Touring Gotham's Archaeological Past: 8 Self-Guided Walking Tours through New York City

225 Pages·2004·1.06 MB·English

by  Diana diZerega Wall

Touring Gotham’s Archaeological Past

Touring
Gotham’s
Archaeological
Past
8 Self-Guided
Walking Tours
through New
York City
Diana diZerega Wall & Anne-Marie Cantwell
yale university press new haven & london
Published with assistance from the Kingsley Trust Association
Publication Fund established by the Scroll and Key Society of
Yale College.
Copyright © 2004 by Yale University. All rights reserved. This
book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including
illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by
Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by
reviewers for the public press), without written permission
from the publishers.
Designed by Nancy Ovedovitz and set in The Sans type
by BW&A Books, Inc. Printed in the United States of America
by R. R. Donnelley.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wall, Diana diZerega.
Touring Gotham’s archaeological past : eight self-guided
walking tours through New York City / Diana diZerega Wall
and Anne-Marie Cantwell.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-300-10388-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Walking—New York Region—Guidebooks. 2. New
York Region—Antiquities. 3. Historic sites—New York Re-
gion. 4. New York Region—History, Local. 5. New York
Region—Tours. I. Cantwell, Anne-Marie E., date. II. Title.
f128.39.w357 2004
917.47'10444—dc22    2004005084
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence
and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for
Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
Tour 1 The Harbor Islands 1
Tour 2 Lower Manhattan: Dutch New Amsterdam, Colonial
New York, and the Premier City of the New Nation 25
Tour 3 Greenwich Village: At Home in Nineteenth-Century
New York 55
Tour 4 Northern Manhattan: How the First Archaeologists
Uncovered Indian, Colonial, and Revolutionary War
New York 77
Tour 5 The Bronx Shore with Views of Queens: A Voyage
through Thousands of Years of Indian Life along
the City’s Coast 103
Tour 6 The Farms and Towns of Queens County 125
Tour 7 The Town of Brooklyn: The Third-Largest City of the
Nineteenth-Century Nation 147
Tour 8 Southern Brooklyn: Native American and Early
New York 169
Bibliographic Sources for Each Tour 189
Bibliography 191
Illustration Credits 199
Index 201

Acknowledgments
We could not have written this book of tours without the
work of our colleagues, who contributed in many important
ways to the study of the city’s past. First, we are grateful to
those dedicated archaeologists, both professional and avoca-
tional, who worked in New York in the early and mid-twentieth
century, when most professional archaeologists were engaged
elsewhere. Without their hard and often unsung labor, we
would know much less about New York’s past, particularly
the millennia of Native American life.
For discussing their own work with us or for reading and
commenting on sections of the manuscript that covered their
work, we thank H. Arthur Banko≠, Eugene Boesch, Laura Chmie-
lewski, David Conlin, Evangeline Egglezos, Robert Fitts, James
Garman, Joan Geismar, Petar Glumac, William Griswold, Richard
Holmes, Richard Hunter, Terry Klein, Alyssa Loorya, James
Moore, Mary Anne Mrozinski, Daniel Pagano, Michael Pappa-
lardo, William Parry, Arnold Pickman, Lynn Rakos, Christopher
Ricciardi, Nan Rothschild, Sean Sawyer, Chuck Smythe, Linda
Stone, and Amanda Sutphin. We are also grateful to David
Hurst Thomas and Lori Pendleton for discussing with us the
ethical issues involved in writing archaeological tour books.
It is a pleasure to have such good and generous colleagues.
Many colleagues were particularly generous in providing
illustrations. We wish to thank Sean Asby, Kenneth Cobb, Deb-
orah Cox, David Conlin, Diane Dallal, Karen Flinn, Anna French,
Joan Geismar, Edith Gonzalez de Scollard, Pamela Greene,
William Griswold, Herbert Kraft, Alan Leveillee, Christopher
Ricciardi, Daniel Roberts, Nan A. Rothschild, Margy Schoettle,
and Lorraine Williams.
We also thank Beverly Lucas and Barbara Johnson of the
Anthropology Department of the City College of New York and
Dawn Wilson of the Anthropology Department of Rutgers
University–Newark for help along the way.
vii
Our association with Yale University Press continues to be
a pleasure. First and foremost, we thank Harry Haskell, our su-
perlative editor. He suggested that we write this book, and
his enthusiasm saw us through to its completion. We are also
grateful to Lauren Shapiro, who assumed the editorship of this
book in its final stages and whose expertise saw it through its
publication. We thank Jenya Weinreb, our manuscript editor,
for her invaluable help. Additional thanks go to Erik Kolb and
Matthew Weston for help in rounding up the illustrations and
permissions. We are grateful to Mary Traester, who traveled
throughout the city with us, taking the photographs that form
most of the frontispieces for the tours. We also thank Bill
Nelson, who drafted the maps, and our designer, Nancy
Ovedovitz, for making the book so attractive.
Last but not least, we thank our families, without whose sup-
port and patience we never would have finished this project.
viii acknowledgments
Introduction
When our book Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New
York City was published a few years ago, we weren’t sure what
its reception would be. As it turned out, we were overwhelmed
by all the favorable attention that it, and we, received. But
everyone asked the same question: “What sites can we go and
see?” We thought about it, got out our maps and notebooks,
put on our comfortable shoes, took buses and subways all over
town, and came up with this book of explorations, our answer
to that question. We had a wonderful time plotting these expe-
ditions so that you could see the city of New York in a di≠erent
way, as we archaeologists do.
The construction of these tours gave us the chance to talk
about a number of archaeological sites that we love but were
not able to fit into Unearthing Gotham. It also gave us a chance
to revisit some of our favorite sites. But amazingly, in many
cases the tours took us to parts of the city where we had never
been during all the decades that we have lived in New York.
How fascinating and wonderful those neighborhoods are!
We were reminded over and over again what an extraordinary
city New York is and was.
We recommend this book to anyone interested in New York.
Whether you are an inveterate New Yorker or a tourist visiting
for only a short time, the tours will give you a new slant on the
city’s past and present. Before you explore the city, though, you
might want some background about the people connected to
the sites you are going to see—both the inhabitants who lived
there and the archaeologists who excavated the sites. You’ll be
walking in all of their footsteps.
The City and Its People
The peopling of New York began 11,000 years ago with the ar-
rival of the first Native Americans, a people archaeologists call
Paleoindians. For millennia thereafter, New York was Indian
ix