicago Americans: The City of the Second Generation – The Metropole
Editor's note: This is the second post in our theme for November, The Latinx City. By Andres Villatoro A friend from graduate school recently visited Chicago for the first time ever to present at a large annual academic conference. As an international student from Santiago, Chile and a lover of cities, I was excited for…
The Latinx City: Overview and Bibliography – The Metropole
Editor's Note: This is the first post in this month's theme, The Latinx City By Ryan Reft If you’ve been even remotely paying attention in 2024, immigration and its impact on America has been a hot topic this year (and to be honest, nearly every election cycle since the 1990s). Granted, it’s a discussion largely…
Where to Start? An Urban History of the Bight of Biafra – The Metropole
The Metropole Bookshelf is an opportunity for authors of forthcoming or recently published books to let the UHA community know about their new work in the field. By Joseph Godlewski I was trained to be suspicious of origins. The search for metaphysical starting points has always seemed haunted by romantic essentialist beliefs and fraught with…
One Hundred Years of the Renaissance Theater and Ballroom/Casino – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, "Connections." by Bridget Kelly What makes a site special? What must happen there for society to decide that a place, a building, a history is worth preserving? 2341 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd, C. 1939-1941. Department Of Finance: Manhattan 1940s Tax Photos.…
To (Not) Get Lost in the City of Phnom Penh – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, "Connections." by Zhiyi Wang “Everyone gets lost in Phnom Penh,” commented a Cambodian friend when we were trying to pinpoint a location on Google Maps. He is from Battambang, which along with Siem Reap and Phnom Penh are Cambodia’s largest and most…
My Street Looks Different Now: Oral History and the Anti-Redlining Movement – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, “Connections.” by Joshua Rosen In 1974, when Richard Wise was hired as a community organizer in Boston's Jamaica Plain,[1] there were thirty-one abandoned buildings in the center of the neighborhood. He remembers cars burning underneath the elevated train line nearly every week.[2] Banks…
After the Same Rainbow’s End: Purists, Pragmatists & Racial Advocates Duke It Out in Savannah – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, "Connections." by Emi Higashiyama Savannah, Georgia, may not be the most obvious place to look for a decades-long battle over city planning, but recent developments over the Civic Center proved to be a contest that revived old feuds and started new ones.…
Architecture Matters? A Review of “The Architecture Of Urbanity: Designing For Nature, Culture And Joy” – The Metropole
Vishaan Chakrabarti. The Architecture Of Urbanity: Designing For Nature, Culture And Joy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024. Reviewed by Dasha Kuletskaya Can architects and other design professionals help tackle the global challenges humanity faces today? Can design be a tool to address climate change, rising inequality, and the spread of right-wing populism? Can architecture…
Connecting the City to the Sea: The Development of the National Aquarium in Baltimore – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, "Connections." by Weilan Ge American ecologist Loren Eiseley once said, “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in the water.”[1] The National Aquarium in Baltimore (NAIB) puts this message at the entrance for all visitors to see, illustrating that…
Where Do You Summer? How the Urban Elite Forged Connections While Escaping the City – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, "Connections." by Matthew Adair For many Americans, summer is a season of travel. The ritual of leaving home for somewhere more relaxing (or invigorating) has a long history. Since at least antiquity, “escaping the city” has been a common tradition among the…
Pittsburgh’s Chinese Laundries: Connections to the Past – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, "Connections." by Jackie Wu Chinese-owned laundries dotted the urban landscape of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from the late nineteenth century well into the post-World War II years. Tucked in between houses, restaurants, and other businesses, the number of Chinese laundries peaked in the 1930s…
Americanizing South Los Angeles through National Retailers and High-Security Malls – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, "Connections." by David Bruno During the mid to late twentieth century, shopping centers in America served as community cornerstones, providing communal spaces and establishing national social and cultural connections based on mutual shopping experiences and product consumption. Weakening regional differences and contributing…
How to Keep a School Open: Two Carvers and the Fight for Fair Desegregation – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, "Connections." by Jeremy Lee Wolin During the era of formal segregation, Black communities across the United States created thousands of schools to provide the education that white schools would not allow their students to receive. From the 1950s to the 1970s, the same…
BART (Dis)Connects the San Francisco Bay Area – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, "Connections." by Andrew Allio The camera pans along the street, highlighting the abandoned buildings. Midway down the block, a bulldozed lot is littered with broken concrete, plywood, and other construction debris. It is May 9, 1967, and Ben Williams of KPIX News…
Boxing & Urban Decline: Community Development & Urban Revitalization in Early 20th-Century Winnipeg – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, "Connections." by Matthew McKeown Third places are spaces people go to get away from work and home life. These spaces are vital for connecting community members and essential for urban renewal. Recently, there have been arguments about the decline of third places.[1]…
Circumventing the Past: Navigating Around the Harbor Through the East Boston Tunnel – The Metropole
This piece is an entry in our Eighth Annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest, "Connections." by Genna Kane Bostonians grumbled and complained when the Sumner Tunnel closed again in the Summer of 2024, demonstrating the significance of underwater connections to East Boston. The City of Boston annexed East Boston in 1836, but the harbor strained East…
Connect! With the Graduate Student Blogging Contest Entries – The Metropole
It is September, and here at The Metropole that means it is time to publish entries to the Graduate Student Blogging Contest. Now in its eighth year, the contest is intended to encourage students to write pieces for a public-facing, online platform and share their research with a broad audience. Beginning Thursday and extending into…