I quite enjoyed the Sunday edition of the New York Times - here are a couple gems.

You need an account with the NY Times (it’s free), so sign-up or use BugMeNot or if you use Mozilla (Firefox) use the BugMeNot extension.

Here is one from Ben Stein; monotone teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off , lawyer, economist and presidential speech writer - Don’t Beat Up on Big Oil. It’s Just Doing Its Job.

Here is one on Little Italy and what it was like at the turn of the century - for those that have been in this part of NYC this is a great article, if you not been here, it is still really good. “The Smell of Hope” By MELANIA G. MAZZUCCO

People look at me oddly when I tell them that Manhattan was more densely populated at the turn of the century. I agree that this seems odd as when you are here you see large apartment buildings that are 40 - 50 stories tall and the old buildings that are from the early 1900’s are generally not higher than 10 stories. Well according to this, and I would hazard a guess it is somewhat accurate Manhattan reached the height of its population in 1910.

Population density of Manhattan “In 1910, it reached a peak to 46,428.9/km²”. 46,000 + people in a square kilometer, or 2,762,522 people in Manhattan!

In the 2000 census the population was only 1,537,195 or a population density of 25,849.9/km².

If my back of the napkin math is right, Manhattan had a population almost 80% higher than it is today! Granted there are a lot of tourist and such here that perhaps would not have been here in the turn of the century given that it was much more difficult to travel the globe at that time.