What I dug up from New York City’s streets | Alyssa Loorya | TEDxNewYork

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.
In a short, informative talk, archaeologist Alyssa Loorya tunnels beneath New York’s City Hall, offering a glimpse into a complex history of inequality. She shows some of the fascinating artifacts she’s found along the way.

As New Yorkers, we're often busy

looking up at the development
going on around us.

We rarely stop to consider
what lies beneath the city streets.

And it's really hard to imagine
that this small island village

would one day become
a forest of skyscrapers.

Yet, as an urban archaeologist,
that's exactly what I do.

I consider landscapes, artifacts
to tell the stories of the people

who walked these streets before us.

Because history is so much more
than facts and figures.

When people think of archaeology,

they usually think of dusty old maps,
far off lands, ancient civilizations.

You don't think New York City
and construction sites.

Yet, that's where all the action happens
and we're never sure

exactly what we're going to find
beneath the city streets.

Like this wooden well ring
which was the base

for the construction of a water well.

It provided us an opportunity to take
a sample of the wood for tree-ring dating,

and get a date to confirm the fact
that we had indeed found

a series of 18th-century structures
beneath Fulton Street.

Archaeology is about everyday people
using everyday objects,

like the child who may have played
with this small toy,

or the person who consumed
the contents of this bottle.

This bottle contained water imported
from Germany and dates to 1790.

Now okay, we know New Yorkers
always had to go to great lengths

to get fresh drinking water.

Small island, you really couldn't drink
the well water, it was to brackish.

But the notion that New Yorkers
were importing bottled water from Europe,

more then two hundred years ago,

is truly a testament to the fact
that New York City is a cosmopolitan city,

always has been, where you could get
practically anything from anywhere.

If you and I were to walk through
City Hall Park,

you might see an urban park
and government offices.

I see New York City's largest
and most complex archaeological site.

And it's significant
not because it's City Hall,

but because of the thousands
of poor prisoners and British soldiers

who lived and died here.

Before it was City Hall Park,
the area was known as The Common,

and it was pretty far outside
the city limits.

In the 17th century, it was a place
for public protests and execution.

And its remote location
made it an ideal spot

for the city to construct
its first poor house.

And it's from that period, circa 1735,
that we find these bone buttons.

These were made by poor persons
in the almshouse.

Poor persons in the almshouse were
assigned various tasks to earn their keep,

among them, shredding old rope for reuse,

dressing hemp, picking oakum,
making bone buttons,

in the thought that hard work
would reform these poor persons

into productive members of society.

The almshouse served several groups:

poor needy persons, sturdy beggars,
idle wandering vagabonds.

And reasons to be admitted?

Insanity, pregnancy,
or being a widow or an orphan

who could no longer pay their way.

Which makes this piece
all the more interesting.

This child's plate was found
within the walls of the Bridewell.

The Bridewell was one of the most feared
and notorious prisons of its time,

and it happened to have been
right next door to the almshouse.

In fact, there were prisons
on either side of the almshouse,

and at times, these institutions
were so overcrowded.

Prisoners and poor persons
were sharing the same spaces.

And while there is a lot of clamor

about how can you expose children
to hardened criminals,

let's not forget
that children as young as twelve

were convicted to the Bridewell
for stealing bread.

What all this gives us is an insight
into life in the 18th century,

what it was like to be poor
in the 18th century,

perhaps being segregated
from a portion of society,

perhaps being assigned tasks
to earn their keep.

It was a time when three-fifths
of New York City's population

were living at or near
the subsistence level, if not below.

And 10% of the population owned
more than half of the city's wealth.

The past has a lot to teach us
about our present and our future.

I'm a firm believer that in order
to have a sustainable future,

we must have a well-understood past.

Archaeology affords us New Yorkers
and pretty much anyone in an urban center

the opportunity to incorporate
the knowledge of our past

into our present-day dialogues,
into the dialogues about our futures,

incorporate the information
into our shared spaces,

and hopefully, it can bring
all of our diverse communities

within New York City, again,
within any city closer together.

And if I can get just one person
to think a little bit differently

about what they see when they walk
down the city streets,

or through an urban park,

then I've done my job
of sharing the past.

Thank you.

(Applause)