The New York Stock Exchange dates its origin to the signing of the Buttonwood Agreement in 1792. The first corporate stock traded was the Bank of New York.

When Joseph Pilates opened his first studio in America, he probably didn’t imagine it still would be offering his mind-body control methodology almost a century later.

Time magazine debuted 100 years ago this month. It was the first weekly news magazine in the US.

Bedford-Stuyvesant, a Central Brooklyn neighborhood, was in bad shape in the mid-1960s. Thanks to the nation’s first community development corporation, it’s now a desirable place to live.

Hakeem Jeffries, the first Black minority leader of the House of Representatives

The first eye bank in the world was the brainchild of a New York ophthalmologist.

You’ll never guess Angela Buchdahl’s occupation!

A New Yorker created the first electric iron when many homes were not yet wired for electricity.

New York City has renamed a Harlem intersection in honor of Althea Gibson, the first Black tennis player to compete at the US National Championship.

Hellmann’s mayonnaise was created more than a century ago by New York City deli owners Richard and Margaret Hellmann.

A young New York widow created a new type of commercially available clothing: maternity wear.

The first car-vs-bike accident occurred in New York. Where, exactly? Continued research helped finesse the details.

After two years without in-person events because of Covid, Jane’s Walk returns. It was a wet but wonderful weekend.

A nurse in an area hit hard by Covid-19, the New York City borough of Queens, became the first recipient of the vaccine in the United States.

The very first bat mitzvah anywhere in the world occurred 100 years ago in New York City. What happened after that?

In honor of Black History Month, this post looks at several Black New Yorkers—some well known, like Wynton Marsalis (pictured), others not—with first-of-their-kind achievements in the second half of the twentieth century.