Have you stopped to think about the way "My Shot" builds on the opening number of Hamilton: An American Musical? It sets him up as a young hero eager to change the…
I’m driving three miles from Long Island City to Greenpoint, and I’m terrified. In rural Pennsylvania, we were taught to drive defensively - politely. Crossing every intersection in New York…
On November 26, 1783 - the day the British finally evacuated New York - General George Washington rode down Broadway with New York Governor George Clinton, amid the applause of…
Lord Acton wrote that Lafayette taught his compatriots the American "theory of revolution, not their theory of government - their cutting, not their sewing." Gouverneur Morris told George Washington that…
John Laurens didn't live to see the end of the American Revolution. He died at age 27, killed by the British ten months after Yorktown - which was only recognized in…
The earliest surviving letter by Hamilton is dated November 11, 1769. It was written by 12-year-old Alexander, who had lost his mother a year earlier, to his friend (half-brother?) Edward Stevens, who…
When the Organ Rehearsal was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1885, a dealer offered to purchase it on condition that Lerolle cut it in half, discarding the part "where there is…
The opening number of Hamilton: An American Musical, "Alexander Hamilton," has brief references to every important aspect of Hamilton's life and character: his being illegitimate and an orphan, his ambition, his constant rushing, his…
How does a fifty-something opera fan fall in love with a hip-hop Broadway show? Not easily. The first clip I heard from Hamilton: An American Musical was the opening number,…
This delightful painting is a relatively recent acquisition - too recent to be in my color-plate book of the National Gallery's highlights, so it was a serendipitous discovery when I visited. What…