NYU Washington Square College - Album Yearbook (New York, NY)

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one. Wrapping his buckskins tightly about him, Keeya-Meeka stepped bravely forth from the tent of his fathers, gone in the snows of many moons, alone in the wailing wind, alone with that Voice in the night. Alone he had gone, and alone he returned, after much time had passed in anxious waiting. And after he returned, the voice was heard no more, for both wind and night had fled to other worlds, Keeya-Meeka had met the Moose-that-talked, and strange was the tale he brought back to the Sappokanikans. The voice had spoken of a new race of men, the Doh-Utch, that was soon to come from the land of sunriseg a race that would be favored by the Gods in its battles with the Sappokanikans. And when the final peace pipe would grow cold, the Sappokanikans would be no more. The many mighty warriors believed the word of their leaderg packing their sleds, they turned their faces towards the Land of Eternal Snows and departed into a country where none could follow . . . departed into a land where they dwell to this day in happiness and joy, guided by the great spirit of Keeya-Meeka. However, a few Red Men remained behind, for they did not believe the prophecy of the Voice that spoke in the night. They remained in the Village of Sappokanikan until the year of 1600, when the Doh- Utch, or Dutch adventurer, Peter Minuit, traded Manhattan Island away from them for some sixty guilders or twenty-four dollars' worth of glittering little trinkets. ' This Peter Minuit, a bustling believer in progress and the supremacy of the white man's civilization, set himself up as the first governor of the Island. From the day he set apart Sappokanikan Village as a farm for the Dutch West India Company until this thirty-fourth year of the twentieth century, that little bit of the world extending from the North River to University Place and from Fourteenth Street to Canal Street in New York City has indeed witnessed 'much which since has perished out of mind . . . Thirty-three years after Peter Minuit's shrewd transaction, Van Twiller, the second governor of New York, looking over his new domain, cast eyes upon the Village of Sappokanikan and saw that it was good. So he took it unto himself and soon turned the village into a private tobaccofarm, building his first house at Bossen Bouerie. The days of the Dutch, however, were numbered. In 1664 an English fleet, sent out by Charles II's brother, the Duke of York, followed the course traced by the Half-Moon and, sailing into New York Harhor, demanded the surrender of the feebly garrisoned Dutch fort on Manhattan Island. Outnumbered in every way, Peter Stuyvesant, director general of the Dutch colony of New Netherland and commander of the fort surrendered. In 1664, then, the English flag was hoisted aloft, and with that mania which inspires all conquerors to re-label the spoils of their victory, New Arnsterclam became New York and the Village of Sappokanikan became Grinnich, or Greenwich. 2. ROM THE time of the British conquest until nearly a century later the village of Greenwich slept in peaceful obscurity. During this period, which historians sometimes phrase as The Eftahlishment of the English, New York was slowly growing 44 fl-41 40,4 vN,,,?v 3 'tx 4 ' - -5 I-l :LL P 5-l'Q??f.f.'f A Cccv.Y-+

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reenwich Village by RBUBEN RAB1Nov1Tc1-I Forty years back when much had place Tbat since has perished out of mind . . . I - THOMAS HAILDY. 1. F TWO score years may obliterate out of man's mind that which has been, what, then, remains after the passing of three centuries? To understand, to feel the myriad of events which took place in that tiny portion of the globe's surface now called Greenwich Village, man's memory must travel far, far back to the year 1600- back to the days of blunderbusses and buckskin suits, of sea-faring adventurers and native Americans. , Let all of our skyscraping sentinels of steel and stone become animated in the middle of a very, very dark night. Let these tall, powerful giants stoop down, pick up all of our concrete creations under their arms, let them arise again and march off, Brobdignagian-like, into the Catskill Mountains. Let them join the companions of Rip Van Winkle in a game of nine-pins, while they are gone, let us survey what remains after they have stepped off the soil of Manhattan Island. Let us find Greenwich Village as it was some three hundred years ago. The tribe of Indians of the Village of Sappokanikan had lived through many winters and many summers ere Henry Hudson sailed up the river Hudson in his vessel, the Half-moon. Their leader was Keeya-Meeka, the greatest of all warriors in time of battle, the gentlest of rulers in time of peace. Keeya-Meelufs glory had lived for many moons, when a great adventure befell the Red . Man of Sappokanikan. It happened in the season of short days and long nights, this great adventure of Keeya- Meeka and the Moose-that-talked. Snow had fallen for many days-the cone-topped pines seemed to bow under their white mantles-the hillsides showed ghostly gray faces to the cold moon-the frosty, gleaming stars were indeed the eyes of the many Gods of the Red Man. Deep and powerful, the Voice was heard call- ing through the night, D010-Utclo . . . Dol:-Utah . . . D019-Utclo. None but Keeya-Meeka dared to step forth from the great tepee of the chief- tains to seek the caller in the night. He had arisen and had declared himself to be the chosen 513 45444 V flow NIL? J 0 z L - Y . i . 5 EBF!! 'lfiilgiiifl E T 0 C c A: x 1- 'Q

