Opinion Paper #4: Wall Street Then and Now!

New Amsterdam began to take shape in the mid-1630s. By 1643, the population was 400 to 500 and over 18 languages were spoken. As the population continued to expand, the increase in new settlers became a source of corruption in New Amsterdam. When Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam in 1647, it was still destroyed from the Indian wars. He started to improve the city year by year with building houses by the East River and bridges across the canal. As a result, New Amsterdam faced east to the East River in 1660 where all the English wealthy people would live later.

When New Amsterdam reached population of 1500, English took control of it in 1664. when British ruled this city from 1664 to 1783, New Amsterdam was dominated by merchants, lawyers, traders and public officials with 60 percent of white people. The Dutch and the English kept fighting over the land of New Amsterdam and the Dutch took it over again and renamed New Orange which I have heard for the first time.

Few English, Scottish and Irish families emigrated to New Amsterdam since the colony was taken from the Dutch in 1664. The Dutch still remained the dominant group within the population, but were losing property. The English and French began to settle in with much more succeed in business than the Dutch. By 1703, the wealthy English merchants all lived in the commercial areas where in the lower Manhattan by the East River and all others lived elsewhere.

By looking at maps of New Amsterdam, I can see how Wall street looked like back then. It looks very alike how it is now. The street called De Heere street in 1640s is Broadway since 1700. As a foreigner, especially coming from Asia where has not enough land compare to population, it is pretty amazing how Wall street looks just like how it was 300 years ago.