New Orange - July 20th, 1673

The Third Anglo-Dutch War In 1672 Brought About A New Name And A Familiar Government To New York City.

City of New Orange, 1673 - NYPL

The City of New York has been called a lot of names but only a handful of them were official. New York City started out as New Amsterdam but for 7 months in 1673-1674 the city was officially named New Orange.

The Anglo-Dutch wars were a series of conflicts between the Commonwealth of England, later the Kingdom of England and the Dutch Republic. In 1672 both the Kingdom of England, under Charles II, and France, under the rule of Louis XIV, (treaty signed 1670 committed France to the English war) declared war with the seven provinces that made up the Dutch Republic. This war is referred to as the Third Anglo-Dutch War.

Admiral Cornelius Evertsen by Nicolaes Maes

During this war, the Dutch Admiral Cornelius Evertsen, in the spring of 1673, attacked English property in the New World starting in the Caribbean and working up the cost to New York. By the end of July, Admiral Eversten had arrived in Sandy Hook, NJ. On July 20, 1673, Eversten's fleet attacked Fort James at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. With help from the Dutch population in the area, the fleet took possession of the fort without firing a shot. New York was renamed New Orange in honor of Prince William of Orange.

Flag - the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands
http://jstevenlovci.blogspot.com/2007/09/city-of-new-york-official-flag.html

7 months later, in February 1674, a peace treaty was signed between England and the Dutch. All conquered territories were returned. New Orange and its Dutch government were reverted back to New York in October of that same year.

Time Line:

New Amsterdam (founded in 1625 - 1664)
New York (1664-1673)
New Orange (1673-1674)
New York (1674-current)

Bibliography:

Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999

Eric Homberger. The Historical Atlas of New York City. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998

Multi-House News: Rehabbing Historic Properties

Multi-House News

Rehabbing Historic Properties: Where to Start?
Published: February 05, 2009
By Keat Foong, Executive Editor


See the main feature "Renovating in a Recession."

According to Steven Lovci, project architect at Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners LLP, New York, one of the first steps in a historic rehabilitation is to accumulate information about the physical structure of the existing property. Adaptive reuse typically comes with a lot of surprises, he points out. Obtaining as much information as possible about the physical building will minimize the unexpected circumstances that could cost the developer money. For example, on a recent development, transfer beams were discovered in the interior partitions which led to the need to modify the apartments from three- to two-bedrooms. Information on buildings can be obtained from conducting a survey. Getting older buildings' architectural plans can be more challenging, and these can be obtained from historical societies, architectural firms, libraries or previous owners, Lovci, said. Even then, older plans may not be accurate, as plans may have been modified since the time the documents were drawn, he noted. For example, in a recent project, a generator had been added that was never in the original plans. Also, the drawings may not be meticulously accurate and need to be checked, he noted. For example, the columns may not be precisely where the drawings say they are. "You have to make sure all the columns are in the right place, so that when you are building the space, the column will not end up in the wrong place, for example in the middle of the bathroom," he says. How far do you take the renovation? Given the current economic conditions, many rehabilitation line items will be deferred. Lovci said that he expects to see more and more drawings will be made for future executions, whereby the changes will be phased in over a period of time. For example, new windows in a recent project were not historic. The architect created a masterplan for the windows so that when they needed to be replaced, they will be replaced by historic designs. Also, developers may not clean buildings, but may just repoint, so that when funding becomes more available, the repointing can be phased in.

Oscar Niemeyer - Happy Birthday

Oscar Niemeyer the modernist architect who allowed the sensuality of Brazil’s environment to create the “Brazilian Free-Form Modernism," turns 101 today (12.15.08) I have been bewitched by Mr. Niemeyer’s forms since I stumbled upon a book of his early work during my first year of architecture school. I am most intrigued with his early work in the 1940’s and 50’s. The work was lucid, dramatic and well detailed.

My Top Ten Favorites
10. The National Congress Complex, Brasilia (1958-60)
09. University of Constantine, Algeria (1969-77)
08. Ministry of Justice, Brasilia (1962-70)
07. Alvorada Palace, Brasilia (1956-58)
06. The interior of the Senate, Brasilia (1958-60)
05. The Copan Building, San Paulo (195157)
04. The bris soleil on the Brazilian Pavilion for New York World’s Fail (1939)
03. The Stair in the Palacio de Itamaraty, Brasilia (1962)
02. Ministry of Education and Health Building, Rio de Janeiro (1936-43)
01. Hospital Sul-America, Rio de Janeiro (1952)

“It is not the right angle that attracts me, not the straight line – hard and inflexible – created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curve, the curve that I fined in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers in the body of the beloved woman.” - Oscar Niemeyer

Unexpected Encounters

Per the last Census Bureau numbers, New York City has approximately 8.2 Million residents. For discussion’s sake an average 30 year old has approximately 50 friends and another 150 colleagues and close acquaintances. The odds do not favor the accidental encounter with someone you know, yet they happen, and they seem to happen frequently.

