Title:
New York City Celebrates Its 400th Anniversary
Description: This is
a VOA Special English General News Report.
See text below
Text:
It is hard to believe that New York City was once a
small Dutch settlement. An old document shows that
Dutch settlers did, in fact, pay for this land. The
document can be seen at the citys South Street
Seaport Museum.
Martin Berense is head of the Netherlands National
Archives. He says the letter tells about a ship
arriving in Amsterdam. The ships operator said, The
settlement is going well. And, we bought the island
of Manhattan for sixty guilders.
The letter is on loan for New Yorks four hundredth
anniversary.
Berendse says the letter tells about the settlement,
which became New York.
The museum also has a map of the settlement. Another
map shows just how small Manhattan was. That changed
when Britain took control. Historian Barry Lewis
says the British filled in part of the East River
with waste because more land was needed.
BARRY LEWIS: We had only about one hundred thousand
people at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
By 1875, the population of Manhattan is over
one-million people. By 1910, over two million people
are living in Manhattan island.
The Brooklyn Bridge was built in eighteen
eighty-three so people could move to Long Island,
where land was less costly.
Lewis says people crossed the East River by carriage
or boat. Or they walked across the bridge. He says
New Yorks underground trains led to the development
of land in areas far from the center of the city.
Many businesses needed to be in Manhattan. So
developers started building up, creating the
skyscraper.
BARRY LEWIS: People were afraid it would fall down
in the first windstorm. And anyone who had property
in the commercial buildings next to it, they were
terrified that no one would rent in their buildings
because that thing was next door.
But more and more skyscrapers were built. Each one
was higher than the next. Lewis says the big reason
for so many skyscrapers was money. He says New York
was built by investments in land.
That is not why everything was built. Some
structures have improved the look of the city. Two
examples are the Washington Square Arch and the
Guggenheim Museum.
But money is still important on the island that
began as a trading century four centuries ago. The
area the Dutch settled is now Wall Street, the
worlds financial capital. Im Steve Ember.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