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into adolescence. Governors came across the Atlantic to set up one kind of government after another, following the didtates or perhaps whims of that noble sovereign, James II. At first absolute government was the order of the day. Then, with a new monarch in the throne, a new governor restored the popular assembly mode of self-government. Political strife permeated the air over Manhattan--but the Village slept on. In a later day engineers with vision were to build the Erie Canal, then the New York Central Railroad, thus making the Hudson Valley a main highway to the Great Lakes and the rapidly growing West. West Street was to become a docking place for the Cunard and the WhiteXStar steamers, bringing new faces and new fashions into the Village. But from the middle of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth, when that Irish lad who died a Vice Admiral of the Red Squadron brought the first taste of lavishness and splendor in country homes to the natives of the Village, any Dutch farmer or English colonist living in the vicinity of Minetta Creek would have looked with surprise at a visitor's query concerning local news, while he slowly replied: Why, nothing ever happens around here! In this period, between the time of the institution of British rule and the building of Commodore Peter Warren's Greenwich mansion Cin 17741 on a farm of almost three hundred acres in celebration of his marriage to Mistress Susannah DeLancy, the globe kept spinning on its axis and travelling over its orbit with an unperturbed calm- ness equal to that of the lethargic quiet and peace of Greenwich Village. While Milton was receiving ten pounds for his Paradise Lost, and was planning Paradise Regained, while Charles II was spending his exile in France, living with his uncle Louis XIV who had declared L'etat, c'esZ moi, while Art and Literature and Science flourished as never before in an age where giants named Pascal, Corneille, Racine and Moliere swayed the people with their writings, the Village slept on. While England saw Butler, Pepys, Dryden, Addison, Steele, Pope, Defoe, Johnson and Goldsmith, the Village saw men. From this time on the Village was the center of acitivities fast and furious, the Village A - f nothing. But when, in 17 39, New York faced if - vim: --:WE A Aw up its Erst smallpox epidemic, the Village woke u 19. New York was fleeing before a wave of sick- I I A 'Ir ness which threatened to inundate the lower part of Manhattan. Security seemed to lie in the sandy marshes around Minetta Creek, away uptown, in the country-thus did the Village become a health resort for the afflicted. Aroused ,,.. 5 1, R up into astivity, an awakened Village began to take is notice of what was going on in the affairs of l'.l'Qlj'A -I '-i. 5 75' ' 'lsai I f ,,,,,. f ,.f.,,, ,'-i . . iiiyxi sria V - hi5f0fY Was bemg Written- .-i'.-f ' .'-,: 2 ..,. Aia:-frr'l'i3'fT?i??ff5'5'5 This Admiral Peter Warren, whose monu- :pi ment in Westrninster Ahhey, executed bY 'uli 'lii iliii i uliiil 4 1 Roubiliac, shows Hercules placing Sir Peter's .,,- aa', 2 l i ' 15 9-K fi VNIL -xo eg, as 2.523 f J 5 44159, + - 'fri ' in 'J1iE'?f'ffr