It's no surprise that I'm a big fan of the NYC podcast The Bowery Boys, blogging about episodes every so often and interviewing one of the co-hosts in 2018.
Recently the boys did a series of episodes exploring NYC's Dutch roots by actually going to Holland and visiting the towns and areas where so much of this city's history began. It's a fascinating look at how much of the city we know today, the mightiest city in the world, came from this small European country -- and how this town was once a colony of a mighty overseas non-English speaking empire.
America may have been born in the streets of NYC but, before NYC was NYC, it was a small Dutch town in the New World.
After all, New York City used to be New Amsterdam, neighborhoods like Harlem came from the Dutch town of Haarlam and the entire borough of Brooklyn came from a place called Breukelen.
And if you've ever read The Great Gatsby, it's famous last paragraphs, as Nick Carraway stares across Long Island Sound at the huge rich homes and the symbolic green light, he wonders about what it must have looked at, unmolested, for "Dutch sailors' eyes."
I haven't listened to the entire series yet but plan to finish it soon -- and encourage you to do so!
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