In the exhibition’s second gallery, witness the dizzying evolution of New York as it grew into the modern global metropolis we know today. During the 20th century, cycles of financial growth and crisis continually reshaped the city’s economic, cultural, and social life, as did the influx of new waves of people from across the country and around the world. Steep challenges – extreme poverty and urban crowding, the Great Depression, the fiscal and urban crises of the postwar era, crumbling infrastructure and rising prices, and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 – tested and ultimately affirmed the creativity and resilience of the residents of a teeming metropolis that had become the most influential city in the world.

Explore nearly 300 historic objects and images and a central video installation immersing visitors in the rhythms and dynamism of the 20th-century city through vivid, overlapping moving pictures. At a touchscreen station, you’ll find the moving silhouettes of notable people who embody the exhibition’s themes of money, density, diversity and creativity, ranging from industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to music entrepreneur Jay-Z.

To see central video installation film credits, click here.

In this introductory gallery, travel back to the time of Henry Hudson’s voyage into New York Harbor and follow the story of the city as it grew into the nation’s economic and cultural capital, on the shores of the Western Hemisphere’s busiest harbor.

Learn about more than 200 key objects and images from this period, including a ceremonial club from the Native people of the area; a slice of a wooden pipe that formed the original water system of the city; and William M. “Boss” Tweed’s gold tiger-headed cane.

Alongside these striking, one-of-a-kind artifacts, experience innovative interactive installations where you’ll “meet” New Yorkers of the past – from Henry Hudson and Alexander Hamilton to Chinatown pioneer Wong Chin Foo and anarchist Emma Goldman. Discover what has changed and what has stayed the same as you take in digital projections of historic New York streetscapes that fade into contemporary views of the same scenes, created by New York photographer Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao.