5 True Stories You Might Not Have Heard About New York City

You've heard all about the classic characterizations of the various neighborhoods of New York City, but these fascinating tales may have slipped through the cracks.

1. Circus animals crossed the Brooklyn Bridge in 1884 to demonstrate its strength and safety.

Ephemeral New York / Via ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com

The journey to get to this point was quite an interesting one, and it begins with a frozen river. Before the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883, Brooklyn was actually considered a city of its own. At the time, there were two main ways for Brooklynites to traverse the East River to get to work in Manhattan: by boat, and in the cold winters, by slipping and sliding across the ice.

The winter of 1867 was one of the coldest on record and made crossing the East River more difficult than ever. It was then that a civil engineer named John August Roebling decided that he had had enough and proposed to build a bridge. As it turned out, though, building the bridge itself wasn't exactly in the cards for Roebling. He lost 3 toes in a boating accident while taking compass readings and ended up dying of tetanus, leaving his son Washington in charge of the task at hand.

Not unlike his father, things could have gone better for Washington Roebling. A few years into leading the team who was building the bridge, the second Roebling was physically injured. Luckily for him - and the rest of Brooklyn - his wife Emily Warren Roebling had been studying up on engineering and bridge-building. She took over as the boss and carried the project to its end in 1883.

In total, building the Brooklyn Bridge cost $15 million, as well as the lives of 27 men along the way. Even still, some New Yorkers doubted its reliability on account of the fact that it was the world's very first steel suspension bridge. When the bridge first opened in 1883, P.T. Barnum (of Barnum & Bailey Circus) offered to have some of his animals walk across it to demonstrate how much weight it could hold. New York legislators objected, thinking he was simply looking to promote his show. A year later, though, public doubt held strong and Barnum was given his big moment.

On May 17, 1884, P.T. Barnum led 21 elephants, 17 camels, and the famous Jumbo, the world's biggest African elephant, across the Brooklyn Bridge. And it worked. To this day, it's never been easier to live in Brooklyn.

2. Queens resident Raffi Stepanian has made $800 a week by sifting through Manhattan's sidewalks.

Daily Mail

After being discovered and profiled across the Internet a few years ago, Queens resident Raffi Stepanian earned his title of the 'City Miner.'

Every day, he grabs his styrofoam cup, butter knife, and tweezers and hits the streets (quite literally). He explains that sifting through the dirt in the cracks of the sidewalks around NYC's Diamond District "comes close to a mother lode because in the street, you're picking up gold left by the industry."

Not unlike an actual prospector from the 1800s, Raffi spends the day digging through the mud in various nooks and crannies of the sidewalk, collects dirt and dust, and brings it to a local studio where he sifts through it using a sieve. After separating and polishing the fragments of various materials including diamonds, rubies, platinum, and gold, he sells them to dealers in the area.

He averages $500 per week, but there have been 6-day periods where he has made more than $800 - half of some peoples' rent!

3. Times Square wasn't always called that.

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Before it became the iconic site we know today, this midtown area was called Longacre Square. Through the mid-1800s, it was home to many theaters and restaurants after being partially purchased by showman Oscar Hammerstein.

In 1904, the New York Times built its new headquarters here, and subsequently renamed the area to Times Square. This came despite the fact that, geometrically, it's not a square at all! In fact, it's a series of triangles together in a shape that's best described as a bowtie.

One Times Square barely served as the New York Times headquarters for 10 years before it was outgrown, but now it's become a staple of the city - and the world - as home to the famous New Years' Eve ball drop and billboards so bright that they can be seen from outer space (oh, yeah, and it could also be home to you).

4. A private island on the East River was once sold for $10 after belonging to the early owner of the New York Yankees.

National Baseball Hall of Fame Library

South Brother Island is a small private island in the East River, located about half a mile from The Bronx. It's the lesser known sibling of North Brother Island, which used to house a hospital and is now home to a bird sanctuary.

Claimed by Dutch West India in 1614, South Brother Island went undeveloped for many years and is believed to have served as a civil war base before being purchased by Jacob Ruppert, Jr. in 1894. This was a few years before Ruppert became the owner of the Bronx's own New York Yankees and famously purchased Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox.

Until it burned down in 1909, Jacob Ruppert, Jr.'s summer house was located on South Brother Island, and next to it was an amateur baseball field. It's rumored that Babe Ruth himself would spend time there and practice his swing by hitting balls into the river.

Between 1930 and 1974, the island was owned by a few different parties until it was finally sold in 1975 to Hampton Scows, Inc., an investing firm, for $10. It remained, undeveloped, in the firm's possession until 2007 when it was finally acquired by the Trust for Public Land and donated to the city's Parks Department for use as a wildlife sanctuary. It's now run by the Parks Department in conjunction with the Bronx Zoo.

5. President Herbert Hoover switched on the famous lights of the Empire State Building for the very first time - from 200 miles away.

History.com

The Empire State Building, which was given its own zip code in 1980, was officially opened in 1931, only a year and change after its construction began.

Before the skyscraper was erected, the area served as home to the many mansions of the many generations of the Astor family and eventually the original location of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

The plot was sold to Bethlehem Engineering Corporation in 1928, and leadership of its new project was given to by Alfred E. Smith and his construction company, financially supported by the newly formed business conglomerate Empire State, Inc. led by John J Rascob.

The framework of the Empire State Building rose by 4.5 stories each week until its completion in 1931. On May 1, the newly minted tallest building in New York City opened to the public and was illuminated for the very first time. The honors were done by President Herbert Hoover, who pressed a button all the way from his home in Washington, D.C.

Now, over 10,000 people visit the Empire State Building every day - few of them are NYC residents, of course - accounting for almost $100 million of revenue each year.