History of Albany, New York (1942–83)
The history of Albany, New York from 1942 to 1983 begins with the beginning of the tenure of Erastus Corning 2nd as mayor and ends with Corning's death in 1983. Erastus Corning 2nd, arguably Albany's most notable mayor, was elected in 1941. Although he was the longest-serving mayor of any city in United States history, one historian describes Corning's tenure as "long on years, short on accomplishments," citing Corning's preference for maintaining the status quo as a factor that held back potential progress during his tenure. While Corning brought stability to the office of mayor, it is said that those that idolize him cannot come up with a sizable list of "major concrete Corning achievements." Corning is given credit for saving, albeit somewhat unintentionally, much of Albany's historic architecture. During the 1950s and 1960s, a time when federal aid for urban renewal was plentiful, Albany did not see much progress in either commerce or infrastructure, it lost more than 20 percent of its population during the Corning years, most of the downtown businesses moved to the suburbs.
While cities across the country experienced similar issues, the problems were magnified in Albany: interference from the Democratic political machine hindered progress considerably. Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who had a preference for grandiose, monumental architecture and large, government-sponsored building projects, was the driving force behind the construction of the Empire State Plaza, SUNY Albany's uptown campus, much of the W. Averell Harriman State Office Building Campus. Albany County Republican Chairman Joseph C. Frangella once quipped, "Governor Rockefeller was the best mayor Albany had." Corning, though opposed to the project, was responsible for negotiating the payment plan for the Empire State Plaza. Rockefeller did not want to be limited by the Legislature's power of the purse, so Corning devised a plan to have the county pay for the construction and have the state sign a lease-ownership agreement; the state would pay off the bonds until 2004. It was Rockefeller's only viable option, he agreed.
Due to the clout Corning gained from the situation, he was able to get the State Museum, a convention center, a restaurant, back in the plans—ideas that Rockefeller had vetoed. The county gained $35 million in fees and the city received $13 million for lost tax revenue. Another major project of the 1960s and 1970s was the South Mall Arterial. Construction began in the early 1960s. One of the project's main consequences was separating the city from the Hudson River. Corning is sometimes called shortsighted with respect to use of the waterfront, as he could have used his influence to change the location of I-787, which now cuts the city off from "its whole raison d'être". Much of the original plan never came to fruition, however: Rockefeller had wanted the South Mall Arterial to pass through the Empire State Plaza; the project would have required an underground trumpet interchange below Washington Park, connecting to the Mid-Crosstown Arterial. To this day, evidence of the original plan is still visible.
In 1967 the hamlet of Karlsfeld became the last annexation to be added to the city limits, having come from Bethlehem. Grondahl, Paul. Mayor Erastus Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-7294-1. McEneny, John. Albany, Capital City on the Hudson: An Illustrated History. Sun Valley, California: American Historical Press. ISBN 1-892724-53-7
New Netherland settlements
New Netherland was the 17th century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the northeastern coast of North America. The claimed territory was the land from the Delmarva Peninsula to southern Cape Cod; the settled areas are now part of the Mid-Atlantic states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, with small outposts in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Its capital of New Amsterdam was located at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan on the Upper New York Bay; the region was explored in 1609 by Henry Hudson on an expedition for the Dutch East India Company. It was surveyed and charted, was given its name in 1614; the Dutch named the three main rivers of the province the Zuyd Rivier, the Noort Rivier, the Versche Rivier. They intended to use them to gain access to the interior, the indigenous population, the lucrative fur trade. International law required discovery and settlement to perfect a territorial claim. Large scale settlement was rejected in favor of a formula, working in Asia of establishing factories.
