Historians Think the City Seal is Misleading

Forget Sinister the Indian or windmill sails on the city seal: What has historians in a tizzy the seal's date of 1625. They tell the NY Times the date has "hardly any historical significance."

The Times explains that in 1974, the City Council wanted to diminish the fact British settlers first came to the land that would be the Big Apple. As for what date a revised seal should show, there are different opinions.

Manhattan borough historian Michael Miscino said, "It is simply wrong. The first founding settlers of New York City landed here in 1624.” Charles T. Gehring adds, “If you want to talk about New York City and not Manhattan, then 1624 would be a good date. If you want to put the actual date when it was purchased, when Peter Minuit made the deal, that was 1626.” And Kenneth T. Jackson thinks 1624 is the correct date to use.

On the other side, authors Russell Shorto and Edwin Burrows both think 1653--when New Amsterdam was formally chartered--would be better. Interesting, in the Green Book's Chronology of Important New York City Dates, the important event that occurred in 1653 was how the city's first tavern became the first city hall! (Per Green Book, in 1625, "Town of Nieuw Amsterdam becomes seat of government for Nieuw Netherlands.")

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By Jen Chung in News on July 14, 2008 4:25 PM

Comments [rss]

JenChungsBaby

The reason that it's misleading has nothing to do with the date. It's misleading because it shows a white guy and a native American standing side-by-side without any violence taking place.

MFer

The 1898 argument is weak. For one thing, not all the villages in western Queens actually signed on that year to the incoporation into the greater New York.

And by that argument any city that "grows" by annexation would have to redo their inception date. Is Rome the same size it was since 753 BCE?

And in 1998 New York City lost a lawsuit against New Jersey that covers parts of Ellis Island. So the seal should say 1998? Ridiculous.

nycvibe

There should not be any date on the seal, since the area was settled, long before any of the proposed dates, by the Lenape. (And we all know what happened to them).

NannyState

This argument is nothing "Nieuw".

Toby von Meistersinger

1898 would probably be the best since that is the date of the current form of city government when the consolidation occurred.

David McCaffredy

When did the name "New York City" coming into being? Was the city/island officially referred to as Manhattan or New York City before the 1898 inception of the boroughs?

Dave Hogarty

Boy, this should be a fun debate for history nerds. The U.S. marks its founding as 1776, when it declared independence from the British, yet people had been living in the nation for over a hundred years. One can quibble over the exact date that the Dutch settled Manhattan Island or when they turned it into an official city-state. Or we can place the founding of NYC when the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the Brits and it became New York. We've got plenty of dates to choose from.

This all excludes the other four boroughs, however, which are currently part of NYC. Let's just give up on the argument and place 1898 on the seal. That's the date of modern incorporation. It includes all the boroughs that make up present-day NYC. And it precludes any argument over the exact date of the city's founding, which is completely pointless due to its ambiguity.