Travel in Time: Conversations with New York’s Past

What if you could sit down with the people who shaped New York, and simply ask them why?

In this companion to Travel in Time in New York, history teacher and TEDx speaker Dan Blanchard imagines ten fictional conversations with the figures behind ten real New York locations, bringing readers face-to-face with the passion, courage, ambition, and contradiction that built the Empire State.

Talk racing history with Marty Himes in his backyard museum on Long Island. Sit with Theodore Roosevelt on the porch at Sagamore Hill as he explains how a sickly boy became "the man in the arena." Walk the churchyard at East Setauket with a spy who took his secrets to the grave, and stand with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis inside the Grand Central Terminal she helped save from the wrecking ball. Listen to Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Kent argue, in the same breath, why the rule of law matters more than any one of them. Hear the side of the story history rarely gives Mary Mallon, the woman the newspapers turned into "Typhoid Mary." Watch Benjamin Franklin realize, decades too early, that he's right about American unity. Ride into battle with Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold at Fort Ticonderoga, then sit with Arnold again at Saratoga, wounded and unacknowledged, in the moments before ambition curdles into betrayal. And finally, stand at an overlook above the Hudson Valley with Deganawida, the Peacemaker, whose Great Law of Peace helped inspire the very idea of American government.

Each chapter blends narrative, dialogue, and reflection, closing with leadership takeaways, discussion questions, and a travel tip so you can visit the actual site yourself.

These conversations are fiction. The history, the leadership, and the lessons are not.

History is not just something we read about. It's something we can still walk through, climb, and experience.