New York Council Resists Renaming Effort to Honor Evacuation Day

Evacuation Day was New York’s biggest holiday in the 19th century. Today, the anniversary of the British evacuation of New York in 1783 has been so forgotten that City Council lawyers are resisting efforts to name a street after the historical event the holiday commemorates.

The British departure, after seven dismal years of occupation, was celebrated with mayoral sanction for the last time in 1916. On Nov. 25 of that year, about 60 uniformed veterans of the Old Guard of the City of New York rode the subway from their Midtown armory to City Hall and marched down Broadway for a flag-raising ceremony.

“New York, once more, was part of America,” Kevin Baker, a novelist and historian, said of the evacuation.