Peter Stuyvesant had more experience in governing. After he was expelled from University for seducing his landlord's daughter, he got a position with the Dutch West India Company rising through the corporate hierarchy until he became Acting Governor of Bonaire, Aruba, and Curaçao.&nbsp;&nbsp;In April&nbsp;1644 he led an attack on the island of St Marten which didn't go very well for him he lost his leg to a cannonball and the Dutch were defeated.&nbsp; He was now 35.&nbsp; He returned to Holland to convalesce.&nbsp; In the year he was there, he managed to acquire a prosthesis&nbsp;consisting of a wooden stick studded with silver nails, a wife, and a promotion.&nbsp;&nbsp;By 1647 he had arrived in New Amsterdam to do God's work. There was certainly much to do to managing the Indians,&nbsp;pacifying the neighboring settlements, and constructing the wall and fort. &nbsp;He was autocratic, but he lasted until the British took over the City and then spent his retirement on a 62 acre farm in the Bowerie.

This is the earliest known map of New Amsterdam, which was later renamed New York, created in 1660 by Jacques Cortelyou, the General Governor of Nieuw Amsterdam at that time. It is the only map dating from the Dutch period of the city's history. The text at the top of the image reads: 'Image of the city Amsterdam in New Netherland. A redraft of the 1660's Castello Plan of New Amsterdam, completed in 1916 by John Wolcott Adams and Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes.

Whitehall

Bouwerie House

Gravesite

Peter Stuyvesant

Zachary Edinger of the Congregation of Shearith Israel, speaking at ‘It Happened Here - 1600’s Symposium: The Beginning of the City’ on July 3, 2025'

Russel Shorto speaking at ‘It Happened Here - 1600’s Symposium: The Beginning of the City’ on July 3, 2025

An English military officer and colonial administrator who served as the first governor of New York from 1664 to 1668.&nbsp;

Richard Nicolls

The Alexander Hamilton Customs House, now the National Museum of the American Indian, is a Beaux-Arts building designed by Cass Gilbert and erected 1899-1907. When the Federal Government established income tax in 1913, the Customs House became the country's largest collector. The facade's grand sculptures by Daniel Chester French, who also sculpted the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, represent the four continents, their whiteness providing a rich counterpoint to the structure's gray granite. The interior, which is also an NYC Landmark, includes a giant oval rotunda, embellished with Reginald Marsh's WPA (Works Progress Administration) commissioned murals project in 1938.

The United States Customs Service moved out of the building in 1974, and it sat abandoned for over a decade until renovations in the late 1980s.

In 1990, the Custom House was renamed to commemorate Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and its first Secretary of the Treasury.

The building contains the George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian, as well as the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.The National Museum of the American Indian is the first national museum dedicated to the preservation, study, and exhibition of the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of Native Americans. Established by an act of Congress in 1989, the museum works in collaboration with the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere to protect and foster their cultures by reaffirming traditions and beliefs, encouraging contemporary artistic expression, and providing a platform of engagement for the Indian voice.

It is also the home to the National Archives in New York City.

Unlike most custom houses, which face the waterfront, the Alexander Hamilton Custom House faces inland toward Bowling Green.

 Bounded by&amp;nbsp;Bowling Green&amp;nbsp;to the north,&amp;nbsp;Whitehall Street&amp;nbsp;to the east, Bridge Street to the south, and State Street to the east.   the Museum

The Whitehall Street and State Street&nbsp;elevations&nbsp;are 300 feet (90&nbsp;m) wide; the main elevation on Bowling Green is 200 feet (60&nbsp;m) wide; and the rear elevation on Bridge Street is 290 feet (88&nbsp;m) wide. David Sundberg/Esto

Seven stories high with an interior steel frame   National Museum of the American Indian

The building sits on the site of Fort Amsterdam, constructed by the&amp;nbsp;Dutch West India Company&amp;nbsp;to defend their operations in the&amp;nbsp;Hudson Valley.&amp;nbsp;   the Museum

The Fort Amsterdam became the nucleus of the&amp;nbsp;New Amsterdam&amp;nbsp;settlement, and in turn, of&amp;nbsp;New York City. Bowling Green, immediately to the north, became the oldest park in New York City.   the Museum

offers workshops and lectures for registered groups such as educators, student field trips, genealogists, community groups, and more.

presents original records related to New York from National Archives holdings across the country.

featured records from our New York holdings.

