Editing New Amsterdam (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Stuyvesant Columbia.jpg|thumb|The 1954 unveiling of a stained-glass depiction of [[Peter Stuyvesant]] in [[Butler Library]] at [[Columbia University]]. It commemorated the 300th anniversary of the founding of New Amsterdam, though it was actually dedicated on its 329th anniversary according to the date on the [[Seal of New York City]], or on the 301st anniversary of the city receiving municipal rights.]]
The 1625 [[List of New York City historical anniversaries|date of the founding of New Amsterdam]] is now commemorated in the official [[Seal of New York City]]. (Formerly, the year on the seal was 1664, the year of the provisional Articles of Transfer, assuring New Netherlanders that they "shall keep and enjoy the liberty of their consciences in religion", negotiated with the English by [[Peter Stuyvesant]] and his council.)

Sometimes considered a dysfunctional trading post by the English who later acquired it from the Dutch, [[Russell Shorto]], author of ''The Island at the Center of the World'', suggests that the city left its cultural marks on later New York and, by extension, the United States as a whole.<ref>{{cite book|first=Russell|last=Shorto|title=The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America|edition=First|location= New York City |publisher=Vintage Books (a Division of [[Random House]])|year= 2004|isbn= 1-4000-7867-9}}</ref>

Major recent historical research has been based on a set of documents that have survived from that period, untranslated. They are the administrative records of the colony, unreadable by most scholars. Since the 1970s, Charles Gehring of the [[New Netherland Institute]] has made it his life's work to translate this first-hand history of the Colony of New Netherland.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hakim |first1=Danny |title=His Specialty? Making Old New York Talk in Dutch |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/nyregion/27dutch.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=December 26, 2009 |access-date=October 2, 2019}}</ref>

The scholarly conclusion has largely been that the settlement of New Amsterdam is much more like current New York than previously thought. Cultural diversity and a mindset that resembles the [[American Dream]] were already present in the first few years of this colony. Writers like [[Russell Shorto]] argue that the large influence of New Amsterdam on the American psyche has largely been overlooked in the classic telling of American beginnings, because of animosity between the English victors and the conquered Dutch.

The original 17th-century architecture of New Amsterdam has completely vanished (affected by the [[Great Fire of New York (1776)|fires of 1776]] and [[Great Fire of New York|1835]]),<ref name="fire1776">{{cite web|url=http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Map/1776greatfire.html|title=Map of Great Fire 1776|access-date=February 2, 2011|author=NY Public Library Picture Collection|archive-date=February 10, 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060210012218/http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Map/1776greatfire.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="fire1835">{{cite web|url=http://www.virtualny.cuny.edu/Search/search_res_image.php?id=502 |title=Map of Damages – 1835 |access-date=February 2, 2011 |author=CUNY |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100613160547/http://www.virtualny.cuny.edu/Search/search_res_image.php?id=502 |archive-date=June 13, 2010 }}</ref> leaving only archaeological remnants. The original street plan of New Amsterdam has stayed largely intact, as have [[Wyckoff House|some houses]] outside Manhattan.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The original street plan of New Amsterdam |url=https://s-media.nyc.gov/agencies/lpc/lp/1235.pdf |website=Landmarks Preservation Commission}}</ref>

The presentation of the legacy of the unique culture of 17th-century New Amsterdam remains a concern of [[historic preservation|preservationists]] and educators. In 2009 the [[National Park Service]] celebrated the [[NY400|400th anniversary]] of [[Henry Hudson]]'s 1609 voyage on behalf of the [[History of the Netherlands|Dutch]] with the New Amsterdam Trail.<ref name="nps">{{cite web | url=http://www.nyharborparks.org/visit/tour-new-amsterdam.html | title=The New Amsterdam Trail | publisher=National Park Service, New York Harbor Parks | year=2009 | access-date=August 27, 2009 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090609233746/http://www.nyharborparks.org/visit/tour-new-amsterdam.html | archive-date=June 9, 2009 | url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="hh400">{{cite web | url=http://www.henryhudson400.com/home.php | title=The Henry Hudson 400 Foundation | access-date=August 27, 2009 | archive-date=November 9, 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221109145755/http://www.henryhudson400.com/home.php | url-status=dead }}</ref>

The [[Dutch-American]] historian and journalist [[Hendrik Willem van Loon]] wrote in 1933 a work of [[Alternate history|alternative history]] entitled "If the Dutch Had Kept Nieuw Amsterdam" (in ''[[If It Had Happened Otherwise|If, Or History Rewritten]]'', edited by [[J. C. Squire]], 1931, [[Simon & Schuster]]).

A similar theme, at greater length, was taken up by writer [[Elizabeth Bear]], who published the "[[Elizabeth Bear#New Amsterdam Series|New Amsterdam]]" series of [[detective stories]] that take place in a world where the city remained Dutch until the [[Napoleonic Wars]] and retained its name also afterward.

One of New York's Broadway theatres is the [[New Amsterdam Theatre]]. The name New Amsterdam is also written on the [[architrave]] situated on top of the row of columns in front of the [[Manhattan Municipal Building]], commemorating the name of the Dutch colony.

Although no architectural monuments or buildings have survived, the legacy lived on in the form of [[Dutch Colonial Revival architecture]]. A number of structures in New York City were constructed in the 19th and 20th centuries in this style, such as Wallabout Market in Brooklyn, South William Street in Manhattan, West End Collegiate Church at West 77th Street, and others.

<gallery widths="200px">
File:Wyckoff-house.jpg|The Wyckoff Farm in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Some of its construction still dates from the Dutch period of what is currently New York City.
File:Dutch Colonial Revival Buildings (South William Street 13–15) Manhattan NYC.jpg|13–15 South William Street, constructed in the Dutch Colonial Revival architecture evoking New Amsterdam
</gallery>