The possibilities are 41,000 to 1.
There is actually a better chance of winning an Academy Award: 11,500 to 1.

I believe what makes these encounters possible is that New York is made up of nodes linked together by a matrix of crossroads. Inevitably, two bodies come together as they pass from point A to point B.

There have been countless meetings by chance - when I have been sitting in a café, reading a book (or studying for the A.R.E.) and a tap on the window lifts my eyes to a familiar face waving and spelling hello. It was just this past weekend that I was walking down the street doing errands when I ran across a colleague – for a moment your internal voice says, “I know that person, where do I know that person from?” and then out of your mouth, “Hey Robert, what are you doing on the West Side?” He had come to the city from New Jersey with his family to walk through the American Museum of Natural History. Even rarer, yet it happens, are the occasional encounters from someone passing through town. A few years back, on Broadway near Lincoln Center, I ran into a high school friend, someone whom I had not seen for at least 8 years. She did not know I was living in New York and of course I did not know she was traveling through. We chatted for the rest of the day right there in the street.

When I bring this concept up with friends, each and every city dweller has a story of someone they have bumped into from the present or the past.

For me, chance encounters completely make my day, and sometimes my week. They reinforce the notion that the City is not the mega-metropolis it is labeled, but a quilt of small neighborhoods woven together. Each encounter seems almost serendipitous, created to keep oneself in touch with friends and to re-enforce humanity.

It was midweek; the sun was bright and the cloud storms from the morning had pasted. Conference calls in the A.M. with contractors and a meeting with a client had put me in a funk - I had decided to take a long lunch and started walking east on 10th. Within a few blocks of my journey a friend waved, a true sight for sore eyes, an unexpected encounter that instantly put a smile on my face. Our short conversation brightened my whole day.

Political Ambitions Of New York Have All But Dwindled Away In 2008

In the summer of 2007 the Empire State was poised to be a national political powerhouse. A title the state had not seen for seven decades back when Franklin D. Roosevelt swept into the presidential office in 1933.

It seemed to be New York’s year; the state produced three presidential candidates, two of whom were frontrunners. New York City’s mayor was continuously in the national spotlight with rumors of running an independent bid and potentially becoming the first non-party president. In addition, a promising young political star was elected to governor and poised for promotion to D.C. as the nation’s attorney general, presidential advisor or even a vice president.

New York had an impressive run of Presidents with a total of six - starting with Martin Van Buren (1837-1841), Millard Fillmore (1850-1853), Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885), Grover Cleveland (1885-1889 and 1893-1897), Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909), and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945). The state has also seen promising presidential bids from Governor Alfred E. Smith, Jr., Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

2007 began with the promise of a restoration of domination on the national political scene and a probable return to the Whitehouse. Fourteen months later the political ambitions of New York have all but dwindled away. The first to fall was presidential candidate and previous Governor George Pataki. In late 2006 Pataki expressed publicly his intentions to seek higher office but after it was determined that he could not beat former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, among other things, Pataki ended his presidential ambitions before they even stated. Giuliani announced his plans for presidency in 2007 and lead national polls as the Republican frontrunner during most of that year. National political pundits saw a possible New York presidential showdown between Giuliani and New York Senator Hillary Clinton, a presidential candidate and frontrunner for the Democratic ticket. Giuliani’s campaign started to falter after scrutiny of his positions on national issues, political associations and contacts, and personal matters. After a poor showing in the first caucus and primary elections, Giuliani chose to focus on key delegate states, which proved disastrous and dropped out of the race in late January 2008. High speculation, national polling, and ambiguity from advisors fueled suspicion that Mayor Michael Bloomberg would make a possible bid for president. It is a hypothesis that Bloomberg needed polarized candidates in order for him, a third party candidate, to get the independent and moderate votes to win. When John McCain, a moderate Republican, became the established Republican candidate Bloomberg’s window of opportunity was closed. The last man (woman) standing is Hillary Clinton. Although still in the running, she has not produced the strong showing that political pundits expected just a few months ago. Win or lose, a long drawn out primary will leave Clinton or her rival Barack Obama embattled, beleaguered and behind on the campaign fundraising for the general election.

