New York [antikvár]

If, as Charles deGaulle once said, America is nothing more than the daughter of Europe, then New York City is the midwife. Simultaneously the most American and European of American cities. Its birth, like that of America Itself, is a result of the great vision that gripped western civilization in the Middle Ages: the search for a northwest sea passage to the fabled wealth of China and India so long cut off by the barricade of the Moslem Empire. In 1524, Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian working for the French king, sailed into the Islands comprising New York Harbor and became fascinated by the red men who wore bird feathers on their bodies. Da Verrazano claimed all of North America as New France, a claim lasting no longer than the sudden storm that nearly sank his ship on the way out of the bay. Months later, Esteban Gomes, a Portuguese in the employ of the Spanish king, sailed into New York Harbor during the dead of winter and right back eut again as fast as he could. Manhattan Island was a frozen wind-swept waste, abandoned even by the Indians during winter. Finally, In 1609, Henry Hudson, an Englishman working for the Dutch—even the explorers were cosmopolitan In those days—worked his way along the deep river on Manhattan's West Side that bears his name today. Believing India to be around each bend of the river, Henry Hudson sailed the Half Moon as far as Albany before giving up In bitter disappointment. A year later, the explorer vanished One of the towers of the World Trade Center.