The Gotham Center is a public educational organization devoted to the history of New York at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Mike Wallace founded the Center in 2000, inspired by the popularity of his Pulitzer-winning book, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, co-authored with Edwin Burrows. The Center's mission is to make New York City's rich past more accessible to citizens and scholars, teachers and students, locals and out-of-towners. To that end, we regularly bring together professional historians, amateur buffs, museum curators, archivists, librarians, educators, filmmakers, and preservationists in a commitment to providing free access to the best and most interesting developments in the field. We hope to entertain and to encourage critical thinking about the present through constant exploration of the past.