Giant New York City Challenge

New York City was originally just Manhattan and the Bronx, but through referendums in the late 1890s, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island all became boroughs.

With a PoD of no earlier than 1870, try to have New York City expand to as north as far Sleepy Hollow and the Rye Bridge and as far into Long Island as Oyster Bay, Hicksville, and Seaford by the 1920s.

I know the history of local politics is hard to find for a lot of these places (I've been trying), but try and be as detailed as you can.

Bigger bonuses the further you get out, Westchester, Yonkers, Mount Vernon, and New Rochelle are all well within reason and so not as fun.
 
The simplest solution seems to be to liberalize the municipal annexation laws of New York into something closer to North Carolina's that allows for involuntary annexation. I'm having trouble finding the related laws for the early 1900's though to be more specific. If you could do it though it would give NYC basically unlimited reach.
 
After taking a New York State Politics class in university I feel like I should have more to add to this but the creation of the city at large wasn't a topic heavily covered.

Tips when thinking/trying to tackle this though:

The areas OTL absorbed were/are COUNTIES
So unless there is a change in the laws to absorb/carve out municipalities within a county to add to the city I don't see the city gaining much more other than Nassau/Weschester (but even then places there I don't believe are urban enough to justify them being part of the city)

New York City is special in its governance where 5 counties governments are represented by the city government and that city government is nothing like the city governments seen at the municipal level in the other counties.


Bending the rules a little, would breaking up the state count? Where the city, Long Island, lower two counties break off into the state of New York and just have a "City" wide government or make different divisions at a municipal level and don't have to deal with upstate grumblings on city issues?
 
The simplest solution seems to be to liberalize the municipal annexation laws of New York into something closer to North Carolina's that allows for involuntary annexation. I'm having trouble finding the related laws for the early 1900's though to be more specific. If you could do it though it would give NYC basically unlimited reach.

Huh, that's a good idea regarding general expansion.

I feel like the state government would see Sleepy Hollow is too far up, but I can see them agreeing to places like New Hyde Park and Oyster Bay being annexed in that fashion.

After taking a New York State Politics class in university I feel like I should have more to add to this but the creation of the city at large wasn't a topic heavily covered.

Tips when thinking/trying to tackle this though:

The areas OTL absorbed were/are COUNTIES
So unless there is a change in the laws to absorb/carve out municipalities within a county to add to the city I don't see the city gaining much more other than Nassau/Weschester (but even then places there I don't believe are urban enough to justify them being part of the city)

New York City is special in its governance where 5 counties governments are represented by the city government and that city government is nothing like the city governments seen at the municipal level in the other counties.

You're right about that. So maybe Nassau County could be annexed or maybe split into a few boroughs upon being annexed (like how Queens County was split from Nassau to become a borough in the first place).

Maybe they could get Westchester and Rockland to be made into other boroughs/split upon annexation as well.

Bending the rules a little, would breaking up the state count? Where the city, Long Island, lower two counties break off into the state of New York and just have a "City" wide government or make different divisions at a municipal level and don't have to deal with upstate grumblings on city issues?

Not sure what you mean here, but Upstate will grumble about the city no matter what (even if it became its own state they'd be mad at it). And as a Long Islander, I can almost guarantee that if New York City split from the rest of New York, Long Island would either go with it or become its own state (the latter being far more popular than the former).
 
Instead of allowing the eastern part of Queens to become Nassau in 1898 the legislature could force all of Queens (including OTL Nassau) to be annexed. As for Westchester something similar, northern Bronx was part of Westchester at the time and the city of New York (NEVER has it been officially New York City) annexed the southern half up to Yonkers (or properly the state passed a law incorporating it, it technically wasn't the city annexing)
 
The areas OTL absorbed were/are COUNTIES
So unless there is a change in the laws to absorb/carve out municipalities within a county to add to the city I don't see the city gaining much more other than Nassau/Weschester (but even then places there I don't believe are urban enough to justify them being part of the city)

Are counties, yes; were counties, no.

All of what is now the Bronx was originally part of Westchester. In two different events, the territory was annexed into New York county and then very quickly into New York city; both were done by the state legislature with no formal poll of the residents. All of the Bronx was part of New York City for a few years before consolidation.

What is now Queens was the western bit of Queens County, which occupied the land that is today in Queens and Nassau Counties; current Queens was lopped off of "old" Queens county as part of consolidation.

With that precedent, it should definitely be possible to e.g. chop off everything south of 287 and annex it into the Bronx, or as a new sixth borough.
 
Are counties, yes; were counties, no.

All of what is now the Bronx was originally part of Westchester. In two different events, the territory was annexed into New York county and then very quickly into New York city; both were done by the state legislature with no formal poll of the residents. All of the Bronx was part of New York City for a few years before consolidation.

What is now Queens was the western bit of Queens County, which occupied the land that is today in Queens and Nassau Counties; current Queens was lopped off of "old" Queens county as part of consolidation.

With that precedent, it should definitely be possible to e.g. chop off everything south of 287 and annex it into the Bronx, or as a new sixth borough.

Interesting did not know this always thought they just annexed the adjacent counties.

With this precedent then I don't see why an early legislature wouldn't be able to just make the City bigger than they did.
 
Interesting did not know this always thought they just annexed the adjacent counties.

With this precedent then I don't see why an early legislature wouldn't be able to just make the City bigger than they did.
Wealthy people exist. And they have influence. And money (hence being wealthy). And people listen to them. Not until Robert Moses were the interests of the city of New York able to outweigh the old names such as Vanderbilt and Roosevelt that held large landholdings in Nassau County (even he caved into them many times while building his highways)
 
During the latter part of the 19th century NYC developed the watershed in Westchester County for the municipal water supply (the Croton Reservoir is much of this, the current dam an an older (submerged) one). Along with this comes a push to integrate all or part of this county in to the city. later on you'll see the subway lines (actually elevated in the North Bronx) extended at least to Yonkers at grade and possibly beyond.
 
The earlier points are good, but municipal governments spanning the entire municipal area, which is what we are talking out here (excluding New Jersey) runs into a paradox. If its done before suburbanization, its not done because there is no point in having lots of rural territory under a city government, though the point about the reservoirs above indicates an exception may be made here. If done after suburbanization, the suburbanites are strong enough to block the scheme.
 
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