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Michael Heidelberger

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Michael Heidelberger ForMemRS (April 29, 1888 – June 25, 1991) was an American immunologist , often regarded as the father of modern immunology. He and Oswald Avery showed that the polysaccharides of pneumococcus are antigens , enabling him to show that antibodies are proteins . He spent most his early career at Columbia University and comparable time in his later years on the faculty of New York University . In 1934 and 1936 he received the Guggenheim Fellowship . In 1967 he received the National Medal of Science , and then he earned the Lasker Award for basic medical research in 1953 and again in 1978. His papers are held at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.

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94-581: Heidelberger was born in 1888 in New York City to a Jewish couple, David and Fannie Campe Heidelberger, a traveling salesman and a homemaker respectively. An older brother had died shortly after birth; a younger brother, Charles, was born 21 months after Michael. His paternal grandfather, also named Michael, was a German Jew who had emigrated to the United States in the early 1840s. Heidelberger's father had only an elementary school education, and

188-579: A "pigheaded idea". He experimented at home by mixing medicines and the very basic ingredients included in children's chemistry sets of the time, until he began his formal training in botany, zoology, physics, and chemistry at the Ethical Culture School , a private high school on New York's Upper West Side founded by the Ethical Culture Society, a Humanist religious movement of which his parents were members. He maintained

282-491: A B flat and an A clarinet, all of his life, taking them with him wherever he went to join in chamber music performances at conferences or at the homes of friends. When Heidelberger entered Columbia University in 1905, his family moved to the Upper West Side so that he could live nearer to the school. He resided there for the rest of his long life. He received all of his academic degrees from Columbia, culminating with

376-651: A Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1911. His dissertation dealt with quinazoline analogs, alkaloids that his adviser, Marston Taylor Bogert , hoped—wrongly, as Heidelberger proved—would produce useful dyes when combined with phthalic acid . As a student he supported himself by selling Virginia hams to hotels and wholesale grocers around the city on Friday afternoons, earning up to $ 50 per week, and by teaching analytical chemistry under Irving Langmuir at Stevens Institute in Hoboken, New Jersey . Urged on by his parents, Heidelberger after graduation with his Ph.D. arranged for

470-409: A connection with the school throughout his life, inviting student groups to visit his laboratory every year. Heidelberger loved music and started playing the clarinet in the high school orchestra. Heidelberger was talented enough that concert musicians encouraged him to consider a professional career in music. Instead, it became his "chief relaxation." He played the same two handmade wood instruments,

564-631: A decade between Irish immigrants and Black people for work. Rioters burned the Colored Orphan Asylum to the ground. At least 120 people were killed. Eleven Black men were lynched over five days, and the riots forced hundreds of Blacks to flee. The Black population in Manhattan fell below 10,000 by 1865. The White working class had established dominance. It was one of the worst incidents of civil unrest in American history . In 1886,

658-678: A gesture against increasing antisemitism, he announced his retirement." According to his Nobel biography: "Expressions of confidence by the Faculty, by his students and by the Minister failed to shake the fifty-three year old scientist in his decision to resign. He lived on in retirement in Munich....Dazzling offers both at home and abroad were alike rejected by him." His only research was with assistants who telephoned their results. Despite pleas for him to move to Jerusalem or to Switzerland earlier in

752-536: A leading research university in the United States. Heidelberger took their advice and in 1911 went to Zürich to work for a year in the laboratory of the organic chemist and future Nobel Laureate Richard Willstätter at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule . There he perfected the synthesis of cyclooctatetraene , an important intermediate in organic research. Willstätter helped his somewhat impecunious American student by sharing

846-771: A much more potent antiserum to meningitis in infants, as well as a simple but effective vaccine against several forms of pneumonia, which was successfully tested among Army Air Force recruits in 1944. Upon his retirement from Columbia in 1954, Heidelberger moved to the Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University , and in 1964 to the New York University School of Medicine . There he continued his research on pneumococcal polysaccharides and their cross-reactions with various types of antisera, always in pursuit of his lifelong objective to relate chemical structure to immunological specificity, working full-time until

