Underworld Enthroned, Part 1: A Concise History of New York City
An appendix for Copper Knights and Granite Men examining the tumultuous past and present of the Big Apple.
New York is an independent city state consisting of Manhattan Island and the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens on Long Island. With a population of 3.8 million people, the city is one of the largest in North America, and is an important center of international trade and finance. It is a tariff and duty free zone, and a permanent customs agreement with both the Eastern Coastal Republic and the United Commonwealths mean that cargo passing through New York terminals can enter those countries without having to pass through the usual rigmarole of inspections and duties. Because of the city’s open immigration laws, it is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, attracting both the best and the worst people on offer. Although it is highly dynamic, it is often chaotic, with a high crime rate in poorer immigrant neighborhoods and ethnic tensions that explode into lethal gang violence.
New York City, was, of course, destroyed by the Martian armies during the War of the Worlds. It is surmised that the city was the primary target on the Atlantic coast of North America, and the invaders spent some months in 1898-99 lingering around the metropolitan area. There was hardly a structure left standing and the population was all either killed or fled inland, though for whatever reason it was not targeted for permanent de-habitation the way some smaller cities like Baltimore and Pittsburgh were. Bands of renegades and opportunistic scavengers began to pick through the ruins soon after the Martians moved on, and by 1905, many settlers and refugees, primarily from Long Island (which was mostly ignored by the enemy) had resettled the fringes of the city. Over the next half-decade, there was a large influx of both immigrants and investment from the old New England states. When New England proclaimed its independence in 1909, it claimed Long Island and much of old New York City (with the exception of Staten Island, which remained part of the state of New York and the new Eastern Coastal Republic of America) for itself. Most of the residents were content with this arrangement, and the city slowly rebuilt its prosperity over the next thirty years.
The mid-century was a difficult time for New York, as the powerful business interests and political machinery felt constrained by the increasingly burdensome New England government. Every year they were sending millions of dollars to the rest of the slumping country, but receiving little—including political representation—in return. Most especially, New York businesses chafed at the onerous tariffs and trade restrictions set up by the Cabot government. The topic of secession was breached, increasingly seriously, through the ‘50s, but little came of it. The turmoil was more severe in the ‘60s, with metahuman rioters resisting New England’s strict National Service (i.e. Conscription) laws, but the big spark came with the entry of New England into The Trans-Pacific War on the side of Great Britain and Japan in 1969. The sentiment of the city was strongly against entering war, especially because it would likely put them into conflict with the Francophone Compact members, if not also the unaligned former united states who had warned against European or Asian interference in North American politics. When the ECRA and its allies declared war on New England, the city government voted to secede and establish itself as a free and neutral city. Troops and ships from the ECRA arrived to assist the city constabulary in evicting the New England military and defending it against counterattack.