Actually for the last few centuries it's been known as "Bowling Green'. It's the oldest, and one of the smallest parks in the Emerald City. It's been a park since the Dutch ran things around here.
(Btw, they called it Bowling Green too.)
Anyway the park is rounded by an iron fence. The same fence that was there at the time of the revolt against the Crown.
Speaking of Crowns there used to be little pointy crowns all around the top of this relic fence. They were sawed off by the patriots. I guess they also hauled down the statue of the King on the same drunken night.
Legend sez that the slave holding bandits that pulled down the King, burnt loyalist homes, and vandalized the park. Also melted the little crowns, and the King's statue to make musket balls.
The lying, racist "history books" of my youth say that these hoodlums made zillions of them musket balls to blow away the Red Coats, and generally raise hell up'n down the Hudson Valley.
Well turns out,..this being New York, that all that valuable scrap metal was in fact stolen by gangsters, and then sold on the black market.
(...well no change there.)
These murderous "patriots" rather than facing the, seriously pissed off, British Army spent days sleeping off all the rum they stole from loyalist households.
When they woke up I presume they went back to raping women, lynching black people, and killing whatever Indians that were still around.
Oh the story of America.
Anyway old King George used to ride his iron horse where the fountain is now. If you sit near it long enough you can almost smell the booze on the breath of the founding looters.
(Click on snap shots two, and three, and you'll be about to see the famous iron fence in the backround.)
2 comments:
That story is new to me, both the true and sanitized versions.
Those must be the same history books that taught us George Washington confessed to cutting down the cherry tree because he couldn't tell a lie. They tended to gloss over his ownership of humans, as I recall. The authors were deeply concerned about the truth, and enjoyed a highly creative relationship with it.
History used to be written by the winners.
However now that the "natives", and assorted wage slaves have laptops,...well.
Let's just say that the story is now a bit broader.
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