The City Plan of New Amsterdam, New York

The colonial city of New Amsterdam founded by the Dutch in 1624, which later became part of New York City, vividly demonstrates the role that architecture can play both in determining and preserving history. The original city plan of New Amsterdam featured a fort at the tip of the island, where the entrance to the city was located. The rest of the city radiated out from this fort, illustrating the strategic importance of its location. When the fort became too broken down to serve its purpose, the city was captured and had to be conceded. Yet even today, the Dutch influence prevalent in the cityÆs architecture stands to tell the story of its origins.

The City Plan of New Amsterdam, New York

The city of New Amsterdam, which later became part of New York CityÆs Manhattan, started out with a carefully conceived, very explicit city plan, the Castello Plan (Fig. 1), brought over by the Dutch trading company that founded it in 1625. Figure 1.

ôAlthough it expanded in a haphazard fashion until the middle of the eighteenth century (a practice repeated in western towns and cities in the nineteenth century), what became the nation's largest city began as a planned environmentö (1).

New Amsterdam was the capital of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, and as such was a city of some importance when it was founded. One of the primary determiners of the city plan was the location of the fort at the end of Manhattan Island ôThe pos

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within the fort (2). Although town residents did run to the fort for cover when under Indian attack, it was so eroded that it did not afford much protection. Peter Stuyvesant, new Director-General in 1647, was to play a large part in the future of the fort and of New Amsterdam. Stuyvesant initiated a program where every male inhabitant between the ages of 16 and 60 was committed to work on strengthening the fort for 12 days each year (2). Due to that effort, the fort became more fortified, and in 1661, the walls were even faced with stone (2). However, in 1664, when English soldiers and sailors advanced on the colony, Peter Stuyvesant was standing in the fort and carefully studying his options when he finally decided to surrender his colony (2); the fort had failed in its purpose due to the preceding years of neglect. Architecture is rarely given credit for the defense and preservation of a city, but in the case of New Amsterdam, the cityÆs defense did rest on Fort Amsterdam, and the city plan radiating out from the fort provided wide access to the city itself once the fortÆs defenses were breached. Although the fortÆs key position in the city plan at the entrance to the city had been intended to avert such a disaster, t
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