Remembering our Dutch roots

What do bowling, the Bowery, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Harlem, Stuyvesant Town, the Yankees, the Roosevelts and cole slaw have in common?

They’re all part of New York’s unique Dutch heritage. You might have missed it, with the economic crisis and the U.N. General Assembly traffic jams, but Dutch officials — including the prime minister, the foreign minister and the heir to the Dutch throne — were also in town this week to inaugurate the city’s 400th birthday celebration.

Our Dutch Heritage

The party begins unofficially next year with the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson’s voyage up what became the eponymous river. It’s also 400 years since Champlain sailed down his lake upstate and the official bicentennial of Robert Fulton’s inaugural steamboat voyage.