940-523: A part of the colony of New York . It became a center of slavery , with 42% of households enslaving Africans by 1730. Most were domestic slaves ; others were hired out as labor. Slavery became integrally tied to New York's economy through the labor of slaves throughout the port, and the banking and shipping industries trading with the American South . During construction in Foley Square in

1034-519: A reputation as a despotic leader. He instituted regulations on liquor sales, attempted to assert control over the Dutch Reformed Church , and blocked other religious groups from establishing houses of worship. In 1664, unable to summon any significant resistance, Stuyvesant surrendered New Amsterdam to English troops, led by Colonel Richard Nicolls , without bloodshed. The terms of the surrender permitted Dutch residents to remain in

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1128-531: A result of Sandy, and the economic losses in New York City were estimated to be roughly $ 19 billion. The disaster spawned long-term efforts towards infrastructural projects to counter climate change and rising seas, with $ 15 billion in federal funding received through 2022 towards those resiliency efforts. In March 2020, the first case of COVID-19 in the city was confirmed. With its population density and its extensive exposure to global travelers,

1222-485: A speech denying the request, which was paraphrased on the front page of the New York Daily News as "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD." The Municipal Assistance Corporation was formed and granted oversight authority over the city's finances. While a resurgence in the financial industry greatly improved the city's economic health in the 1980s, New York's crime rate continued to increase through that decade and into

1316-795: A telegram from his father relating an offer of a position of Fellow of the Rockefeller Institute, conditional upon a personal interview and approval by the institute's director, Simon Flexner . Heidelberger passed muster, and in September 1912 began working in Walter Abraham Jacobs ' laboratory on a derivative of hexamethylene tetramine , a complex that seemed to prolong the life of monkeys suffering from polio , and that Flexner hoped could be adapted for use in humans. Results appeared promising at first, but Heidelberger and Jacobs later attributed them to loss of virulence of

1410-492: A visit with his former family physician, Samuel J. Meltzer , who had seen him through typhoid fever as a young child and who had since become the first chair of the Department of Physiology at the newly founded Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research. Meltzer curtly advised Heidelberger that he ought not to go into science, because "science is no profession for a poor man's son." Heidelberger quickly realized that Meltzer

1504-706: A young lady, Nina Tachau. They were married in 1916 to the strains of a wedding march composed by Heidelberger. She was a writer and activist for the New York chapter of the League of Women Voters and, during the 1940s, for the American Association for the United Nations. After her death from cancer in 1946, Heidelberger continued her work on behalf of the United Nations , and was a member of

1598-419: Is a global center of finance and commerce , culture , technology , entertainment and media , academics and scientific output , the arts and fashion , and, as home to the headquarters of the United Nations , international diplomacy . With an estimated population in 2023 of 8,258,035 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km ), the city is the most densely populated major city in

1692-467: Is an established safe haven for global investors. As of 2023 , New York City is the most expensive city in the world for expatriates and has by a wide margin the highest U.S. city residential rents; and Fifth Avenue is the most expensive shopping street in the world. New York City is home by a significant margin to the highest number of billionaires , individuals of ultra-high net worth (greater than US$ 30 million), and millionaires of any city in

1786-552: Is the most populous city in the United States , located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors . The city comprises five boroughs , each coextensive with a respective county . The city is the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area , the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. by both population and urban area . New York

1880-810: The Atlantic port to the agricultural markets and commodities of the North American interior via the Hudson River and the Great Lakes . Local politics became dominated by Tammany Hall , a political machine supported by Irish and German immigrants . In 1831, New York University was founded. Several prominent American literary figures lived in New York during the 1830s and 1840s, including William Cullen Bryant , Washington Irving , Herman Melville , Rufus Wilmot Griswold , John Keese , Nathaniel Parker Willis , and Edgar Allan Poe . Members of

1974-582: The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons . His role as consulting chemist in its department of medicine suited his generous temperament. The door to his office, which he likened to "42nd Street and Broadway" because of its traffic, was open for anyone, especially junior researchers, to stop by, discuss matters of science or politics, and seek his advice. During his 27 years there he used his unique knowledge of polysaccharide antigen chemistry to develop methods, in particular

