NYC’s downtown urban morphology demonstrates a medieval town plan based on merging natural topography, requirements for commerce and self-preservation. New Amsterdam, settled as a “company town” for the Dutch West India Trading Company, overcame a slow start to flourish as a trading and “re-fueling” port as part of the Dutch Atlantic Ocean mercantile trade triangle in contrast to the land-grant, colonizing plantations up the North (Hudson) River created to secure a strong Dutch land presence in the New World. From this small village grew the world’s financial center housed in a new building type—High Rise Commercial construction.

New Amsterdam was founded in 1625 as a trading and resupply post for The Netherland’s West India Trading Company.  The British took control of New Amsterdam in 1664 and changed its name to New York City.  It became a key city in England’s expansionist colonization of North America.

The Dutch culture of commerce and trade is embedded in the core of NYC’s purpose and history.  Dutch physical presence is captured in the physical form of the city and on the seal of the city.  We will walk the circumference of New Amsterdam as it existed in 1664.  The walk highlights the contrast between an urban form developed as the Netherlands began its transition from its late Medieval phase into the Renaissance and the 1811 NYC Commissioners’ City Plan, the City’s famous street grid, a Jeffersonian-period Enlightenment town plan. The downtown core is rich in the City’s historic development of buildings, national political history and the evolution of a capitalist economy centered on Wall Street.

2 Hours Walking Tour

Wall Street & Broadway: Trinity Episcopal Church
1 Wall Street (Bank of NY; Irving Trust)
Wall Street Subway Station
1 Broadway (International Merchant Marine Co.)
8 Broad Street (NY Stock Exchange)
1 Bowling Green (Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs House)
54 Peal Street (Fraunces Tavern)
Stone Street Historic District
1 Hanover Square (India House)
40 Wall Street (Bank of Manhattan Co HQ, Trump Bldg.)
28 Wall Street (Federal Hall National Memorial)