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We’ll trace modern NYC from its days as the greatest manufacturing hub the world had ever seen to the financialized city of today. The tour centers on Cortlandt Street’s former “Radio Row,” Lower Manhattan’s once-thriving panoply of electronics shops and shacks. We’ll discuss the people who gave Radio Row its “amazingly human quality,” in Pete Hamill’s words, and those, like Jane Jacobs, who recognized its singular value. We’ll cover the 1960s battle over Lower Manhattan's fate, which ended in the stunning demolition of Radio Row and the rise of the Twin Towers. We’ll also examine how finance - exemplified by David and Nelson Rockefeller - shaped the city’s built environment, architecture, and direction. The walk will be about 90 minutes, mostly shaded, beginning in Battery Park City and concluding at the foot of 1 World Trade Center.