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2068-909: The Crown , with as many as 10,000 escaped slaves crowded into the city during the British occupation, the largest such community on the continent. When the British forces evacuated New York at the close of the war in 1783, they transported thousands of freedmen for resettlement in Nova Scotia , England, and the Caribbean . The attempt at a peaceful solution to the war took place at the Conference House on Staten Island between American delegates, including Benjamin Franklin , and British general Lord Howe on September 11, 1776. Shortly after

2162-742: The New York City Fire Department and 71 law enforcement officers. The area was rebuilt with a new World Trade Center , the National September 11 Memorial and Museum , and other new buildings and infrastructure, including the World Trade Center Transportation Hub , the city's third-largest hub. The new One World Trade Center is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere and the seventh-tallest building in

2256-1000: The Northwest Passage to the Orient for the Dutch East India Company . He sailed up what the Dutch called North River (now the Hudson River), named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange . Hudson claimed the region for the Dutch East India Company. In 1614, the area between Cape Cod and Delaware Bay was claimed by the Netherlands and called Nieuw-Nederland (' New Netherland '). The first non–Native American inhabitant of what became New York City

2350-576: The Statue of Liberty , a gift from France , was dedicated in New York Harbor. The statue welcomed 14 million immigrants as they came to the U.S. via Ellis Island by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is a symbol of the United States and American ideals of liberty and peace. In 1898, the City of New York was formed with the consolidation of Brooklyn (until then a separate city),

2444-709: The Stonewall riots were a series of violent protests by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village . They are widely considered to be the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights . Wayne R. Dynes , author of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality , wrote that drag queens were

2538-551: The precipitin reaction, for isolating pure antibodies, which he proved were protein and which he measured in absolute units of weight for the first time. He and his collaborators Forrest E. Kendall (1899–1987) and Elvin A. Kabat formulated a quantitative theory of precipitin and other immune reactions, which showed that such reactions unfolded in three distinct stages and which posited that antigens and antibodies were bi-or multivalent, meaning that they could combine in varying proportions. These findings enabled Heidelberger to develop

2632-612: The steamship General Slocum caught fire in the East River , killing 1,021 people. In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire , the city's worst industrial disaster, killed 146 garment workers and spurred the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and major improvements in factory safety standards. New York's non-White population was 36,620 in 1890. New York City

2726-579: The waterfronts since Dutch colonial times; reclamation is most prominent in Lower Manhattan, with developments such as Battery Park City in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of the natural relief in topography has been evened out, especially in Manhattan. Richard Willst%C3%A4tter Richard Martin Willstätter FRS(For) H FRSE ( German pronunciation: [ˈʁɪçaʁt ˈvɪlˌʃtɛtɐ] , 13 August 1872 – 3 August 1942)

2820-684: The (Nazi) Berlin State Police confiscated all the copies that had already been printed. In 1939 Willstätter emigrated to Switzerland . He spent the last three years of his life there in Muralto near Locarno writing his autobiography. He died of a heart attack in 1942. Willstätter's autobiography, Aus meinem Leben , was not published in German until 1949. It was translated into English as From My Life in 1965. In 1903, he married Sophie Leser, who died in 1908. They had two children. In 1965,

2914-645: The 1930s, Willstätter did not flee from Germany until 1939. In 1933, the Centralverein (Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith) commissioned a book entitled Juden im deutschen Kulturbereich: ein Sammelwerk or 'Jews in the Realm of German Culture'. Amos Elon described it as a list of "Jewish 'achievements' and Jewish 'achievers,' which included Jewish luminaries in literature and

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3008-552: The 1990s, the African Burying Ground was discovered; the cemetery included 10,000 to 20,000 graves of colonial-era Africans, some enslaved and some free. The 1735 trial and acquittal in Manhattan of John Peter Zenger , who had been accused of seditious libel after criticizing colonial governor William Cosby , helped to establish freedom of the press in North America . In 1754, Columbia University

3102-538: The 19th century, the city was transformed by both commercial and residential development relating to its status as a national and international trading center , as well as by European immigration, respectively. The city adopted the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 , which expanded the city street grid to encompass almost all of Manhattan. The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal through central New York connected

