26 Broadway Shows Lost Investors’ Money
In 2016, four out of five Broadway productions failed to return their investors’ money, a failure rate that had remained unchanged for years. Broadway sold 13 million tickets during the 2014-2015 season, but production expenses climbed alongside revenue. Plays cost between $2.5 million and $4 million to stage, while musicals cost between $6 million and $16 million because of larger casts, orchestras, and elaborate scenery. Most failures closed quietly, while the $75 million Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark became Broadway’s biggest money-loser and shut down in early 2014.
27. During the 1960s, Argentina exported monk parakeets to the United States as pets after an extermination campaign failed to control the agricultural pests. According to one widely repeated story, a shipment escaped at John F. Kennedy International Airport and flew to Brooklyn, although other accounts blame a distressed ship or a divorcing couple. The nonmigratory birds stayed and built communal nests in Brooklyn and Queens, where warmth from utility-pole wiring helps them survive the colder climate. Colonies still inhabit Green-Wood Cemetery and Midwood, and individual parakeets can live for 20 to 30 years.
28. Before gaining the names Patience and Fortitude during the Great Depression, the marble lions outside the New York Public Library had guarded its Fifth Avenue entrance since 1911. American sculptor Edward Clark Potter modeled them, and the Piccirilli brothers carved them from pink Tennessee marble. New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia chose their names because he believed patience and fortitude were the qualities New Yorkers needed to survive the economic crisis.
29. In the early 1910s, New York City used eminent domain to demolish the five-story Voorhis apartment building owned by a Philadelphia landlord named David Hess, along with 252 other buildings, to widen Seventh Avenue and expand the IRT subway. By 1913, the family had exhausted its legal challenges, but Hess’s heirs discovered that the seizure had missed a 500-square-inch triangle at Seventh Avenue South and Christopher Street. When the city asked them to donate it, they refused and installed a mosaic on July 27, 1922, declaring that the property had never been dedicated for public purposes. The estate sold the Hess Triangle to the neighboring cigar shop for $100 in 1938, but later owners preserved the plaque.
30. By the 1830s, New Yorkers used downtown for the original settlement at Manhattan’s southern tip, which also served as the city’s main business center. As New York expanded northward, residents called the newer residential districts uptown because north appeared up and south appeared down on maps. Other American cities adopted the name “downtown” during the late 19th century for their commercial cores, stripping the word of its directional meaning. By the early 1900s, it had become the standard American term for a city center, regardless of its geographic location.
31 LaMarcus Thompson Built Wholesome Rollercoaster
In the 1880s, a man named LaMarcus Thompson, a hosiery businessman and devout Christian, wanted to draw Americans away from saloons, brothels, and other amusements he considered sinful. Inspired by Pennsylvania’s Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway, he opened the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway at Coney Island in 1884, offering visitors a more wholesome thrill. The 600-foot ride traveled at 6 mph, cost a nickel, and became an immediate success that helped launch America’s roller coaster industry.
32. In 1916, Imperial German agents detonated US-made munitions awaiting shipment to the Allies at Black Tom, a depot in New York Harbor beside Jersey City. The blast killed at least seven people, wounded hundreds, and destroyed about $20 million in military goods, equivalent to $590 million in 2025. It ranked among history’s largest artificial non-nuclear explosions and damaged the Statue of Liberty’s torch-bearing arm. Officials closed the narrow ascent to the torch for safety, and it has remained closed to the public ever since.
33. In 1907, Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel opened with 800 rooms and charged short-term guests $2.50 per night. The hotel primarily served long-term residents, who occupied an estimated 90 percent of its units, while the opening nightly rate equaled about $86.38 in 2025 dollars. By October 2026, listed rates for many rooms exceeded $1,000 per night.
34. In 2013, a New York City taxi medallion, the transferable permit allowing a taxicab to operate, peaked at more than $1 million. As ridesharing companies like Uber increased the supply of cars for hire, non-corporate medallion prices fell 45 percent between 2014 and 2015. At a July 11, 2019 auction, only three of 16 medallions sold, fetching $137,000, $136,000, and $138,000, while the other 13 attracted no bidders. Many drivers had borrowed heavily to buy medallions at their peak, and the crash forced numerous borrowers into bankruptcy.
35. By 1900, New York City had a fleet of electric taxis, while battery-powered cars accounted for roughly one-third of American automobiles. The Electric Carriage and Wagon Company introduced 12 electric cabs in 1897 and expanded its fleet to more than 100 by 1899. Electric cars ran quietly, started easily, and produced no exhaust, giving them major advantages over early gasoline cars. Cheaper gasoline vehicles, longer driving ranges, and the arrival of the Ford Model T eventually pushed electric cars out of the market.
36 NYC Murders Fell Below 300
Violent crime in New York City began falling in 1991, after the city recorded a peak of 2,245 murders in 1990. By 2005, New York had the lowest crime rate among the ten largest US cities, and the overall decline continued into the next decade. In 2017, the city recorded 292 homicides, its first annual total below 300 since 1951. Analysts have variously attributed the broader decline to policing changes, the end of the crack epidemic, nationwide incarceration, gentrification, an aging population, and reduced childhood lead exposure.
37. American pro-Nazi groups held mass rallies at Madison Square Garden in 1934, 1935, and 1939. In 1934, the Friends of New Germany helped draw about 23,000 people to a swastika-filled rally that promoted an anti-Jewish boycott, while another pro-Nazi gathering followed in 1935. The German American Bund staged the most infamous rally in 1939, packing more than 20,000 people beneath a giant portrait of American president George Washington flanked by swastikas. About 100,000 protesters gathered outside while 1,700 police officers guarded the arena.
