Our Story

Alongside founders Antony Fisher and William J. Casey, MI opens its doors as the International Center for Economic Policy Studies (ICEPS) on February 25.

William Hammett, once an investment banker, becomes president of Manhattan Institute. “What we are trying to create is a place where the best thinking of free-market scholars can be attractively packaged, intelligently presented, and vigorously defended,” he states. Hammett goes on to discover leaders like Charles Murray and Peter Huber.

MI begins publishing its Manhattan Report on Economic Policy, a monthly periodical featuring briefs by leading market economists and analysts.

ICEPS is renamed the “Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.”

One of Manhattan Institute's proudest moments in 1983 came on June 27 when The State Against Blacks made its highly successful prime-time debut on New York area public TV station WNET. The documentary film presented economist Walter Williams's thesis that government policies have done more to impede than to encourage black economic progress.

Manhattan Institute hosts its third annual Manhattan Forum—featuring one of the world's foremost economists, Nobel laureate Milton Friedman. Friedman brings his usual intellectual grace and style to consider: "What is monetarism, and has it failed?"

Charles Murray publishes his landmark book Losing Ground, which paves the way for federal welfare reform in 1996 by documenting how open-ended welfare benefits incentivize self-destructive behavior. Sources claim that Losing Ground was easily the most talked-about public-policy book of its time.

Warren Brookes publishes The Economy in Mind, a book examining how supply-side economic policies can reduce inflation and increase productivity in the United States.

Timothy Roth and Bruce Bartlett publish The Supply-Side Solution, which declares in its first sentence: "As accepted economic theory, orthodox Keynesian economics is dead."

MI fellow James Ring Adams publishes Secrets of the Tax Revolt.

Timothy Roth and Bruce Bartlett publish The Supply-Side Solution, which declares in its first sentence: "As accepted economic theory, orthodox Keynesian economics is dead."

Manhattan Institute initiates its first-annual Walter B. Wriston lecture series in honor of President's Circle, Chairman's Circle, and Trustees' Circle members to thank them for their generosity. Walter B. Wriston was a banker, author, government adviser, former chairman and CEO of Citicorp,and member of MI’s board of trustees. The Wriston Lecture has since been delivered annually in New York City, with honorees drawn from the worlds of government, the academy, religion, business, and the arts. In establishing the lecture, the trustees of the Manhattan Institute—who serve as the selection committee—have sought to inform and enrich intellectual debate surrounding the great public issues of our day and to recognize individuals whose ideas or accomplishments have left a mark on their world.

MI establishes the Center for Education Innovation (CEI), an organization devoted to transforming public education by shifting accountability from bureaucracies to schools as a means of creating public school choice.

Throughout the 1990s, MI education scholars start many successful alternative public schools in New York—schools that still exist and are among the city’s top-performing. Seymour Fliegel's Miracle in East Harlem, published in 1993, reveals one such inspiring story of how school choice turned kids' lives around in a tough New York neighborhood—and how it could revolutionize education across America. MI works closely with school officials to promote school choice nationwide.

MI founds its quarterly magazine, City Journal, as an intellectual and journalistic response to New York’s downward spiral and to the illness of the American city generally. Called “arguably America’s best magazine” by economist Thomas Sowell and “the great Fool Killer in the arena of urban policy” by novelist Tom Wolfe, City Journal has articulated and promoted ideas that have driven the urban renaissance of recent decades. The publication has, over the years, featured writers like James Taranto, Fred Siegel, Peter Salins, and more. City Journal today is run by Editor Brian C. Anderson, Senior Editor Steven Malanga, Managing Editor Paul Beston, Associate Editor Seth Barron, and Editor-at-Large Myron Magnet.

George Kelling publishes "Reclaiming the Subway" in City Journal's Winter 1991 issue, highlighting and explaining his broken windows theory. The article discusses how modern police work is required to save the system from vagrants, criminals, and their ardent defenders—because "if a broken window is left unrepaired, it signifies that no one cares." William Bratton, Chief of the New York City Transit Police Department, establishes three top priorities for his officers: stop the subway robberies, control fare beating, and restore order to the subway.

Myron Magnet becomes editor of City Journal, where he writes widely on society, economics, corporate management, intellectual history, literature, architecture, and America’s founding.

Irving Kristol delivers the Walter B. Wriston Lecture. In his speech—“The Culture Wars in Perspective”—Kristol argues, “the culture wars are about a kind of civilization we've bequeathed to our children, no less significant than the size of the national deficit we've bequeathed to our children.”

Lawrence J. Mone becomes the fourth president of MI. Previously, he served as a public-policy specialist, program director, and vice president at the Institute. He originally joined MI as an intern in 1982.