3196-700: The British occupation began, the Great Fire of New York destroyed nearly 500 buildings, about a quarter of the structures in the city, including Trinity Church . In January 1785, the assembly of the Congress of the Confederation made New York City the national capital. New York was the last capital of the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation and the first capital under the Constitution of

3290-530: The Bronx , and Staten Island . Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District, Manhattan , New York City has been called both the world's premier financial and fintech center and the most economically powerful city in the world. As of 2022 , the New York metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan economy in the world , with a gross metropolitan product of over US$ 2.16 trillion. If

3384-575: The County of New York (which then included parts of the Bronx), the County of Richmond, and the western portion of the County of Queens. The opening of the New York City Subway in 1904, first built as separate private systems, helped bind the new city together. Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the city became a world center for industry, commerce, and communication. In 1904,

3478-603: The Dutch West India Company relinquished its monopoly over the fur trade, leading to growth in the production and trade of food, timber, tobacco, and slaves (particularly with the Dutch West Indies ). In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant began his tenure as the last Director-General of New Netherland. During his tenure, the population of New Netherland grew from 2,000 to 8,000. Stuyvesant has been credited with improving law and order; however, he earned

3572-544: The Dutch colonial Director-General Peter Minuit , as charged by the Dutch West India Company , purchased the island of Manhattan from the Canarsie , a small Lenape band, for "the value of 60 guilders " (about $ 900 in 2018). A frequently told but disproved legend claims that Manhattan was purchased for $ 24 worth of glass beads. Following the purchase, New Amsterdam grew slowly. To attract settlers,

3666-613: The Dutch instituted the patroon system in 1628, whereby wealthy Dutchmen ( patroons , or patrons) who brought 50 colonists to New Netherland would be awarded land, local political autonomy, and rights to participate in the lucrative fur trade. This program had little success. Since 1621, the Dutch West India Company had operated as a monopoly in New Netherland, on authority granted by the Dutch States General . In 1639–1640, in an effort to bolster economic growth,

3760-597: The Native Americans and epidemics brought on by contact with the Europeans caused sizeable population losses for the Lenape between 1660 and 1670. By 1700, the Lenape population had diminished to 200. New York experienced several yellow fever epidemics in the 18th century, losing ten percent of its population in 1702 alone. In the early 18th century, New York grew in importance as a trading port while as

3854-480: The New York metropolitan area were its own country , it would have the tenth-largest economy in the world . Despite having a 24/7 rapid transit system , New York also leads the world in urban automobile traffic congestion . The city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization of their listed companies: the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq . New York City

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3948-716: The Revolutionary War and escaped slaves, a significant free-Black population gradually developed in Manhattan. The New York Manumission Society worked for abolition and established the African Free School to educate Black children. It was not until 1827 that slavery was completely abolished in the state . Free Blacks struggled with discrimination and interracial abolitionist activism continued. New York City's population jumped from 123,706 in 1820 (10,886 of whom were Black and of which 518 were enslaved) to 312,710 by 1840 (16,358 of whom were Black). Also in

4042-554: The Technical School there. At age 18 he entered the University of Munich to study science and stayed for the next fifteen years. He was in the Department of Chemistry, first as a student of Alfred Einhorn —he received his doctorate in 1894 – then as a faculty member. His doctoral thesis was on the structure of cocaine . Willstätter continued his research into other alkaloids and synthesized several of them. In 1896 he

4136-465: The U.S. delegation to meetings of the World Federation of United Nations Organizations in Prague, Bangkok, and other cities. He met his second wife Charlotte Rosen at a concert. She was the violist in a Mozart trio in which Heidelberger performed. They married in 1956. For ten years prior to her death in 1988, he took care of her at home while she suffered from Alzheimer's disease . After the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, Heidelberger

4230-415: The United States . As the U.S. capital, New York City hosted the inauguration of the first President, George Washington , and the first Congress , at Federal Hall on Wall Street . Congress drafted the Bill of Rights there. The Supreme Court held its first organizational sessions in New York in 1790. In 1790, for the first time, New York City surpassed Philadelphia as the nation's largest city. At

4324-436: The United States . As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York City, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. In 2021, the city was home to nearly 3.1 million residents born outside the U.S., the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. New York City traces its origins to Fort Amsterdam and a trading post founded on Manhattan Island by Dutch colonists around 1624. The settlement

