The Bowery Boys: New York City History

On October 26, 1825, the fate of New York City – and the entire United States – changed with the opening of the Erie Canal, a manmade waterway that connected the Hudson River to Lake Erie.It was the most significant engineering project of its time, linking the ocean to the nation’s interior -- a 363-mile route from Albany to Lake Erie. Without even knowing where the Erie Canal is on a map of New York state, you could probably guess its course because of a row of cities which developed and prospered, almost in a westward line – including Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo.In some cases, these were modest-sized places like Schenectady or Rome that benefited financially from canal construction; in others, such as Syracuse (which was founded in the year 1820), the canal was chiefly responsible for its existence.However, it was also one of the most critical events in New York City's history, even though the entrance to the canal is approximately 150 miles north of New York Harbor. It essentially became the ca