By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2025-01-08 00:38:05 | Updated at 2025-01-08 20:07:45
19 hours ago
Birth of an urban legend
1621. Before Saks, hours before Europe’s Arnault vacuumed up 57th and Fifth’s three corners — Tiffany, Vuitton, Bulgari — and slavering to inhale Bergdorf’s — the Dutch West India Company got granted rights to sell the first US shmattas.
1626, before divorce lawyers got so rich, the new area’s new governor, Peter Minuit, sailed in with the old wives, girlfriends and any hookers not too tired from the trip.
A sharp trader from Holland, Minuit did not go Dutch. He paid — straight out — the equivalent of $24 for all Manhattan. Today it costs more to just get crosstown.
Our land — all forest — took $200. The population was Germans, Dutch, English — whoever had not yet been forced to see the latest version of B’way’s “Chicago.”
The immediate politicians — following a wavy line back to Attila the Hun — were a bit semi — only semi — crooked. Rumors exist — unconfirmed, unfounded — that they might be ancestors of some of those we have now.
The little isle grew. Breweries, furriers, bakeries, smart-ass lawyers, possibly even Nancy Pelosi’s colorist. With it, war. Always war. This between the tribes and settlers.
1647, Peter Stuyvesant. His East Side apartment complex took another 300 years. He’s still waiting for his electrician.
Our raggedy 15 miles became officially designated a city. Maiden Lane was where linens were washed. House of stone got named Whitehall. Broadway, laid out by someone who had no optometrist, became as straight and narrow as Sen. Menendez.
In came the Brits. Tea, fish, wealth. Historians claim Biden was also probably there. The thinking is that wherever he ever sat foot — or ass — he will still never ever go away.
And we officially became New York — where you can get away with everything providing you don’t park next to a fire-plug.
Manhattan. Arrested for vagrancy if you’re only carrying three credit cards.
As for the new insurance company rules. They only pay you if your house is on fire while you’re being robbed.
Our geniuses who today operate the subway. Please. It’s a landmark. The first began running in 1900. It just got to Grand Central yesterday.
Congestion pricing? I mean, please. New York City. Oy. No standing, no idling, no parking, no kidding.
Understand, if you speak good English, you’re a foreigner. Speak no English, you’re a cabdriver. And if nobody understands an effing thing you’re saying you’re a DA.
Our electric chair has been declared safer than New York subways. ConEd is soon coming out with new models.
Actually, we joke. But it’s enough already. Where else but New York can you buy mutual funds with your welfare check?
But New York City? Still the land of opportunity. The only foreigner who didn’t make any money here was Columbus.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.