MI senior fellow George Kelling and Catherine Coles publish Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities, which argues that controlling disorderly behavior in public places is necessary to reduce more serious crime.

Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, in partnership with the Institute, publishes The Twenty-First Century City: Resurrecting Urban America—a book that describes urban revival and provides a road map for other cities across the country to follow. Manhattan Institute's Center for Civic Innovation (CCI) supports reform-minded mayors across the country, like Goldsmith, with studies and media promotion throughout the 1990s.

The New York Times features Manhattan Institute—highlighting its efforts thus far to research, advocate, and successfully implement policies in the fields of urban education, welfare, and housing. The article refers to MI as a "heterogeneous group of conservatives...that has pulled off the improbable feat of helping change the course of the country's most liberal big city."

As City Journal prepares its autumn issue for press, terrorists strike New York and Washington. The staff immediately starts recommissioning an entirely new issue organized around a post-9/11 world, with sections exploring security and counterterrorism, redeveloping New York, Islam, and the battle of ideas.

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, at the NYPD’s request, MI launched a policy division to advise the police on the development of a counterterrorism strategy. MI's Center for Policing Terrorism was led in large part by R.P. Eddy and Timothy Connors.

MI establishes its social entrepreneurship initiative. Directed by Howard Husock, MI vice president for research and publications, it combines research, writing, public speaking, and events on the role of nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations, with an award program which recognizes the best of America's new generation of nonprofit leaders.

Manhattan Institute launches its Alexander Hamilton Award Series, created to honor those individuals helping to foster the revitalization of America’s cities. Hamilton, like MI, was a fervent proponent of commerce and civic life. MI has since expanded the scope of the prize to celebrate leaders not just on the local level, but also at the state and federal levels, who have made remarkable things happen in the realms of public policy, culture, and philanthropy.

2001 President George W. Bush appoints Abigail Thernstorm, senior fellow at MI, to serve as Vice Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR). Abigail Thernstrom's 1987 book, Whose Votes Count? Affirmative Action and Minority Voting Rights, won four awards—including the American Bar Association's Certificate of Merit, and the Anisfield-Wolfprize for the best book on race and ethnicity.

Tom Wolfe writes on "how the Manhattan Institute changed New York City and America" in the New York Post. He notes how the Institute's emphasis on solid documentation and clear, energetic, nonpartisan prose helps generate new ideas with great consequences.

Florida sees aggregate improvements in K-12 education as a result of academic achievement and school choice policies enacted by Jeb Bush. Research and writing by senior fellow Marcus A. Winters—such as his "When Schools Compete: The Effects of Vouchers on Florida Public School Achievement" report—helps the state’s programs survive numerous legal and legislative challenges. Winters adds, "If minority children nationwide had made the same improvement as their counterparts in Florida, we would have closed the achievement gap nationally.

MI launches its Hayek Lecture and Book Prize Series, named in honor of Nobel laureate F. A. Hayek. The winner of the Hayek Book Prize (and its $50,000 award) is chosen by a selection committee of distinguished economists, journalists, and scholars. It was conceived and funded by Manhattan Institute trustee Tom Smith to recognize the influence of F.A. Hayek and to encourage other scholars to follow his example.

Manhattan Institute hosts President George W. Bush as he discusses the importance of the line-item veto and its role in supporting pro-growth policies.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg keynotes Manhattan Institute's "Thinking Big for NYC" panel.

Brian C. Anderson becomes editor of City Journal, MI’s cultural and political quarterly, where he writes extensively on social and political trends. Previously, he was senior editor of City Journal and a research associate at the American Enterprise Institute.

On November 13—a day before the start of a global summit on the financial-markets crisis—MI hosts President George W. Bush at Wall Street’s historic Federal Hall, where he delivers a major speech defending free markets and free trade. "The free market," President Bush says, "is more than an economic theory. It is an engine of social mobility—the highway to the American Dream."

MI hosts a forum with Vice President Dick Cheney to discuss free-trade agreements and foreign-intelligence surveillance. Of MI, Cheney says, "the scholars and fellows of the Institute have built one of the most impressive think tanks in the country. And you do more than dwell in the world of ideas—you know how to build a case for reform and how to set events on a new track."

City Journal magazine celebrates its 20th anniversary. Its special "The Past, Present, and Future of the City" issue reflects on two decades of largely positive urban-policy reform.

MI experts work with the Detroit Police Department, helping the Motor City implement Broken Windows policing (a long-standing focus of the Institute) to get a handle on its crime problem. Pictured above is MI senior fellow and Broken Windows author George Kelling.

MI's City Journal launches its "10 Blocks" podcast. Listen to the first episode, featuring a 30-second intro from host Brian C. Anderson. The "10 Blocks" podcast now averages 12,000 downloads per month. Subscribe on iTunes today.