This period is sometimes referred to as the Dutch Golden Age, despite on-going wars on the European continent, it was difficult to recruit people to leave the economic boom and cultural vibrancy of Europe. Mismanagement and under-funding by the Dutch West India Company hindered early settlement, as well as misunderstandings and armed conflict with Indians. Liberalization of trade, a degree of self-rule, the loss of Dutch Brazil led to exponential growth in the 1650s. Transfers of power from the Netherlands to England were peaceful in the province, the last one formalized in 1674; the first of two Forts Nassau was built in Mahican territory during the first decade, where commerce could be conducted with Indians, factorijen went up at Schenectady, Esopus, Communipaw, Totoket and elsewhere. Trapper Jan Rodrigues is believed to have been the first non-Indian to winter on the island of Manhattan in 1611; the States General of the Dutch Republic awarded the newly formed Dutch West India Company a trade monopoly for the region in 1621, New Netherland became a province of the Dutch Republic in 1624.
The South River was chosen as the site of the capital because the colonists felt that it had the best climate. However, summer humidity and winter freezing made the North River more appealing. A number of ships brought settlers to the New World, at first to Noten Island and soon after to the tip of Manhattan, the colonists began construction of Fort Amsterdam, around which the colony began to grow. Small groups of the early arrivals were dispersed to Fort Orange, to Fort Wilhelmus, or to Kievets Hoek, but those who went to Fort Wilhelmus and Kievets Hoek were recalled. Among those who made the crossing were 11 Africans as company-owned slaves. In 1629, the Dutch West India Company introduced the Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions, a series of inducements known as the patroon system. Invested members could receive vast land patents and manorial rights, somewhat reminiscent of a feudal lord, if they were willing to fulfill certain conditions, including transporting and settling at least 50 persons.
A number of attempts were made. Pavonia, across the river from New Amsterdam, was returned to the company and became a company-managed holding. In 1640, company policy was changed to allow land purchases by individuals in good standing. Another patroon patent was Zwaanendael Colony, the first Dutch colonial settlement on the Zuyd Rivier, but it was plundered soon after its founding in 1631. After 1638, settlement was in New Sweden, these were brought under New Netherland control in 1655 when Fort Casimir was built. In 1663, Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy attempted to create a utopian settlement in the region, but it expired under English rule; the Dutch established a short-lived factorij trading post at Kievits Hoek in present-day Old Saybrook, Connecticut shortly after constructing their first settlement on the island of Manhattan. They abandoned it soon after, however, in order to focus on the trading post at Fort Goede Hoop on the Connecticut River, completed in 1633; the Dutch had a trading post and possible fort at the mouth of the Branford River in Branford, which still contains a wharf called "Dutch Wharf."
Soon after, settlers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony formed the Connecticut Colony in 1639, the New Haven Colony soon followed. Petrus Stuyvesant attempted to prevent further competition for the area and agreed to a border 50 miles west of the river in the Treaty of Hartford; this did some not stem the flow of New Englanders to Long Island and the mainland along Long Island Sound, however. The port called. New Amsterdam was the capital of the province and received its municipal charter in 1652. A municipal charter was granted to Beverwijck in 1652, which had grown from a trading post to a bustling town in the midst of Rensselaerswyck. In 1657, the homesteads scattered along the west bank of the Hudson Valley in Esopus country were required to build a garrison that became the province's third largest town of Wiltwijk. Colonial settlers spread throughout the region after the final transfer of power to
Rondout, New York
Rondout, is situated on the Hudson River, at the mouth of Rondout Creek. A maritime village serving the nearby city of Kingston, New York, Rondout merged with Kingston in 1872, it now includes the Rondout-West Strand Historic District. Rondout borders the Rondout Creek; the creek empties into the Hudson through a protected tidal area. Rondout was established by the Dutch in the seventeenth century as an Indian trading post; the name derives from the fort, or redoubt, erected near the mouth of the creek. The Dutch equivalent of the English word redoubt, is reduyt. In the Dutch records of Wildwyck, the spelling used to designate this same fort is invariably Ronduyt during the earliest period, with the present form rondout appearing as early as November 22, 1666; as late as the 1820s, Rondout was a small hamlet. As the Philadelphia coal market was saturated with Lehigh coal, bringing the price down and Maurice Wurts developed the Delaware and Hudson Canal as a way to deliver their anthracite from Carbondale, Pennsylvania to New York City.
