STATEN ISLAND, FROM THE LENAPE TO DUTCH COLONISTS

Today, The Grandma has visited Staten Island. Meanwhile, The Grangers have been practising some English vocabulary about Other Countries and In The Classroom, and improving their Speaking. They have also studied Still, Already and Yet (Present Perfect).

More information: Still/Already/Yet

Download Other Countries Vocabulary

 More information: Other Countries

 

Download In The Classroom Vocabulary

 

More information: In The Classroom

 

Download Cambridge KET Exam Speaking Models (03)

 

Staten Island is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. 

Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and from the rest of New York by New York Bay.

With a population of 495,747 in the 2020 Census, Staten Island is the least populated borough but the third largest in land area at 152 km2.

A home to the Lenape indigenous people, the island was settled by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. 

It was one of the 12 original counties of New York state.

Staten Island was consolidated with New York City in 1898. It was formally known as the Borough of Richmond until 1975, when its name was changed to Borough of Staten Island.

Staten Island has sometimes been called the forgotten borough by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government.

The North Shore -especially the neighbourhoods of St. George, Tompkinsville, Clifton, and Stapleton- is the island's most urban area. It contains the designated St. George Historic District and the St. Paul's Avenue-Stapleton Heights Historic District, which feature large Victorian houses. 

The East Shore is home to the 4-kilometer F.D.R. Boardwalk, the world's fourth-longest boardwalk.

The South Shore, site of the 17th-century Dutch and French Huguenot settlement, developed rapidly beginning in the 1960s and 1970s and is now mostly suburban. 

The West Shore is the island's least populated and most industrial part.

Motor traffic can reach the borough from Brooklyn by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and from New Jersey by the Outerbridge Crossing, Goethals Bridge and Bayonne Bridge. 

Staten Island has Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) bus lines and an MTA rapid transit line, the Staten Island Railway, which runs from the ferry terminal at St. George to Tottenville.

More information: Silive

Staten Island is the only borough not connected to the New York City Subway system. 

The free Staten Island Ferry connects the borough to Manhattan across New York Harbor. It provides views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Lower Manhattan.

As in much of North America, human habitation appeared on the island fairly rapidly after the Wisconsin glaciation. Archaeologists have recovered tool evidence of Clovis culture activity dating from about 14,000 years ago. This evidence was first discovered in 1917 in the Charleston section of the island. Various Clovis artifacts have been discovered since then, on property owned by Mobil Oil.

The first recorded European contact on the island was in 1520 by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano who sailed through The Narrows on the ship La Dauphine and anchored for one night.

The Dutch did not establish a permanent settlement on Staaten Eylandt for many decades. Its name derived from the Staten Generaal, the parliament of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. From 1639 to 1655, Cornelis Melyn and David de Vries made three separate attempts to establish one there, but each time the settlement was destroyed in conflicts between the Dutch and the local tribe.

In 1661, the first permanent Dutch settlement was established at Oude Dorp (Dutch for Old Village) by a small group of Dutch, Walloon, and French Huguenot families, just south of the Narrows near South Beach. Many French Huguenots had gone to the Netherlands as refugees from the religious wars in France, suffering persecution for their Protestant faith, and some joined the emigration to New Netherland. At one point nearly a third of the residents of the Island spoke French.

The last vestige of Oude Dorp is the name of the present-day neighborhood of Old Town adjacent to Old Town Road.

Staten Island was not spared the bloodshed that culminated in Kieft's War. In the summer of 1641 and in 1642, Native American tribes laid waste to Old Town.

In addition to the main island, the borough and county also include several small uninhabited islands:

-The Isle of Meadows (at the mouth of Fresh Kills).

-Prall's Island (in the Arthur Kill).

-Shooters Island (in Newark Bay; part of it is in New Jersey).

-Swinburne Island (in Lower New York Bay).

-Hoffman Island (in Lower New York Bay).

More information: Time Out

The geology of Staten Island 
is the most complex of the city's boroughs, 
containing the terminal moraine of the last ice age, 
a fault line from 470 million years ago, 
the southern tail of the Palisades formation, 
and sediments collected over the millennia.

Sergey Kadinsky

 

STATEN ISLAND, FROM THE LENAPE TO DUTCH COLONISTS

Today, The Grandma has visited Staten Island. Meanwhile, The Newtons have continued preparing their Cambridge Exam. They have studied some vocabulary about Personal Details and Family Matters.

More info: Personal Details & Family Matters

 

Staten Island is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York. 

Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull and from the rest of New York by New York Bay.

With a population of 495,747 in the 2020 Census, Staten Island is the least populated borough but the third largest in land area at 152 km2.

A home to the Lenape indigenous people, the island was settled by Dutch colonists in the 17th century. 

It was one of the 12 original counties of New York state.

Staten Island was consolidated with New York City in 1898. It was formally known as the Borough of Richmond until 1975, when its name was changed to Borough of Staten Island.

Staten Island has sometimes been called the forgotten borough by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government.

The North Shore -especially the neighbourhoods of St. George, Tompkinsville, Clifton, and Stapleton- is the island's most urban area. It contains the designated St. George Historic District and the St. Paul's Avenue-Stapleton Heights Historic District, which feature large Victorian houses. 

The East Shore is home to the 4-kilometer F.D.R. Boardwalk, the world's fourth-longest boardwalk.

The South Shore, site of the 17th-century Dutch and French Huguenot settlement, developed rapidly beginning in the 1960s and 1970s and is now mostly suburban. 

The West Shore is the island's least populated and most industrial part.

Motor traffic can reach the borough from Brooklyn by the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and from New Jersey by the Outerbridge Crossing, Goethals Bridge and Bayonne Bridge. 

