I Love New York Travel

As a lover of history, I found the museum at the Trinity Church in Manhattan fascinating. It’s a small museum, containing few artifacts but many wordy displays on the history of the church and some of her prominent members. I liked this particular display, because it talks about “the beginning” of the church. I already know a little bit of the background– I have an old newspaper clipping from the 1930s. At that time, a lawsuit was presented against Trinity Church by a family who believed they still owned the rights to that land parcel in Manhattan. The family claimed that the land had never been sold to Trinity, only leased. The family claimed that they owned the land because it had been passed down to them by a Dutch ancestor, Anneke Jans, who had owned it as far back as 1664.

As expected, the government sided with Trinity Church and the church inherited the property. The display here does not make mention of the lawsuit or the contest; it merely mentions that the land had once been farmland.

The entire thing is fascinating to me. All the little decisions in life that we sometimes deem as so insignificant, to later have incredible repercussions. Think about the Anneke jans, who’d married Mr. Jans in Holland. They migrated here and bought a little land to farm. Small decision, right? Then, Mr, Jans died and Anneke went up to Albany to live in a Dutch community. Simple decision, right? She owned the Manhattan land, still, but didn’t do anything with it until she left it to her descendants in her will. Simple decision, right? The descendants leased it to Trinity Church and allowed them to build on it. Simple decision, right? Just so many simple decisions!!

Anyway, I know I’m rambling. But this is why i find history so compelling. OK, back to modern day and clipping pottery barn coupons. WHo knows who I’ll meet when I make the “simple decision” to go shopping! lol

While in Manhattan last week, we got to see the latest construction on the new buildings in the World Trade Center complex.

New York City has changed considerably, in my opinion. Oh the traffic and stores and masses of people remain the same, but the city is… more organized. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s cleaner than I remember in the 80s, although I still saw baby shower invitations and newsletters flying around some areas. But there are NO homeless people that I saw. The subways are clean as a whistle and don’t smell of urine anymore. And when we went down to the WTC and Battery Park, there were many displays and memorials from September 11. It kind of bonded the people together a little.

Yep, it’s definitely changed.

Wow. Isn’t that column incredible? The photo is a tiny bit fuzzy because I took it from about 30 feet down. The column is enormous, holding up a beautiful Southern-style porch on an old historic home. The Rosemont Hill Mansion, is it? I forgot the name. It was closed for the winter, forlornly looking across the road to Seneca Lake. It is testimony to a romantic age, an era of architectural splendor and formality. Quite different from the modern culture we have today, indeed. As important as colon cleanser is, I’d rather not hear about your experience, thank you very much. lol

I love old houses like this. I am going to try to make it out to Geneva again during the tourist season, so I can look inside.