After the opening of the canal in 1828, the area of Rondout transformed from farmland into a thriving maritime village. The last several miles of the canal, which linked coal mines in northeastern Pennsylvania to the Hudson River and markets beyond, followed Rondout Creek to reach the Hudson River. Irish laborers came to dig the canal and many of them stayed to work on it after its completion. Businessmen established stores to serve the workers. Steamboats, sloops and barges loaded with passengers and cargo left the port bound for New York City. New industries developed such as brick and cement manufacturing, bluestone shipping, ice-making; as canal traffic increased and commercial businesses were built along the slope upward from the Rondout Creek. By 1840, the village had a population of fifteen hundred, two hundred residences, two churches, six hotels and taverns, twenty-five stores, three freighting establishments, a tobacco factory, a gristmill, four boat yards, two dry docks, the office and dock of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company.
Rondout Creek was the home of the Cornell Steamboat Company tugboat fleet, the dominant towing company on the Hudson from 1880 to the 1930s. The company was started in 1847. At one time it had a fleet of as many as sixty-two tugboats towing barges of coal and many other materials on the Hudson River to New York and other ports. Cornell had a virtual monopoly of towing on the Hudson River and employed hundreds of workers on their boats and in their workshops along the Rondout Creek. By 1872 more than thirty steamboats were based in Rondout, many of which, as well as a large number of barges and sailing vessels, were engaged in the transportation of stone, cement and ice. Steamboats such as the sidewheel "Queen of the River", Kingston's Mary Powell plied between Rondout, New York, points on the river; the little sidewheeler Norwich, was built in New York in 1836 by Lawrence & Sneeden of New York for the New York and Norwich Steamboat Co. Named for the City of Norwich, she was not big enough to compete with the large steamboats coming into service on the sound, was sold to the New York & Rondout Line for passenger and freight service on the Hudson.
Converted to towboat service, in which she from 1850 to 1923, the Norwich was known as "the Ice King". She was unexcelled as an ice-breaker; the Erie Railroad paid her to clear a passage through the ice for its barge and steamboat traffic from the rail terminal at Piermont to New York. Verplanck and Collyer, in Sloops on the Hudson, write that Capt. Jacob Dubois required one week to work the Norwich 20 miles through heavy ice to New York City from Piermont. One of the longest-lived steamboats, the Norwich worked the Hudson until 1917 and survived until 1924. Prior to its incorporation, Rondout was known variously as "The Strand", "Kingston Landing" and "Bolton". "The Strand" is a Dutch derived reference to the beach once located on the north shore of the Rondout Creek. "Bolton" was used in honor a president of the Hudson Canal Company. Incorporated on April 4, 1849, Rondout served as a Hudson River port for the city of Kingston located about a mile distant. In 1851, German-born Jewish businessman Israel Sampson arrived in Rondout and built the Sampson Opera House at 1 Broadway.
Sampson ran a successful clothing business out of the first floor, the top floor housed the Opera House. In 1885, fire gutted the building, destroying the Opera House, never rebuilt. In the 20th century, a Kingston newspaper, The Daily Freeman, occupied the building until 1974. In 1854 George F. VonBeck built the Mansion House Hotel, hoping to capitalize on Rondout's location as a stopping-off place for steamboat and stagecoach passengers On lower Broadway, it was opposite the Samspon Opera House, provided a place for touring performers to stay. Dr. Abraham Crispell, who treated patients during the cholera epidemic of 1849, had an office in the Mansion House Hotel. According to Hamilton Child, the most important manufacturing establishment was The Newark Lime and Cement Manufacturing Company, which began operation in spring 1851; the company owned 250 acres including waterfront on the channel of the Rondout Creek. The Rondout Manufactory alone produced 227,516 barrels; the works consisted of twenty-one kilns for burning the stone, two mill buildings, four storehouses, capable of storing upwards of 20,000 barrels, a cooperage establishment, mil
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, United States. It is 59 miles south of Albany; the city's metropolitan area is grouped with the New York metropolitan area by the United States Census Bureau, It became New York's first capital in 1777, was burned by the British on October 13, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga. In the 19th century, the city became an important transport hub after the discovery of natural cement in the region, had both railroad and canal connections. Passenger rail service has since ceased, many of the older buildings are part of three historic districts, including the Stockade District uptown, the Midtown Neighborhood Broadway Corridor, the Rondout-West Strand Historic District downtown; as early as 1614, the Dutch had set up a factorij at Ponckhockie, at the junction of the Rondout Creek and the Hudson River. The first recorded permanent settler in what would become the city of Kingston, was Thomas Chambers, who came from the area of Rensselaerswyck in 1653.
