Having been to NYC myself several times on business, I have a few  
thoughts of my own about the place. The idea that "all New Yorkers  
are rude", well, to me they're not, NYC is an awfully big place with  
only so many pieces of the pie to go around, so in order to make a go  
of it, my suspicion is that New Yorkers have to bend rules, break  
rules and push and dig harder than most people elsewhere, just to get  
their little piece. And it comes across as being rude, pushy, etc.  
They're not bad people, tho, most of them are just doing what they  
have to do. But that said, I also see NYC as a very provincial place,  
in the sense that they know [or care to know] so little other than  
their own little corner of the world. Is that any different that the  
good people of East Podunk, who only know or care to know about East  
Podunk? NYC is the best, the biggest, the toughest, the most  
resilient, New Yorkers can pull through anything, as if the people of  
New Orleans or Peoria or Portland couldn't? Oh, please. As I recall,  
that NY Times article made it sound as if Jamestown was nothing more  
than the hovel we saw in the movie "The New World" [and one of their  
sneers was that the replica of Hudson's ship was used in the filming  
as one of the Jamestown ships, tsk tsk], and not that it existed for  
90 years, had brick buildings [at one point the largest brick  
official public building in any of the colonies] and became the basis  
for a productive colony that laid the groundwork for our present  
system of government. As I recall, the Dutch colony didn't actually  
come till some years after Henry Hudson's explorations, he didn't  
actually "found" anything... for much of his voyage up the Hudson he  
seems to have been running his ship aground, pulling it out, running  
it aground, didn't he take depth readings or anything? He didn't seem  
to have been an outstanding mariner to me.

I think a NYC schizophrenia came out after the events of 9/11. The  
whole world wanted to sympathize with this horrifying tragedy that  
had befallen the city that promotes itself as the financial and  
cultural and publishing [etc] center of America, if not the world.  
The people who died there that day had roots all over the globe. And  
yet NYC suddenly wanted the whole world to go away and let the city  
grieve alone, all the "outsiders" then became obnoxious nuisances  
they resented, not genuinely caring citizens who shared in the grief  
of the city that has imposed itself on our collective conscience.  
When you promote yourself [continuously] as Number One, you can't  
then flip and shove people away when you feel the need.

Now I'm sure we'll hear from some irate New Yorkers...

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone



On Feb 1, 2007, at 6:53 AM, David Kiracofe wrote:

> I remember that article: in my recollection it was more about  
> holding up
> a romanticized view of New Amsterdam/New York as a bustling, tolerant
> multi-cultural center than about Jamestown per se (although they did
> ride down the Virginians pretty hard).    They were claiming that in
> light of what America became later, New Amsterdam/New York was more  
> like
> that than Jamestown.   The problem with that view of New York's  
> origins
> is that it ignores all the bad parts of the Dutch colonial experiment:
> treatment of Indians, slavery, etc.  The Dutch were rapacious
> capitalists after all, exploitative and harsh in their pursuit of  
> profit
> (which also fits in with modern New Yorkers like Trump).
>
> David Kiracofe
>
> David Kiracofe
> History
> Tidewater Community College
> Chesapeake Campus
> 1428 Cedar Road
> Chesapeake, Virginia 23322
> 757-822-5136
>>>> Sunshine49 <[log in to unmask]> 01/31/07 10:32 PM >>>
> Late last year there was an article on the NY Times website, maybe
> you all discussed it here. Talk about hooey- a few NY "historians"
> claiming Jamestown had no hold on the national development at all, it
> was a bunch of wood and mud hovels that soon fell into the mud, the
> real beginning that should get the credit was... Henry Hudson! Boy I
> wrote them a pointed letter, and my guess is I was not the only one.
> By the time the day was half gone, they had pulled the prominently
> placed article from the website. The arguments by those "historians"
> were the most biased, ignorance-based loads of baloney I have ever  
> read.
>
> Nancy
>
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