Leenaers – The New York Connection | News030

Armand Leenaers- On Monday evening, August 1, it will be 348 years ago that Utrecht was hit by a hurricane. As a result, the nave of the Dom Church collapsed. It is also the date when I became aware of the New York connection of Utrecht.

That’s right. Visiting Latin American relatives, I attended a baptism in the Bronx on August 1, 2004. To my surprise, the Catholic priest on duty knew of the existence of Utrecht and St Martin’s Cathedral, better known as the Dom. He turned out to have received his education in Leuven. While talking we realized that many years earlier on the same day the nave of the Dom Church had collapsed, namely on August 1, 1674. That created a bond, as it turned out later.

New Netherland

Back in the Netherlands I soon received a handwritten letter in which father Thomas Fenlon drew my attention to a book by Russell Shorto that had just been published entitled The Island at the Center of the World, The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America. In the Dutch translation it became New Amsterdam, island in the heart of the world. Shorto’s argument boils down to the fact that the Dutch legacy would prove to be of great importance. The settlement founded in 1624 New Netherland was multiracial and tolerant of people of a different faith than the Protestant.

Governor Peter Stuyvesant and his companions from the West India Company (WIC) believed that trade was the most important goal. This laid the foundation for the ideological model of the United States. And yes, slave trade in the Atlantic was part of that too. The English who took over New Amsterdam and renamed it New York, and in their footsteps the Americans of British descent, have largely ignored the Dutch heritage. Wrongly anyone who has read this book will agree.

Utrecht names

Now many readers of Nieuws030 probably know that the Brooklyn district is named after the Utrecht village that was then called Breuckelen. Here is the New Utrecht Avenue with the metro station of the same name, the New Utrecht High School and the New Utrecht Dutch Reformed Church. Brooklyn’s motto of ‘Eendraght maeckt maght’ also sounds familiar to us. The Dutch with Utrecht surnames were therefore very active in this area. Cornelis van Werckhoven, born in Utrecht, bought it from the Indians in 1652 and New Utrecht was founded in 1657, a modest farming village whose name lives on in the Utrecht Art Supplies store chain.

And then there is the famous Vanderbilt family, who hail from De Bilt. They left many city palaces, some of which now serve as museums. The Vanderbilt houses on the East Coast are a household name in the US. At one point, William Henry Vanderbilt was even the richest person in the world. Thanks to his father who made his fortune with ships and railways.

Brooklyn 375 Memorial Year

Last year Breukelen celebrated the age-old ties with the New York district where 2.5 million people now live. In 2009, Mayor Marty Markowitz came to watch the The Original Brooklyn Bridge, located in the heart of the village on the Vecht. According to many American travel guides a must-see. He spontaneously laughed at the sight of this restored bridge that must continue to be a symbol of the mutual bond.

His successor Eric Adams was also interested but has since been elected mayor of New York City and a national celebrity. The unveiling of a plaque on the Herenstraat concluded what was officially the Brooklyn 375 Memorial Year was called. City twinning is now out of fashion, but it won’t disappear from the world stage anytime soon.

See also: this item from RTV Utrecht.

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