The saddest and most depressing of this group is the fall from grace of Elliot Spitzer. A promising political future shaped by high moral standards which would have eventually led to a bid for the Whitehouse, crumbled in the speed of light.

Who would have predicted in 2007, with such high expectations, the devastating political punches of 2008? Looking back, it was exhilarating although the highs and lows has left this political junkie exhausted and bewildered. Perhaps we will all have to wait until the next political cycle to see if New York makes another potentially great showing.

The City of New York Official Flag

The City of New York Official Flag

A number of months ago, I stumbled across an image of the “prince’s flag,” the predecessor to the flag of the Netherlands. This flag had uncanny similarities to the New York City flag which made me wonder about the history of the design of the flag. Just this past week, for reasons that I will not go into, I needed to find the RGB, CKMY, or Pantone numbers for the colors of the New York City flag. It put me on a quest, which gave me a better understanding of the meaning behind the city flag.

Description:

According to the City Administrative Code,

§ 2-103 Official city flag.
a. The following design is hereby adopted as the design of the official flag of the city:
1. A flag combining the colors orange, white and blue arranged in perpendicular bars of equal dimensions (the blue being nearest to the flagstaff) with the standard design of the seal of the city in blue upon the middle, or white bar, omitting the legend "Sigillum Civitatis Novi Eboraci," which colors shall be the same as those of the flag of the United Netherlands in use in the year sixteen hundred twenty-five.


The Seal of City

The seal is made up of six predominate features: Shield, two supports, crest, date, legend, and laurel wreath.

At the center of the seal is a shield with saltire-wise (drawn in the direction of the bend of the shield and crossing in the center) sails of a windmill. Between the sails on the top and base are two beavers. Both beavers are in profile. The design of the beavers is the same design of the seal of the New Netherlands. Between the sails on each flank are flour barrels.

Popular belief is that the windmills represent New York’s Dutch history. According to a John Pine's book, “Seal and Flag of the City of New York”, windmills were not exclusively used in Holland, but were widely used in England as well. In addition, in New Amsterdam, and then in New York, the principle source of mechanical power prior to the common use of steam was wind and water. Mr. Pine suggests that sails may have been suggested by one of the leading citizens of New Amsterdam and New York, Mr. Van Courtlandt. Saltire-wise sails of a windmill are exhibited in the Van Courtland family coat of arms. The beavers and the flour barrels represent the cities’ earliest trade goods.

Holding the shield is a Lenape tribesman forming the sinister (left) supporter, and a Dutch sailor forming the dexter (right) supporter. The Native American is holding a self-bow and the sailor is holding a plummet (lead-line) and to his right is a cross-staff both used for water navigation. Both supports are standing on a horizontal laurel.

The crest located above the shield is the American eagle with wings displayed, upon a hemisphere. The crest was added after the revolutionary war to indicate New York City’s succession to the United States. (Some references indicated that the eagle represents New York State). Prior to the change the crest was an imperial crown.

The date, 1625 is located beneath the horizontal laurel. It indicates the official date New Amsterdam was founded by the Dutch. The date has been changed a number of times during the history of the seal. It’s last change happened in 1977, prior to this change it read 1664, signifying the English takeover and renaming New Amsterdam to New York.

The legend in Latin, ‘Sigillum Civitatis Novi Eboraci’, ‘the Seal of the City of New York,’ is removed from the flag’s seal.

Finally, a laurel wreath encapsulates the ensemble.

Origin of the Field.

In 1579, the northern half of the seventeen Dutch provinces under the control of Charles V, King of Spain, decalred their independence which began an 80-year war ending in 1648. (1) One of the most influential of the rebels was Prince William I of Orange, Court of Nassau. (2) The livery colors of William I were Orange, White and Blue (the prince’s coat of arms). These colors were worn as Armbands by his soldiers at the siege of Leiden in 1574 (3), and when the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (aka Dutch Republic or United Provinces) was born in 1581 they used the horizontal tricolor for the ensign and the flag used on the land. (4) The flag is commonly referred to as the Prince’s Flag.

