“Flour Power”

Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the land north of the East River was occupied by the Siwanoys, one of many groups of Algonquin-speaking Lenapes in the area. Those of the Lenapes who lived in the northern part of Manhattan Island in a campsite known as Konaande Kongh used a landing at around the current location of East 119th street to paddle into the river in canoes fashioned from tree-trunk in order to fish.

Dutch settlement of what became New Amsterdam began in 1623. Some of the earliest of the small settlements in the area were along the west bank of the East River on sites that had previously been Native American settlements. As with the Native Americans, the river was central to their lives for transportation for trading and for fishing. They gathered marsh grass to feed their cattle, and the East River’s tides helped to power mills which ground grain to flour. By 1642 there was a ferry running on the river between Manhattan island and what is now Brooklyn, and the first pier on the river was built in 1647 at Pearl and Broad Streets. After the British took over the colony in 1664, and was renamed “New York”, the development of the waterfront continued, and a shipbuilding industry grew up once New York started exporting flour.

It’s hard to imagine the same kind of industrial and commercial growth simultaneously respecting the environment as if we could fish in the rivers these days! Hopefully we’ll get back there one day.