The place was called Esopus after the local Esopus tribe. As more settlers arrived, tensions developed between the Esopus and the Dutch, in part due to the Dutch selling alcohol to the young Esopus men. In the spring of 1658, Peter Stuyvesant, Director-General of New Amsterdam and advised the residents that if they wished to remain they must re-locate to high ground and build a stockade. Tensions continued between the Esopus and the settlers leading to the Esopus Wars. In 1661 the settlement was granted a charter as a separate municipality, it was not until 1663 that the Dutch ended the four-year conflict with the Esopus through a coalition of Dutch settlers and Mohawk. Wiltwyck was one of three large Hudson River settlements in New Netherland, the other two being Beverwyck, now Albany, New Amsterdam, now New York City. With the English seizure of New Netherland in 1664, relations between the Dutch settlers and the English soldiers garrisoned there were strained. In 1669, Wiltwyck was renamed Kingston, in honor of the family seat of Governor Lovelace's mother.
In 1777, Kingston became the first capital of New York. During the summer of 1777, when the New York State constitution was written, New York City was occupied by British troops and Albany was under threat of attack by the British; the seat of government was moved to Kingston, deemed safer. However, the British never reached Albany, having been stopped at Saratoga, but they did reach Kingston. On October 13, 1777, the city was burned by British troops moving up river from New York City, disembarking at the mouth of the Rondout Creek at "Ponckhockie"; the denizens of Kingston knew of the oncoming fleet. By the time the British arrived, the residents and government officials had removed to Hurley, New York; the area was a major granary for the colonies at the time, so the British burned large amounts of wheat and all but one or two of the buildings. Kingston celebrates and re-enacts the 1777 burning of the city by the British every other year, in a citywide theatrical staging of the event that begins at the Rondout.
Kingston was incorporated as a village on April 6, 1805. In the early 1800s, four sloops plied the river from Kingston to New York. By 1829, steamers made the trip to Manhattan in a little over twelve hours travelling by night. Columbus Point was the river landing for Kingston and stage lines ran from the village to the Point; the Dutch cultural influence in Kingston remained strong through the end of the nineteenth century. Prior to 1825, Rondout was a small farming village. Construction of the Delaware and Hudson Canal from Rondout to Honesdale, brought an influx of laborers. With the completion of the canal in 1828, Rondout became an important tidewater coal terminal. Natural cement deposits were found throughout the valley, in 1844 quarrying began in the "Ponchockie" section of Rondout; the Newark Lime and Cement Company shipped cement throughout the United States, a thriving business until the invention of the cheaper, quicker drying Portland Cement. Large warehouses of ice sat beside the Hudson River from which the ice was cut during the winter and preserved all year to be used in early refrigeration.
Large brick making factories were located close to this shipping hub. Rondout's central location as a shipping hub ended with the advent of railroads which ran through Rondout and Kingston but could transport their loads through the city without stopping. Kingston is home to many historic churches; the oldest church still standing is the First Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Kingston, organized in 1659. Referred to as The Old Dutch Church, it is located in Uptown Kingston. Many of the city's historic churches populate Wurts street among them Hudson Valley Wedding Chapel is a restored church built in 1867 and now a chapel hosting weddings. Another church in the Rondout is located at 72 Spring Street. Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded in 1842; the original church building at the corner of Hunter Street and Ravine Street burned to the ground in the late 1850s. The current church on Spring Street was built in 1874. St. Joseph's Parish began in 1863 as a one-room mission school to serve the children of the Wilbur area, founded by Father Felix Farrelly, pastor of St. Mary's Parish in Rondout.