4418-416: The United States. New York City has more than double the population of Los Angeles , the nation's second-most populous city. With more than 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York City is one of the world's most populous megacities . The city and its metropolitan area are the premier gateway for legal immigration to

4512-400: The age of 100, and then part-time until his death in 1991 at the age of 103. Heidelberger received fifteen honorary degrees and 46 medals, citations, and awards for his work, including two Albert Lasker Awards in 1953 and 1978, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize in 1977, the National Medal of Science from President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967, and the Bronze Medal of the City of Paris in 1964. He

4606-432: The area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême (New Angoulême ). A Spanish expedition, led by the Portuguese captain Estêvão Gomes sailing for Emperor Charles V , arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River , which he named Río de San Antonio ('Saint Anthony's River'). In 1609, the English explorer Henry Hudson rediscovered New York Harbor while searching for

4700-417: The arts, in Jewish as well as Christian theology, in politics, warfare, industry, and the natural sciences ... a vast, meticulously detailed encyclopedia of Jewish contributions to German life and culture during the past two centuries." The oversized book ran to 1,060 pages and comprised thousands of entries and names. Willstätter wrote the introduction. However, not surprisingly, in December 1934

4794-493: The beginning of the 1990s. By the mid-1990s, crime rates started to drop dramatically due to revised police strategies, improving economic opportunities, gentrification , and new residents, both American transplants and new immigrants from Asia and Latin America. New York City's population exceeded 8 million for the first time in the 2000 United States census ; further records were set in 2010 , and 2020 U.S. censuses. Important new sectors, such as Silicon Alley , emerged in

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4888-534: The business elite lobbied for the establishment of Central Park , which in 1857 became the first landscaped park in an American city. The Great Irish Famine brought a large influx of Irish immigrants, of whom more than 200,000 were living in New York by 1860, representing over a quarter of the city's population. Extensive immigration from the German provinces meant that Germans comprised another 25% of New York's population by 1860. Democratic Party candidates were consistently elected to local office, increasing

4982-510: The city from New Jersey. The East River—a tidal strait —flows from Long Island Sound and separates the Bronx and Manhattan from Long Island. The Harlem River , another tidal strait between the East and Hudson rivers, separates most of Manhattan from the Bronx. The Bronx River , which flows through the Bronx and Westchester County , is the only entirely freshwater river in the city. The city's land has been altered substantially by human intervention, with considerable land reclamation along

5076-439: The city rapidly replaced Wuhan , China as the global epicenter of the pandemic during the early phase, straining the city's healthcare infrastructure. Through March 2023, New York City recorded more than 80,000 deaths from COVID-19-related complications. New York City is situated in the northeastern United States , in southeastern New York State, approximately halfway between Washington, D.C. and Boston . Its location at

5170-447: The city's economy. The advent of Y2K was celebrated with fanfare in Times Square . New York City suffered the bulk of the economic damage and largest loss of human life in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks . Two of the four airliners hijacked that day were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, resulting in the collapse of both buildings and the deaths of 2,753 people, including 343 first responders from

5264-615: The city's ties to the South and its dominant party. In 1861, Mayor Fernando Wood called on the aldermen to declare independence from Albany and the United States after the South seceded, but his proposal was not acted on. Anger at new military conscription laws during the American Civil War (1861–1865), which spared wealthier men who could afford to hire a substitute, led to the Draft Riots of 1863 , whose most visible participants were ethnic Irish working class. The draft riots deteriorated into attacks on New York's elite, followed by attacks on Black New Yorkers after fierce competition for

5358-456: The colony and allowed for religious freedom. In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda after the Second Anglo-Dutch War , the victorious Dutch decided to keep the nascent plantation colony of what is now Suriname , which they had gained from the English, and in return the English kept New Amsterdam. The settlement was promptly renamed "New York" after the Duke of York (the future King James II and VII). The duke gave part of

5452-442: The colony to proprietors George Carteret and John Berkeley . On August 24, 1673, during the Third Anglo-Dutch War , Anthony Colve of the Dutch navy seized New York at the behest of Cornelis Evertsen the Youngest and rechristened it "New Orange" after William III , the Prince of Orange . The Dutch soon returned the island to England under the Treaty of Westminster of November 1674. Several intertribal wars among