Republic of the Seven United Netherlands

In 1609, the ship Halve Maen (Half moon) under the command of Henry Hudson was commissioned by the Dutch East Indian Company to find a Northeast ‘New Netherland’ all-water passage to Asia. The Ship possibly flew four ensigns (flags), the South Holland Province, the United Provinces of Holland, the City of Amsterdam and the Dutch East India Company Amsterdam Chamber. (5)

Dutch East Indian Company

Dutch East India Company Amsterdam Chamber

The Dutch fur trading company founded the settlement in 1613 eventually naming it New Amsterdam. Company flags are an important part of vexillogy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries because companies, rather than governments, were in many cases responsible for the actual exploration, settlement and administration of colonial territories. (6) This was the case in New Amsterdam. The first settlements would have flown the Dutch East Indian Company’s flag. The company’s flag used the national stripes of orange (top), white and blue. It contained three letters, VOC, for Vereenigte Oost-Indische Compagnie, the name of the company in Dutch. (7)

The light blue of the prince’s flag by the time of the settlement of New Amsterdam would have been darker. The “De Nederlandsche Vlag” by C. De Waard, published at Groninge in 1900, establishes the fact that prior to 1630 all flags of the Dutch were orange, white and blue and the same authority indicates that a dark blue, rather than the light blue, was the shade in use. (8) The orange and white have not been contested and it is suggested that the orange has not changed from the time of the original settlement.

It was suggested in the book Seal and Flag of the City of New York, that the blue would have been indigo. Whether imported from India or Egypt or extracted from the plant known as “Woad,” which was cultivated throughout Europe, Indigo was the only fast dye of blue color that was known in 1626 when New Amsterdam was founded. (9)

Image above, NYC flag does not include legend in seal. Rendering of NYC flag at top of page does include legend this rendering is incorrect.

Theoretical Time line of the primary flag flown in New Amsterdam and New York.

1613-1647: Dutch East Indian Company flag then the United New Netherlands Company and after 1621 the Chartered West India Company

1647-1652: National Flag of the Netherlands (the orange was changed to red and the light blue to dark blue around 1630)

1653-1783: Kingdom of England Flag

1783-1915: White field bearing the seal of New York in dark blue.

1915 -1977: Official flag and seal (actually the original British seal) commemorating the 250th anniversary of the assumption of municipal controlled by the English. The Design by Paul Manship. (10)

1977-Present: Official flag with change of seal


And if you are curious:
According to the New York City Arts Commission who graciously provided me with the calibration colors of the present New York City Flag.

Blue = PMS 072
Orange = PMS Orange 021
(However, depending on the printer this is may be too red so use 137)


Footnotes:
(1) Dutch Republic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Republic)
(2) William the Silent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I_of_Orange)
(3) Smith, Whittney. The Flag Book of the U.S.. New York: William Morrow & Co. 1970
(4) ibid
(5) Site about the Half Moon replica (http://www.hudsonriver.com)
(6) Smith, Whittney. The Flag Book of the U.S.. New York: William Morrow & Co. 1970
(7) ibid
(8) Pine, John B. Seal and Flag of the City of New York. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
(9) ibid
(10) the Times Square Enterprises Corporation - 2002 http://nyctimeline.com/data7.HTM

Bibliography:
Report by the Committee of the Art Commission Associates for submission of the city of New York. On the Adoption of an Official Flag By the City of New York and the Restoration of the Ancient Corporate Seal. Jan 1915

The City Flag (New York City) by John Erskine

The City Flag

Flag of our hope, out of our heritage woven,
Flag for a storied city, forever new,
What shall you mean to the myriads you wave over?
What master-loves shall be lifted up to you?
Strangely will you greet the endless dream the city harbors,
Greet the astonished eyes the ships bring to the city shore,
Greet the adventurous hearts with surprise of familiar welcome,
Weird as a face remembered, yet never seen before.

Here where the rivers divide, where the eastern bridges
Carry their ant-like streams, where crag upon crag
The walls of Aladdin gleam with sunlit windows,
Here, looking up, they shall look on you, bright flag.
No banner of ancient traffic, realm of the Netherlands, rule of England,
Ghost of adventures long ago, nor names gone down with the past;
Flag of a nobler faring, flag of the port of vision,
They shall look up – and behold! their mirage come true at last!

Here in their hearts’ horizon they find heaven,
Dawns that lured them hither, here they find;
Here is the threshing-floor of the tireless spirit,
Here on new bread feeds the eternal mind-
Infinite purpose, infinite reach, infinite life and aspiration,
Desire of the star like beauty bound in the common knot of things,
Beauty changing the restless street with faery glamour,
And lifting the city towers light as a song with wings.

Flag of our fathers, out of our heritage woven,
Flag for a city of hope, forever young,
Fling to the winds of earth our ageless challenge,
Skyward in you man’s faith once more is flung-
Still may the ships come riding home, thronged with alien faces;
That yearn with light disguised, that grow with unsuspected powers;
Till our fortune eyes, grow old, look up and see you waving
Welcome to younger days and newer dreams than ours.

-John Erskine, 1915