New York is my third ‘home’, after Rome and Haarlem (NL). There is where my brother lives and where I love to go from time to time to find inspiration.

What most of you already know, New York used to be New Amsterdam, the capital of the Dutch colony called New Netherlands, in the early 1600s. New Amsterdam was on what now Manhattan Island is. There are countless traces of the Dutch presence in the city, but what I was not aware of, is the Dutch influence outside NYC.

In an a very interesting article in The New York Times, Russel Shorto, an American writer, historian and journalist, points out the still visible influences of the Dutch era in the Hudson Valley, the heart of the Dutch colony. 

Please click on this link to discover more about remnants of the history of the Dutch colony in parts of New York State.