5546-476: The compilation of a list of Jewish "achievers" and "achievements" in all fields. The project, pathetic only in retrospect, included Jewish luminaries in literature and the arts, in Jewish as well as Christian theology, in politics, warfare, industry, and the natural sciences.  The result, entitled Jews in the Realm of German Culture, was a vast, meticulously detailed encyclopedia of Jewish contributions to German life and culture during

5640-553: The cost of laboratory supplies with him, arranging that when expensive materials, such as silver nitrate , were to be bought, it was his turn to pay, while Heidelberger took turns buying cheaper materials like sulfuric acid . "Better training than that you couldn't have," Heidelberger summed up his experience with Willstätter. They remained friends for three decades, through Willstätter's flight from Germany in 1938 and until his death in Switzerland in 1942. While visiting relatives in Germany on his return from Zürich, Heidelberger received

5734-417: The development of large housing tracts in eastern Queens and Nassau County , with Wall Street leading America's place as the world's dominant economic power. The United Nations headquarters was completed in 1952, solidifying New York's global geopolitical influence, and the rise of abstract expressionism in the city precipitated New York's displacement of Paris as the center of the art world. In 1969,

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5828-406: The end of 1790, the national capital was moved to Philadelphia . During the 19th century, New York City's population grew from 60,000 to 3.43 million. Under New York State's gradual emancipation act of 1799, children of slave mothers were to be eventually liberated but to be held in indentured servitude until their mid-to-late twenties. Together with slaves freed by their masters after

5922-503: The enemy's gases. Thirty million were manufactured by 1917 and Willstätter was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class. In 1916 he returned to Munich as the successor to his mentor Baeyer. During the 1920s Willstätter investigated the mechanisms of enzyme reactions and did much to establish that enzymes are chemical substances, not biological organisms. However, to the end of his life he refused to accept that enzymes were proteins. In 1924 Willstätter's career came to "a tragic end when, as

6016-457: The founding of a Dutch fur trading settlement on Governors Island . In 1625, construction was started on a citadel and Fort Amsterdam , later called Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam), on present-day Manhattan Island. The colony of New Amsterdam extended from the southern tip of Manhattan to modern-day Wall Street , where a 12-foot (3.7 m) wooden stockade was built in 1653 to protect against Native American and English raids. In 1626,

6110-410: The ice (and its subsequent retreat) contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a relatively shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers. The Hudson River flows through the Hudson Valley into New York Bay . Between New York City and Troy, New York , the river is an estuary . The Hudson River separates

6204-434: The last American stronghold in Manhattan, causing George Washington and his forces to retreat across the Hudson River to New Jersey , pursued by British forces. After the battle, in which the Americans were defeated, the British made the city their military and political base of operations in North America. The city was a haven for Loyalist refugees and escaped slaves who joined the British lines for freedom promised by

6298-419: The most populous urbanized area in the world in the early 1920s, overtaking London . The metropolitan area surpassed 10 million in the early 1930s, becoming the first megacity . The Great Depression saw the election of reformer Fiorello La Guardia as mayor and the fall of Tammany Hall after eighty years of political dominance. Returning World War II veterans created a post-war economic boom and

6392-437: The mouth of the Hudson River , which feeds into a naturally sheltered harbor and then into the Atlantic Ocean , has helped the city grow in significance as a trading port. Most of the city is built on the three islands of Long Island, Manhattan, and Staten Island. During the Wisconsin glaciation , 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City area was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet . The erosive forward movement of

6486-424: The name of national loyalty and security. He was also a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society . He published a scientific paper in every decade of the 20th century. Each year, Columbia University hosts a lecture in honor of Heidelberger and Elvin A. Kabat , his first PhD student. New York City New York , often called New York City or NYC ,

6580-485: The next two years developing a method for preparing large quantities of purified oxyhemoglobin , with its oxygen-carrying capacity intact, for Van Slyke's studies of the uptake and release of oxygen in the blood. When Karl Landsteiner , the famous Austrian immunologist and discoverer of human blood groups, arrived at the institute in 1922, Heidelberger embarked with him on studies of the antigenic properties of different types of hemoglobin . Throughout his life Heidelberger

