Best of the Web “A History of New York in 50 Objects” If you ask
50 people “What happened?” you will likely get 50 slightly
different stories. The facts and the context of the story may be
the same, but how one relates to the facts and the context
determines one’s own version of the story. So there is something
to the notion of there’s my version, there’s your version and
there’s the truth. The New York Times enlisted historians and
museum curators to find 50 objects that could embody the story
of New York. They included a 13,000-year-old mastodon tusk that
was discovered in the Bronx in 1891; a boombox like the one
Radio Raheem carried everywhere in Spike Lee’s movie “Do the
Right Thing”; and a jar of dust from the 9/11 site where two jet
planes were flown into the World Trade Center towers by
terrorists. Though inanimate, the objects provide a glimpse into
the history and culture of New York City. With so many new
methods and media for storytelling, “Story(us)” was founded in
the belief that shared stories