Proyecrando Capacidades

New York
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by Thomas W. San tos

In the span of just a few centuries, what is now New York City went from a verdant wilderness on the edge of the known world to a sprawling megalopolis that commands international attention. Still, with all its size and frenetic energy, New Yorkers remain stubbornly sentimental about the city they call home. Painters, writers, and filmmakers have triedto capture its essence and appeal. But nothing compares to actually being there, walking the streets, and soaking in the unique, syncopated rhythm of the city. Unlike cities such as Rome or Beijing, New York cannot look back on millennia of development and history. Even so, unprecedented growth and prosperity over a relatively short time has raised New York to the level of the greatest cities ofcivilization. Concentrated into a relatively small space, “The City,” as people call it, is a world of commerce, imagination, diversity, and productivity. The city actually consists of five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. Yet, when people speak of New York City, they generally are talking about the island of Manhattan. This is where it started. This is wherethe vitality of the city is most evident. This is where the buildings scrape the sky.

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The History
There are many reasons why New York became the leading city that it is. The most compelling reason is its large, deep natural harbor. In the 1500s, European explorers marveled at the potential this protectedbody of water had as a seaport and trading center. Before the Europeans arrived, the area around what is now lower New York State, New Jersey, and Delaware was inhabited by the Lenape, an Algonquin-speaking nation of hunter-gatherers. According to the history books, the first European to set eyes on New York harbor was Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian explorer scouting the Atlantic coast ofAmerica in 1594 for the French crown. He apparently did not stay long, but the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge that connects Brooklyn to Staten Island is named for him. The first European to map this region in earnest was the English explorer Henry Hudson. He was working for the Dutch East India Company, which had contracted him to find a trading passage to Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic. In 1609,during his exploration of the Atlantic

coast, he sailed into New York Harbor and up what is now the Hudson River. He never found the passage, but the Dutch laid claim to the land he had explored. In 1613, they established a fur trading post on the extreme southern end of Manhattan island and later called it New Amsterdam, also dubbing the surrounding area New Netherlands. In 1626, Peter Minuit,the director general of the Dutch trading venture, “purchased” the whole of Manhattan from the Lenape, giving them tools, blankets, and other goods in trade. It is doubtful that the Lenape saw this trade as a true purchase in the European sense, and later this clash of cultures would bring the Native Americans and the European settlers into conflict. New Amsterdam, clinging to the southern tip ofManhattan, was not a success at first. It attracted all sorts of rough and unseemly settlers who made the little colony a fairly lawless place. In 1647, the Dutch East India Company sent a hard, humorless man named Peter Stuyvesant to clean it up. He did just that, disciplining the population and encouraging further settlement. New Amsterdam

The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people ofFrance to the people of the United States, towers over Liberty Island in New York Harbor. Visitors travel 42 English TEaching Forum 2008 Number 1 | to and from the island by ferryboat.

© ShutterStock

was starting to attract all sorts of people, making it a distinctly diverse place. In 1664, the British, who had formed colonies all around New Netherlands, forced the Dutch to hand over the...