The building was sold to the city of Kingston in 1871. In 1867, Rev. James Coyne was appointed pastor of St. Mary's in Rondout; the following year he established. H
New Castle, Delaware
New Castle is a city in New Castle County, six miles south of Wilmington, situated on the Delaware River. According to the 2010 Census, the population of the city is 5,285. New Castle was settled by the Dutch West India Company in 1651, under the leadership of Peter Stuyvesant, on the site of a former aboriginal village, "Tomakonck", to assert their claim to the area based on a prior agreement with the aboriginal inhabitants of the area; the Dutch named the settlement Fort Casimir, but this was changed to Fort Trinity following its seizure by the colony of New Sweden on Trinity Sunday, 1654. The Dutch conquered the entire colony of New Sweden the following year and rechristened the fort Nieuw-Amstel; this marked the end of the Swedish colony in Delaware as an official entity, but it remained a semi-autonomous unit within the New Netherland colony and the cultural and religious influence of the Swedish settlers remained strong. As the settlement grew, Dutch authorities laid out a grid of streets and established the town common, which continue to this day.
In 1664, the English seized the entire New Netherland colony in the Second Anglo-Dutch War. They made it the capital of their Delaware Colony; the Dutch regained the town in 1673 during the Third Anglo-Dutch War but it was returned to Great Britain the next year under the Treaty of Westminster. In 1680, New Castle was conveyed to William Penn by the Duke of York by livery of seisin and was Penn's landing place when he first set foot on American soil on October 27, 1682; this transfer to Penn was contested by Lord Baltimore and the boundary dispute was not resolved until the survey conducted by Mason and Dixon, now famed in history as the Mason–Dixon line. The spire on top of the Court House, Delaware's colonial capitol and first state house, was used as the center of the Twelve-Mile Circle forming the northern boundary of Delaware; the Delaware River within this radius to the low water mark on the opposite shore is part of Delaware. Thus the Delaware Memorial Bridge was built as an intrastate span by Delaware, without financial participation by neighboring New Jersey.
Prior to the establishment of Penn's Philadelphia, New Castle was a center of government. After being transferred to Penn, Delaware's Swedish and English residents used to the relaxed culture of the Restoration monarchy grew uncomfortable with the more conservative Quaker influence, so Delaware petitioned for a separate legislature, granted in 1702. Delaware formally broke from Pennsylvania in 1704. New Castle again became the seat of the colonial government, thriving with the various judges and lawyers that fueled the economy. Many smaller houses were replaced in this era. In February 1777, John McKinly was elected the first President of Delaware. During the Revolution, when New Castle was besieged by William Howe, the government elected to move its functions south to Dover in May 1777. McKinley was captured by the held prisoner for several months. New Castle remained the county seat until after the Civil War, when that status was transferred to Wilmington. Three signers of the Declaration of Independence were from New Castle—Thomas McKean, George Read, George Ross.
The 16-mile portage between the Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay saved a 400-mile trip around the Delmarva Peninsula, so this brought passengers and business to New Castle's port. In the years following the Revolution, a turnpike was built to facilitate travel between the two major waterways. New Castle became the eastern terminus of the New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad, the second-oldest rail line in the country, launched in 1828 with horse-drawn rail cars converting to steam power when an engine was purchased from Great Britain in 1832; the line traversed the Delmarva Peninsula, running to the Elk River, from where passengers changed to packet boats for further travel to Baltimore and points south. This helped the New Castle economy to further boom; the decline in New Castle's economy had the long-range fortunate effect of preventing most residents from making any significant structural changes to their homes. So, the many buildings of historic New Castle look much as they did in the colonial and Federal periods.