6674-445: The only " transgender folks around" during the June 1969 Stonewall riots. The transgender community in New York City played a significant role in fighting for LGBT equality. In the 1970s, job losses due to industrial restructuring caused New York City to suffer from economic problems and rising crime rates. Growing fiscal deficits in 1975 led the city to appeal to the federal government for financial aid; President Gerald Ford gave

6768-486: The parasites that cause African sleeping sickness . Variants of tryparsamide , as Flexner named it, continue to be administered today. In 1953 the king of Belgium, colonial ruler of parts of Africa in which African sleeping sickness had been endemic, honored Heidelberger and Jacobs for their discovery. In 1921 Heidelberger transferred to the laboratory of Donald D. Van Slyke at the Rockefeller hospital, where he spent

6862-455: The past two centuries. The task was executed with overwhelming thoroughness by a committee of experts headed by Siegmund Kaznelson, well known during the Weimar period as an editor and publisher. The oversized book ran to 1,060 pages and comprised thousands of entries and names. Richard Willstätter, a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, wrote the introduction. To avoid possible misunderstandings,

6956-435: The rest of his career largely to pursuing the consequences of his and Avery's seminal discovery. He identified and analyzed the structure of different pneumococcal polysaccharides—over one hundred have since been found—as well as of other microorganisms, and studied their role in immune reactions. In 1927 he left the Rockefeller Institute to become head of the chemical laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital . A year later he moved to

7050-628: The school in Nuremberg he had attended named itself Willstätter-Gymnasium , in his honour. The prominence of German Jews and the contributions they made became fully apparent only after they were gone. In 1933, in a lastminute attempt to counter the Nazi threat, the traumatized leaders of the Centralverein (Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith), the most representative organization of assimilated German Jews, commissioned

7144-495: The specific type of pneumococcus and, with it, its virulence, consisted of polysaccharides , carbohydrate molecules made up of more than three monosaccharide units. Their discovery for the first time established a relationship between chemical constitution and immunological specificity of antigens, thereby putting the field of immunology on a firm biochemical footing. It also disproved prevailing assumptions among scientists that only proteins could act as antigens. Heidelberger devoted

7238-405: The table, and were taught French by a nanny during outings to nearby Central Park . Later in life he came to appreciate his early training in languages that were central to scientific discourse during the first half of the twentieth century. Heidelberger decided at age eight that he wanted to be a chemist, for reasons he could never quite articulate or recall, but which he later judged no more than

7332-537: The virus. In the summer of 1915, after attending officer training camp in Plattsburgh, New York , for a proposed volunteer army (an outgrowth of the movement to prepare the United States for entry into World War I ) and earning a commendation as a marksman, Heidelberger traveled to Lake Kezar in Maine for a vacation. After performing Pergolese's Nina there, his piano accompanist exclaimed, "meet Nina," and in walked

7426-529: The world by pinnacle height, with its spire reaching a symbolic 1,776 feet (541.3 m), a reference to the year of U.S. independence . The Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan began on September 17, 2011, receiving global attention and popularizing the Occupy movement against social and economic inequality worldwide. New York City

7520-564: The world. In 1664, New York was named in honor of the Duke of York (later King James II of England ). James's elder brother, King Charles II , appointed the Duke as proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland , including the city of New Amsterdam , when the Kingdom of England seized it from Dutch control. In the pre-Columbian era , the area of present-day New York City

7614-422: Was Juan Rodriguez , a merchant from Santo Domingo who arrived in Manhattan during the winter of 1613–14, trapping for pelts and trading with the local population as a representative of the Dutch colonists. A permanent European presence near New York Harbor was established in 1624, making New York the 12th-oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States , with

7708-566: Was heavily affected by Hurricane Sandy in late October 2012. Sandy's impacts included flooding that led to the days-long shutdown of the subway system and flooding of all East River subway tunnels and of all road tunnels entering Manhattan except the Lincoln Tunnel . The New York Stock Exchange closed for two days due to weather for the first time since the Great Blizzard of 1888 . At least 43 people died in New York City as

