January 1st will be an important day for the citizens of New York.
It will be the birthday of the city of Greater New York, which will take its rank as the second largest capital in the world.
The mayor, Mr. Strong, is anxious to have some celebration which shall mark the passing away of the old New York city.
Many people are, however, opposed to this. They think that the first thing in people's minds should be the glory of the great new city which is to be born, and declare that anything else would only amount to holding funeral services over the old city.
This view seems hardly the correct one to take. There is so much of the nation's early history wound around the old city of New York, that it seems only fit and proper that some suitable exercises should be held, to impress upon the younger generation the importance of the old city, before it passes away and loses its identity in the larger city.
If Boston was the scene of the beginning of the War of Independence, New York witnessed its close.
On November 25th, 1782, the British finally evacuated the city of New York, their last stronghold, and the long and painful war was over.
The history of New York begins in 1524, when Giovanni Verrazano, an Italian navigator, entered the beautiful bay of New York, with his vessel, the Dauphine. Gomez is said to have sailed along the coast as far as New York the following year.
Fifty years later, Hendrik Hudson sailed up New York Bay, and discovered the beautiful river which flows by the city, the river which still bears his name.
This is the same Hudson who searched for the Northwest Passage—the passage which was to make a short cut from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, along the north shore of America, and afford a highway between Europe and Asia, saving the long trip around the Cape of Good Hope, which had just been discovered by the Portuguese. South America and Cape Horn were as yet undiscovered.