38. After World War I, returning American soldiers brought home a craving for doughnuts that women volunteers had served them in France. In 1920, a Jewish refugee named Adolph Levitt, who had fled czarist Russia, began frying and selling doughnuts from a Harlem bakery in New York City. When demand outpaced hand production, Levitt worked with an engineer to develop the first automatic doughnut machine and founded the Doughnut Machine Company to sell it nationwide.
39. In 1917, a rabbit named Bunch reportedly ran amok in Central Park, charging sheep in Sheep Meadow, biting their ankles, and throwing the flock into a panic. A newspaper account also claimed that he maimed dogs and defeated an orangutan by striking with his hind legs. After Bunch nearly killed a valuable champion gamecock, a head keeper named Bill Snyder banished him from the Central Park Zoo. Zoo staff moved the rabbit into solitary confinement behind the zebu corral.
40. The Statue of Liberty originally had a dull copper color, but oxidation covered it with a green patina about 20 years after its 1886 dedication. Believing the patina showed corrosion, Congress authorized $62,800 for repairs and for painting the statue inside and out. The Army Corps of Engineers found that the patina protected the copper skin and concluded that it had “softened the outlines of the Statue and made it beautiful,” so the exterior remained unpainted.
41 Empire State Express Outpaced Amtrak
In the 1890s, the Empire State Express traveled between New York City and Buffalo about one hour faster than Amtrak covered the route in 2013. In 1891, the train completed the 436-mile journey in 7 hours and 6 minutes, including stops. It averaged 61.4 mph and reached a top speed of 82 mph.
42. In April 2023, New York City’s Independent Budget Office reported that motorists owed the city more than $1 billion in unpaid parking tickets and camera-generated speeding fines. The agency disclosed the amount in a letter requested by Upper West Side Councilmember Gale Brewer, who questioned why officials had not collected the debt. The IBO also identified $150 million in property charges and roughly $940 million in other penalties, warning that the figures likely understated the city’s total unpaid debt.
43. In early 1906, the Paris edition of the New York Herald asked whether the Wright brothers were “Flyers or Liars?” as much of the press and public continued to doubt their flights. More than three years later, on September 29, 1909, Wilbur Wright flew and circled the Statue of Liberty as more than one million New Yorkers watched. On October 4, he flew again, completing a roughly 20-mile round trip from Governors Island to Grant’s Tomb and back in about 33 minutes.
44. During the Gilded Age, wealthy tourists paid guides for nighttime “slumming” tours through Manhattan’s Chinatown, where they expected to witness poverty, crime, and addiction. A former prizefighter and bouncer named Chuck Connors organized “vice tours” from Barney Flynn’s Saloon, taking customers to a Chinese dinner, theater, temple, and opium den. Connors hired Chinese actors to imitate drug-induced stupor while performers staged knife fights, hatchet attacks, and distant gunfire. The visitors left unharmed but believed they had witnessed Chinatown’s dangerous underworld.
45. As of 2013, 43 buildings in Manhattan had ZIP codes all to themselves. A building’s height or revenue did not automatically qualify it because the Postal Service primarily considered its mail volume, code availability, and the cost of creating a unique ZIP. The Empire State Building, which contained more than 150 businesses that could receive mail, used 10118, while the Woolworth and Graybar buildings also had exclusive codes.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Token Suckers Robbed Subway Turnstiles
During New York City’s subway-token era, thieves called “token suckers” jammed turnstile slots with paper or gum wrappers and waited for commuters to insert their fares. When the blocked turnstile rejected a rider, the thief placed their mouth over the slot and sucked out the trapped token. Some booth attendants fought back by sprinkling chili powder into frequently jammed slots, and the scam disappeared after MetroCards replaced subway tokens in 2003.
47. In 2014, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio accidentally dropped the groundhog presented as Staten Island Chuck during the Staten Island Zoo’s Groundhog Day ceremony. The animal was actually a female stand-in named Charlotte, and zoo staff found her dead a week later with acute internal injuries. The injuries were consistent with a fall, although the zoo said it could not determine their exact cause and considered a connection to the ceremony unlikely. Zoo officials kept Charlotte’s death from the public for months and initially told supporters that she had died from natural causes.
48. When New York City inaugurated its pneumatic mail system in 1897, postal workers sent a live black cat through the 3,750-foot tube between the Produce Exchange at Bowling Green and the General Post Office on Park Row. The pressurized canister carried the animal through several turns at high speed. The cat emerged dazed but alive, ran away, and was quickly caught and placed in a waiting basket.
49. In 1906, an epidemic investigator named George Soper traced an Oyster Bay typhoid outbreak in NYC to a healthy cook named Mary Mallon, who carried the disease without symptoms. Soper connected her employment to seven households in New York and Maine that had suffered outbreaks since 1900, then explained how better handwashing could prevent her from contaminating food. Officials released Mallon from quarantine in 1910 after she promised to stop cooking, but she returned to kitchen work under aliases. A 1915 outbreak at Sloane Hospital for Women sickened more than 20 people and led officials to confine her again. Authorities officially linked her to 53 infections and three deaths.
50. The mafia helped establish the gay bar scene in New York. In 1966, a mobster named Tony “Fat Tony” Lauria, a member of the Genovese crime family, bought the Stonewall Inn and converted the existing bar and restaurant into a gay bar and nightclub. State liquor laws and police raids left gay New Yorkers with few public gathering places, giving the Mafia a profitable opportunity. Lauria paid the NYPD’s 6th Precinct approximately $1,200 a week to overlook the “indecent conduct” inside, although police still conducted raids after warning the owners. Despite its dirty and dangerous conditions, Stonewall became a rare place where gay patrons could dance together and drag queens, runaways, and homeless LGBT youths could gather.