Alexander Hamilton Custom House (National Museum of the American Indian)

Russell Shorto is the author of the bestsellers Smalltime, Revolution Song, Amsterdam, and The Island at the Center of the World. His most recent book is TAKING MANHATTAN: The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America. He is the director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New York Historical and senior scholar at the New Netherland Institute. In 2009 he was given a knighthood by the Dutch government for advancing Dutch-American historical awareness. In 2018 he was inducted into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame.

Please join cultureNOW, the Lower Manhattan Historical Association, South Street Seaport Museum, Consulate-General of the Netherlands in New York, New Amsterdam History Center, National Museum of the American Indian, and Black Gotham for a hybrid symposium about Nieuw Amsterdam.

Federal Hall National Memorial

Fraunces Tavern Museum

1600’s Symposium: The Beginning of the City

Scott Dwyer manages the staff and operations of Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York (SRNY) and its Fraunces Tavern Museum. Scott has over 18 years of experience in the asset management industry and not-for-profit sector. Prior to joining the Museum in 2020, he was a relationship manager with Cohen &amp; Steers and a product marketing associate and RFP writer with J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Scott also held leadership positions with 501(c)(3) organizations including the NYU Alumni Association, 6th &amp; B Community Garden, and ThePresent Theatre Company, producer of Fringe NYC. He has a BS in Business Administration from NYU Stern. His passion for history and historic preservation was instilled at an early age growing up in 19th-century houses in Pennsylvania and Connecticut and as a junior docent at the Square House Museum in Rye, New York. Scott lives in Manhattan’s East Village, a block from St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, New York’s oldest site of continuous religious practice where you can find a stained glass window dedicated to the memory of SRNY founding member Frederick S. Tallmadge.

Pauline Genee serves as Head of Culture for the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the USA since September 2024. After diplomatic training she served in various roles in de Diplomatic Service since 1996. She holds an MA in Russian, French and law from the University of Amsterdam.&nbsp;

Eric W. Sanderson is the inaugural Vice President for Urban Conservation Strategy at the New York Botanical Garden. Formerly he was a Senior Conservation Ecologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Sanderson is the author of the best-selling book, Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City (Abrams, 2009). The Mannahatta Project, conducted over decade, investigated the historical streams, ponds, springs, shores, hills, forests, and wildlife of Manhattan Island on the eve of Henry Hudson’s discovery in 1609. The project led to a web map and site (since rebranded welikia.org), an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York, and major press coverage, including a profile in The New Yorker and a cover of National Geographic Magazine. Sanderson is currently pursuing the Welikia Project, on the historical and contemporary ecology of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and surrounding waters, and Vision maker.nyc, an on-line forum to help the public to envision and share ecologically functional and climate-resilient designs for New York. Sanderson wrote, Terra Nova: The New World After Oil, Cars, and Suburbs, an investigation of the ecology of the 20th century American economy, which was published in 2013. In 2016 he co-editted Prospects for Resilience: Insights from New York City's Jamaica Bay. Sanderson has published extensively in wildlife and landscape conservation, with over 90 papers, book chapters, and technical reports, which have collectively amassed over 13,000 citations (Google Scholar, Oct. 2022). He is currently writing the follow-up to Mannahatta, tentatively titled, The Welikia Atlas, on the five-borough historical ecology of New York City. Sanderson holds a Ph.D. in ecology, with emphasis in ecosystem and landscape ecology, from the University of California, Davis. He is based at the NYBG in New York City's greenest borough, The Bronx.

