Manhattan

Manhattan was a natural choice for New Netherland's capital—defensible, well-positioned for trade, and known to natives long before Europeans arrived. Its name, derived from a Delaware word for bow-making wood, endured.

The Dutch established large farms north of New Amsterdam, including the famed Bowery Number One. Bowery Lane connected them to the city, eventually evolving into today’s Bowery between Chinatown and the Lower East Side.

The Dutch widened the southern reaches of the trail, making it into a proper road where it led straight into Fort Amsterdam. They called it de Heere Straat--the Gentlemen's Street. Under the English it became Broadway.

In the seventeenth century, forts were essential for trade and defense. Once Manhattan was chosen as New Netherland’s center, establishing a fort there was an obvious and necessary first step.

During the Dutch period, the area north of New Amsterdam was called Noortwyck. In the 1670s, Yellis Mandeville renamed it Greenwich, likely an Anglicization of the Dutch "Greenwijck," meaning Pine District.

To defend New Amsterdam from northern threats, the Dutch encouraged settlement on Manhattan’s flat northern lands, known as Muscoota. Early plantation efforts failed, but in 1658, Petrus Stuyvesant established a garrisoned village there.

New Amsterdam, the Dutch capital on Manhattan’s southern tip, had just fifteen streets and under 1,000 residents. Yet its multicultural makeup—18 languages, many ethnicities—laid the foundation for New York City’s diversity.

Wall Street takes its name from the wooden wall the Dutch erected in the 1650s to protect New Amsterdam from potential British or Native attacks. The wall stood near today's Wall Street.