The gaggle of intelligent-looking folk dressed in black under the marquee on Governors Island in mid-September could have come from any urban center — Manhattan’s SoHo, perhaps, except that they primarily spoke Dutch. They gathered to celebrate their ancestors’ prodigious contributions to contemporary design and commerce near the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s momentous arrival in New York harbor (an event that occurred in September 1609). Their presence on the silent, tree-shrouded parkland, with its magnificent, unfamiliar views of the harbor islands, offered an ironic commentary on New York’s origins and a living, chattering mnemonic on what might have been if the British had not asserted themselves in 1664. It also prompted speculation on where America’s largest city now stands.
Throughout its history, New York has remade itself. Perhaps the most visible and meaningful change to the single island that its first settlers called Mannahatta (“island of many hills”) has been the rediscovery of its waterfront. As the city’s economy has shifted from industry and jammed docks to more intellectual and service-oriented pursuits, the waterfront has sprouted, with greening parkland that almost circles the entire island of Manhattan and spreads to the other boroughs. Hudson River Park, which stretches from Lower Manhattan to Midtown in a green linear zip of joggers and skaters and sunset-watchers, may be the most significant new public space since Central Park.
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