Jaap Jacobs (PhD Leiden, 1999) is affiliated with the University of St Andrews. He has specialized in the early American history, specifically the Dutch in the Americas in the early modern period. He has taught at Leiden University, the University of Amsterdam, Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and the University of St Andrews. His books include A firm peace and sincere friendship? Four Centuries of Dutch-American Stories; The Colony of New Netherland: A Dutch Settlement in Seventeenth-Century America. He is currently working on a biography of Petrus Stuyvesant.

Zachary Edinger is a graduate of Queens College (CUNY) and Fordham Law School. He has held positions at Morgan Stanley and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Since 2011, he has served as the Sexton of Congregation Shearith Israel, the oldest Jewish community in North America, where his family has worshipped since the mid-19th century. Reverend Edinger is passionate about sharing the rich history and customs of Congregation Shearith Israel with a wider audience through engaging tours and educational classes. He regularly hosts a Zoom class titled, “A Random Walk Down Mill Street,” delving into the congregation’s storied past. A lifelong resident of the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Reverend Edingerenjoys life with his wife, Malka, and their two children, Navah and David

Sandra Lazo has been a Trustee of the New Amsterdam History Center (NAHC) since 2023. She holds an S.B. degree from M.I.T. and an M.A. degree from N.Y.U., both in Economics. Sandy worked in economic consulting, with clients primarily in regulated industries, such as electric utilities. An avid researcher into her family history, Sandy became fascinated by colonial Dutch New York after discovering that she is an eleventh-generation descendant of Cornelis Antonissen Van Slyck, who immigrated to Rensselaerswyck in 1634. A long-time member of the New Netherland Institute, Sandy has funded NNI’s Van Slyke Article Prize almost since its inception. She also supported NAHC’s presentation “The Prize Papers Collection – The Vrooman Letters” by Dr. Frans Blom at Columbia University in the spring of 2023.

Oscar Hefting is a cultural entrepreneur. He graduated in Classical Archaeology at the Amsterdam University (UvA) and specialized in Dutch Heritage Overseas. As Director of the New Holland Foundation he organizes projects, and stimulates research, education and promotion on colonial heritage and its effects on today's societies.

Peggy King Jorde fights to preserve the stories buried beneath our feet. This Harvard Loeb Fellow helped spark a movement that saved New York City’s African Burial Ground—a discovery that rocked the nation when archaeologists unearthed the remains of over 400 enslaved and free Africans in Lower Manhattan. As Special Adviser to Mayor David Dinkins and later Director of Memorialization, King Jorde was one of the masterminds behind the creation of America’s first African Burial Ground Monument and Interpretive Center, transforming a forgotten cemetery into a powerful symbol of remembrance. She personally oversaw the design competitions for the memorial and advised on the sacred repatriation ceremony that returned ancestral remains to their final resting place.

Pauline Genee, Head of Culture, the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the USA, speaking at ‘It Happened Here - 1600’s Symposium: The Beginning of the City’ on July 3, 2025

Jaap Jacobs of University of St. Andrews, speaking at ‘It Happened Here - 1600’s Symposium: The Beginning of the City’ on July 3, 2025

Eric W. Sanderson, Author, Landscape Ecologist &amp; Vice President for Urban Conservation Strategy, New York Botanical Garden, speaking at ‘It Happened Here - 1600’s Symposium: The Beginning of the City’ on July 3, 2025

Oscar Hefting of New Holland Foundation, speaking at ‘It Happened Here - 1600’s Symposium: The Beginning of the City’ on July 3, 2025

Sandy Lazo of New Amsterdam History Center, speaking at ‘It Happened Here - 1600’s Symposium: The Beginning of the City’ on July 3, 2025

Peggy King Jorde, Principal at King Jorde Cultural Projects Consulting, speaking at ‘It Happened Here - 1600’s Symposium: The Beginning of the City’ on July 3, 2025

Historian and lawyer James Kaplan retraces the footsteps of the first Jewish immigrants to arrive in the United States, 23 Portuguese Jews whose ship landed at Bowling Green in 1654.&nbsp;

Russell Shorto

DRAWINGS

Podcasts