Staten Island has Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) bus lines and an MTA rapid transit line, the Staten Island Railway, which runs from the ferry terminal at St. George to Tottenville.

More information: Silive

Staten Island is the only borough not connected to the New York City Subway system. 

The free Staten Island Ferry connects the borough to Manhattan across New York Harbor. It provides views of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and Lower Manhattan.

As in much of North America, human habitation appeared on the island fairly rapidly after the Wisconsin glaciation. Archaeologists have recovered tool evidence of Clovis culture activity dating from about 14,000 years ago. This evidence was first discovered in 1917 in the Charleston section of the island. Various Clovis artifacts have been discovered since then, on property owned by Mobil Oil.

The first recorded European contact on the island was in 1520 by Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano who sailed through The Narrows on the ship La Dauphine and anchored for one night.

The Dutch did not establish a permanent settlement on Staaten Eylandt for many decades. Its name derived from the Staten Generaal, the parliament of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. From 1639 to 1655, Cornelis Melyn and David de Vries made three separate attempts to establish one there, but each time the settlement was destroyed in conflicts between the Dutch and the local tribe.

In 1661, the first permanent Dutch settlement was established at Oude Dorp (Dutch for Old Village) by a small group of Dutch, Walloon, and French Huguenot families, just south of the Narrows near South Beach. Many French Huguenots had gone to the Netherlands as refugees from the religious wars in France, suffering persecution for their Protestant faith, and some joined the emigration to New Netherland. At one point nearly a third of the residents of the Island spoke French.

The last vestige of Oude Dorp is the name of the present-day neighborhood of Old Town adjacent to Old Town Road.

Staten Island was not spared the bloodshed that culminated in Kieft's War. In the summer of 1641 and in 1642, Native American tribes laid waste to Old Town.

In addition to the main island, the borough and county also include several small uninhabited islands:

-The Isle of Meadows (at the mouth of Fresh Kills).

-Prall's Island (in the Arthur Kill).

-Shooters Island (in Newark Bay; part of it is in New Jersey).

-Swinburne Island (in Lower New York Bay).

-Hoffman Island (in Lower New York Bay).

More information: Time Out

The geology of Staten Island 
is the most complex of the city's boroughs, 
containing the terminal moraine of the last ice age, 
a fault line from 470 million years ago, 
the southern tail of the Palisades formation, 
and sediments collected over the millennia.

Sergey Kadinsky

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE STREETS OF PHILADELPHIA

The Beans & The Boss in a private session

After visiting Atlantic City, The Beans were invited by Bruce Springsteen to have dinner. The Boss surprised them with an unplugged and private concert where he played lots of fantastic songs. 

Bruce Springsteen is one of the most important singers and composers of the history. He and his incredible band have created the soundtrack of millions of people around the world. Springsteen's music has a personal style and his lyrics are full of social critic and hope. He's like Charles Dickens nowadays offering hope for the no-hoppers. It's very difficult to choose only one song of all his compositions but if The Grandma has to choose, she decides Thunder Road, a song that talks about not surrender, not give up and continue in the search of our dreams and happiness.

More information: Bruce Springsteen

 

The Grandma & The Cold Case Team

The Beans have continued their travel to Washington, DC but they have decided to stop in Philadelphia. 

The Grandma wants to talk to Lili Rush and Scotty Valens two detectives of the Philadelphia PD division who are specialized in investigating cold cases. The Grandma has contracted their services in a private way to try to discover what happened with Corto, her lover, who disappeared some decades ago without a trace.

While the Grandma was talking with Rush and Valens, the rest of the family visited this beautiful city, witness of the most important events during the Revolutionary War and nowadays, symbol of tolerance, freedom and open mind thinking.

More information: Philadelphia Government

 

The Beans visiting Liberty Bell

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the sixth-most populous city in the United States, with an estimated population of 1,567,872. 

Philadelphia is the economic and cultural anchor of the Delaware Valley, located along the lower Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, within both the Mid-Atlantic region and the Northeast megalopolis. The Delaware Valley's population of 7.2 million ranks it as the eighth-largest combined statistical area in the United States.

Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape (Delaware) Indians in the village of Shackamaxon. The Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians, and their historical territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, exacerbated by losses from intertribal conflicts. Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. 

More information: Lenape Lifeways

Maps of Philadelphia, 1681

The American Revolutionary War and United States' independence pushed them further west. In the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma and surrounding territory) under the Indian removal policy. 

In the 21st century, most Lenape reside in Oklahoma, with some communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario (Canada) and their traditional homelands.

William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city in 1682 to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia played an instrumental role in the American Revolution as a meeting place for the Founding Fathers of the United States, who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 at the Second Continental Congress, and the Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. 

Several other key events occurred in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War including the First Continental Congress, the preservation of the Liberty Bell, the Battle of Germantown, and the Siege of Fort Mifflin. 

More information: Civil War

The Grandma with her Liberty Bell souvenir

Philadelphia was one of the nation's capitals during the revolution, and served as temporary U.S. capital while Washington, D.C., was under construction. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became a major industrial center and a railroad hub. 

The city grew from an influx of European immigrants, most of whom came from Ireland, Italy and Germany, the three largest reported ancestry groups in the city as of 2015. 

In the early 20th century, Philadelphia became a prime destination for African Americans during the Great Migration after the Civil War, as well as Puerto Ricans. The city's population doubled from one million to two million people between 1890 and 1950.

Finally, The Beans have decided to buy a little reproduction of Liberty Bell and travel around the world with her as a symbol of freedom, tolerance and respect.

More information: National Archives

I walked the avenue, 'til my legs felt like stone.
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone

at night I could hear the blood in my veins.
It was just as black and whispering as the rain

on the Streets of Philadelphia.

Bruce Springsteen