Gothamist: Historians Think the City Seal is Misleading

JenChungsBra

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:48:53 -0500

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

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:48:48 -0500

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

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:27:38 -0500

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

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:09:31 -0500

This argument is nothing "Nieuw".

Toby von Meistersinger

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:14:35 -0500

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

David McCaffredy

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:41:51 -0500

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

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:08:05 -0500

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.