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Wednesday 16 March 2016

Manhattan Island

Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of the Dutch Republic, discovered Manhattan Island and the indigenous people living there on September 11, 1609. He continued up the river that would later bear his name, the Hudson River, until he arrived at the site of present day Albany.

The name "Manhattan" derives from the word Manna-hata, as written in the 1609 logbook of Robert Juet, an officer on Henry Hudson's ship Halve Maen.

Dutch government official and explorer Peter Minuit acquired Manhattan Island on May 24, 1626 from unnamed American Indian people, (believed to have been Canarsee Indians of the Lenape). He exchanged the island for beads, cloth and trinkets valued at 60 guilders (In today’s dollars the island of Manhattan would have cost the American Indians about $1,050.)

Peter Minuit, early 1600s.

The first commercial brewery in the New World opened in New Amsterdam on Manhattan island in 1612 after colonists advertised in London newspapers for experienced brewers.

In 1667 the Dutch were given the rich, nutmeg producing island of Run in the Pacific by the British. In return the British were given a swampy backwater island: Manhatten.

On July 21, 1853, the New York State Legislature passed a law that authorized the City of New York to acquire more than 700 acres of land in Manhattan for the creation of a public park. The actual construction and development of Central Park began later, in the late 1850s.

The park's design was a collaborative effort between Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who won a design competition in 1858. They worked on the park's development and landscaping, and the park was officially completed and opened to the public in the 1870s. Central Park is now one of the most iconic and visited urban parks in the world, providing a green oasis in the heart of Manhattan.

The oldest North American zoo is in Central Park. It was founded in 1865. The zoo has a long history of providing recreational and educational experiences for visitors and has been an integral part of Central Park's attractions for many years.

At 3pm on September 4, 1882, Thomas Edison flicked a switch to turn on the world’s first electricity power station in Pearl Street, Manhattan, New York City. This is considered by many as the day that began the electrical age.

On April 8, 1904, the famous intersection of Broadway and 7th Avenue in Manhattan was officially renamed "Times Square" by the New York City mayor, George B. McClellan Jr.

The name "Times Square" was inspired by the new headquarters of The New York Times newspaper, which had just moved to the area. The newspaper's owner, Adolph Ochs, had convinced the city to change the name of the square as a way of promoting the paper's new home.


The population density of Manhattan peaked in 1910 at the height of European immigration to New York,  when it reached 101,548 people per square mile (39,208/km²).

300 years ago the Canarsee Indians of the Lenape were forced to leave Manhattan. Tribes from across the country returned to New York in 2019 for the first Pow Wow in centuries to celebrate their origin.

The New York City borough of Manhattan consists not only of Manhattan Island, bounded by the East, Hudson, and Harlem Rivers, and also includes several small adjacent islands and Marble Hill, a small neighborhood on the mainland.


Manhattan is the only borough in New York City that doesn't have a Main Street.

Wall Street is so named because there actually was a wall across Manhattan Island, designed to keep the Indians from the small city then huddled on the tip of the island.

Several buildings in Manhattan have their own zip code.

By Anthony Quintano - Flickr, Wikipedia Commons

If Manhattan had the same population density as Alaska, there would only be about 28 people in Manhattan.

"Manhattanhenge" is a biannual solar event where the rising or setting sun aligns with the east-west grid of Manhattan streets.

There are 1.6 million people in Manhattan and 1.2 billion ants.

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