7802-534: Was a German organic chemist whose study of the structure of plant pigments, chlorophyll included, won him the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry . Willstätter was born into a Jewish family in Karlsruhe . He was the son of Maxwell (Max) Willstätter, a textile merchant, and his wife, Sophie Ulmann. He went to school at the Karlsruhe Gymnasium and, when his family moved to Nuremberg , he attended

7896-596: Was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the New York Academy of Medicine, as well as an officer of the Légion d'honneur of France. He served twice as president of the American Association of Immunologists, in 1947 and 1949. Both times his presidential addresses urged scientists to resist nuclear armament and restrictions on free exchanges among scientists across national boundaries imposed in

7990-602: Was a prime destination in the early 20th century for Blacks during the Great Migration from the American South, and by 1916, New York City had the largest urban African diaspora in North America. The Harlem Renaissance of literary and cultural life flourished during the era of Prohibition . The larger economic boom generated construction of skyscrapers competing in height. New York City became

8084-571: Was commissioned in the Sanitary Corps and assigned to the Rockefeller Institute. He continued to work with Jacobs, a collaboration that lasted more than nine years and produced 44 papers. They synthesized many chemotherapeutical drugs, namely aromatic arsenicals, for the treatment for infectious diseases, in particular syphilis and African sleeping sickness . In 1919 they developed a variant of Paul Ehrlich 's "magic bullet" for syphilis, Salvarsan , which proved effective against trypanosomes ,

8178-862: Was founded. The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October 1765, as the Sons of Liberty organization emerged in the city and skirmished over the next ten years with British troops stationed there. The Battle of Long Island , the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War , was fought in August 1776 within modern-day Brooklyn. A British rout of the Continental Army at the Battle of Fort Washington in November 1776 eliminated

8272-468: Was here that Willstätter showed that chlorophyll was a mixture of two compounds, chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b . He lived in the Dahlem neighborhood near other scientists. In 1915 his friend Fritz Haber asked him to join in the development of poison gases. Willstätter would not work on poisons but agreed to work on protection. He and his coworkers developed a three layer filter that absorbed all of

8366-534: Was inhabited by Algonquians , including the Lenape . Their homeland, known as Lenapehoking , included the present-day areas of Staten Island , Manhattan , the Bronx , the western portion of Long Island (including Brooklyn and Queens ), and the Lower Hudson Valley . The first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano . He claimed

8460-583: Was named Lecturer and in 1902 Professor extraordinarius (professor without a chair). In 1905 he left Munich to become professor at the ETH Zürich and there he worked on the plant pigment chlorophyll . He first determined its empirical formula. In 1912 he became professor of chemistry at the University of Berlin and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry , studying the structure of pigments of flowers and fruits. It

8554-468: Was named New Amsterdam in 1626 and was chartered as a city in 1653. The city came under English control in 1664 and was temporarily renamed New York after King Charles II granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York , before being permanently renamed New York in November 1674. New York City was the U.S. capital from 1785 until 1790. The modern city was formed by the 1898 consolidation of its five boroughs : Manhattan , Brooklyn , Queens ,

8648-538: Was on the road for six months out of the year selling window curtains. It fell to Heidelberger's mother to take charge of the household and of Michael's education. She had attended a private girls' school in Norfolk, Virginia, and after graduation had stayed with relatives in Germany for a year. Until Michael was twelve, she taught him and his younger brother at home. They attended classical concerts, had to speak German at

8742-442: Was proud to state that he first learned immunology from Landsteiner. During this time Heidelberger was approached by the bacteriologist Oswald Avery to help him elucidate the chemistry of the "specific soluble substance" Avery and Alphonse R. Dochez had found in the spherical capsule that envelops pneumococcus and many other species of bacteria. In 1923, Heidelberger and Avery reported that this capsular substance, which determined

8836-410: Was testing his commitment to science, and he insisted that he wanted to become a chemist. Meltzer relented, and sent him on to meet with the institute's chemists, Phoebus A. T. Levene , Donald D. Van Slyke , and Walter A. Jacobs , whom Heidelberger found assembled over tea. They advised him to go to Europe for postdoctoral training, then a requirement for any scientist who wanted to find a position at

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