New Castle has a tradition, dating back to 1927, of tours of historical homes and gardens. These tours, called "A Day in Olde New Castle", are held on the third Saturday of May. Householders dress in colonial costumes and an admittance fee is collected, used toward the maintenance of the town's many historic buildings. In June the town holds its annual Separation Day celebration. On April 28, 1961, an F3 tornado hit the north side. Although no fatalities or injuries occurred, it was the only tornado of this magnitude recorded in Delaware. In the City of New Castle, many small and historical neighborhoods are within the city limits. However, many larger neighborhoods are surrounding the city limits and are labeled as New Castle within the general consensus; the New Castle area ranges from the southern city limits of Wilmington to the north, the Delaware River to the East, Wrangle Hill Road to the South, Bear and Christiana to the West. City of New Castle Shawtown Dobbinsville Washington Park Battery Park 6th & DelawareOutside neighborhoods Chelsea Estates Penn Acres Collins Park Minquadale Wilmington Manor Commons Boulevard Midvale Jefferson Farms Castle H
Beverwijk
Beverwijk is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. The town is located about 20 kilometres northwest of Amsterdam in the Randstad metropolitan area, north of the North Sea Canal close to the North Sea coast. A railway tunnel and two motorway tunnels cross the canal between Beverwijk and the nearby city of Haarlem on the south bank. Around 1640, a town called; that town's modern name is New York. The municipality of Beverwijk consists of two cores, Beverwijk proper and Wijk aan Zee, 5 km to the west, right on the coast; the name Beverwijk comes from Bedevaartswijk, meaning "pilgrimage neighbourhood". The town formed at the Saint Agatha Church, a pilgrimage location in the Middle Ages. Agatha of Sicily appeared there in the 9th century to a virgin from Velsen, fleeing from the Count of Kennemerland. In 1276 Beverwijk was granted market rights by Floris V, in 1298 it was granted city rights by John I, both Counts of Holland. During the 17th century wealthy merchants from Amsterdam built their estates, such as Huize Akerendam, Huize Westerhout, Huize Scheijbeeck, in the scenic dunes surrounding Beverwijk.
Prior to the reclamation of the IJ Bay, the narrowest point in the North Holland peninsula was at Beverwijk. Therefore, a defensive line was built there in 1800 following the Battle of Castricum in 1799. In 1944, during the Second World War, the Germans conducted a house-to-house raid in Beverwijk and Velsen-Noord, seizing nearly 500 persons as hostages to force the murderers of three collaborators to surrender themselves. In all, 63 of them never returned. Around 1977, the first furniture stores opened along the Parallel Road, forming the first "furniture boulevard" in the Netherlands. By 1981, 10 businesses had been established there. South of the furniture boulevard, the Bazaar was introduced in 1980. On March 23, 1997, Beverwijk was the location of a clash of two football firms. Supporters of the Dutch football team AFC Ajax met with Feyenoord supporters in what has come to be known as the "Battle of Beverwijk". During this incident, one Ajax supporter was beaten to death. Since 1997, Special Needs Judo Foundation has organised its annual OBG tournament in Sporthal De Walvis, featuring over 1000 special needs judoka from all over the world.
The tournament takes place every year in April. The municipal council of Beverwijk consists of 27 seats, which are divided as follows: VVD - 5 seats GroenLinks - 5 seats - 4 seats PvdA - 3 seats CDA - 3 seats Vrij Beverwijk - 3 seats Samen Beverwijk - 2 seats Democraten Beverwijk - 1 seat Gemeentebelangen - 1 seat Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen, painter Thomas Wijck, painter Ab Geldermans, cyclist winner of Luik-Bastenaken-Luik in 1960. Dutch champion in 1962 Henk Tijms, professor Wouly de Bie, water polo player Ilse Huizinga, singer Dorus de Vries, football goalkeeper Niki Terpstra, cyclist Stefan Struve, mixed martial artist Paul de Lange, football player Willem de Rooij, artist Arthur Numan, football player Stijn Plantema, auditor Beverwijk railway station Museum Kennemerland, Beverwijk Media related to Beverwijk at Wikimedia Commons Official website
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