The Foundation for Historic New Amsterdam is a not-for-profit organization which seeks to compose a National Heritage Triangle of three island symbols in New York Harbor. The island triad envelops America's three primary values as the nation's elemental ideals. Comprised by Governors Island, Liberty Island and Ellis Island, this new pictogram will represent America's fundamental conceptions of Tolerance, Freedom and Welcome.
Its core mission is to protect and preserve Governors Island’s vital message of tolerance for the benefit of future generations by restoring the island to its historical integrity as being the birthplace of New York State as well as the nation’s oldest natural historic symbol since 1624. The exceptional universal value of the island's cultural and national heritage may also qualify it as a potential World Heritage Site.
The historic message of toleration (= religious tolerance) as the basis of ethnic diversity and as a fundamental precept in the concept of American freedom was planted first in the Western Hemisphere as a legal-cultural conditon by the first settlers to Governors island in 1624.That precept of tolerance is New York State’s identity and legacy to the nation. This cultural patrimony—uniquely rooted in the State’s 1624 birth on Governors Island—was critical in the development of American and Western liberty as we know it today. As a moral dynamic, tolerance is the lifeblood of American liberty. Re-linking it with Governors Island in this time of heightened global uncertainty will extol America’s ultimate virtue as an ethical force and will sustain it for future generations as the defender and definer of liberty in an ever-changing society.
The National Heritage Triangle will be composed of Governors Island, Liberty Island and Ellis Island, together representing an island triad of the nation’s fundamental ideals. The American conceptions of Tolerance, Freedom and Welcome will be embodied therein.
The creation of a 50-acre living museum, to be known as the tolerance park Historic New Amsterdam, with a 151 ft (46 m) high Tolerance Monument as its centerpiece, will thus recognize Governors Island as America’s virtuous symbol of Tolerance.
Similarly, Bedloe Island—where one could reside free from prosecution in 17th-century New Netherland (the New York Tri-State region)—was transformed into the American symbol of Freedom by the French gift of the Statue of Liberty while Ellis Island was transformed into the symbol of Welcome through the creation of the American Immigration Museum.
Freedom has no meaning in an intolerant (disrespecting, discriminatory) society as demonstrated by the horrific 9/11/2001 assault which was perpetrated in the name of religion. This shameless act of global intolerance was an attempt to set up the Judeo-Christian culture against the Islamic culture on a worldwide scale. Not acting upon recognized intolerance affirms that indifference, complacency, laxity and apathy are the friends of iniquitous bigotry (as, for instance, in Europe in the 1930's and in America from 1941-46).
As a two-way street, tolerance makes specific demands. It entails reciprocity and reciprocal respect rather than unilateral accommodation and in defining American freedom, it is a prerequisite for sustainable liberty. Indeed, the limits of tolerance set the standards of liberty and societal freedom itself.
Governors Island, when so acknowledged by Governor David A. Paterson and the State Legislature, will instill confidence in the dependable and binding power of tolerance and conciliation as indispensable to the concept of American freedom.
The three islands happen to be ideal complements to one another, each one exemplifying its own unique facet of history.
They are geographically perfectly aligned in a triangle and thus compose and portray a new and omnipresent American icon: The National Heritage Triangle.
ADDRESS: Foundation for Historic New Amsterdam, 139 East 79th Street, 15th floor, New York, NY 10075, U.S.A. Tel: (212) 737-3216.
Early Seventeenth-Century New Amsterdam, now New York City, Architecture
Do you agree that
• voluntary immigration (that is "welcome" on Ellis Island) is a function of liberty (how many Africans arrived on Ellis Island?) and that
• liberty (as signified by Liberty Island) is a function of tolerance (is personal freedom possible in an intolerant society?) so that
• tolerance precedes even liberty as the dynamic component of “American” freedom?
The precept of tolerance constitutes the basis for what unites us in freedom. It is a fundamental human right and New York’s abiding seventeenth-century legacy to the nation.
Therefore, the Foundation for Historic New Amsterdam is dedicated to transforming Governors Island, over time, into a "Tolerance Island," in the same way that Bedloe Island, the location of the Statue of Liberty, was finally renamed in 1956. The Statue of Liberty was gifted by the people of France in 1876 to commemorate the American Republic’s centennial and, after much objection and delay, inaugurated finally in 1886.
It was on September 11, 1609, that the Dutch East India Company ship Halve Maen (Half Moon), captained by Henry Hudson, sailed through the narrows into New York harbor, thus covertly introducing to this continent the dual notion of tolerance and liberty—inseparable as the successful foundation of American heterogeneity and freedom—now the nation's ultimate and mutually dependent virtues as well as New York's cultural heritage.
The TOLERANCE PARK Historic New Amsterdam has been planned since 1997, well before the unspeakable act of intolerance and horrific destruction on 9/11/2001. The park with the 151 feet high TOLERANCE MONUMENT as centerpiece, was, and still is scheduled to be officially opened in September 2009, thus marking the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Half Moon in New York harbor.
Only immediate political action, dedicating 50 acres of Governors Island to the Tolerance Park, will assure that Historic New Amsterdam can open its doors on September 11, 2009, thus honoring also those who were lost and victimized in the most signal act of intolerance on 9/11/2001.
In America, the only existing historic symbol of tolerance has yet to be officially recognized—Governors Island; the 1624 source of American pluralism and the birthplace of New York State as well as New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware.
The Tolerance Park of Historic New Amsterdam could remind the world that the dynamic notion of tolerance as a precursor to liberty-for-all remains an ongoing struggle and that only broad awareness and conscious vigilance of religious, ethnic and racial tolerance will help safeguard and sustain “American” freedom, because in an intolerant (disrespecting, discriminatory) society freedom-for-all is not possible.
When acknowledged politically as the nation’s earliest fundamental cultural asset and the defining, active element in “American” freedom, the island will preserve America’s oldest natural primary symbol—the lifeblood-of-liberty—for future generations on the place of its birth, thus protecting the legacy of New York and the society that founded the colony among the Original Thirteen.
Governors Island supersedes the other two island symbols in historical priority and national meaning, in particular, because “Liberty” and “Welcome” derive from the dynamic conception of “Tolerance”—an ethical force there planted first in North America by the settlers in 1624.
LOCUS OF AMERICAN DIVERSITY:
“They have as many sects of religion there as at Amsterdam” (The Virginian, William Byrd in 1682).
The precept of religious tolerance as legal right and cultural tradition—introduced in the Western Hemisphere on Governors Island in 1624—was reintroduced as a Congressional amendment on September 17, 1787 and presented to the States Legislatures eight days later.
It became New York State law on February 27, 1790, upon the signature of the "well-beloved George Clinton, Esquire, Governor of our said State General."
This toleration was codified again, thus, as a legal-political right in the First Amendment of the Original Thirteen and ratified on December 15, 1791: “Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.”
The 1624 Governors Island settlement became the foundation of a highly relevant and important piece of American history whose principles have withstood the test of time and were indispensable in the further development of the United States.
Its legacy is of profound meaning and significance because its concepts of religious and ethnic tolerance, and civic and economic inclusiveness are the very ideals which form the bedrock of American political philosophy and culture.
To this very day those notions live in America’s cultural history, its political institutions, and in its political and civic culture.
That inheritance is also immensely pertinent to the future of our diverse nation as it is the "dynamic" precept of tolerance that specifically distinguishes AMERICAN freedom from being a "generic" or "static" concept. For history CLICK HERE
