The burghers in pot hats and bag breeches that wandered along Perel-Straat (Pearl Street) when it was the water-line of the East River, and the faithful huis-vrouws in balloon skirts that chattered along the cow path (Beekman Street) leading through the Beekman farm up to the (City Hall) park would never be able to orient themselves in the new New York. But remnants of Dutch life sometimes peek through the rocky soil of Manhattan, buried under twelve generations of silt, offering a window into what Jan Aertsen’s world might have felt like.
