| Summary: | On a high point of land in the northern part of the City, overlooking the Hudson River there stands a beautiful monument erected to the memory of Henry Hudson. It is a marble column in the Doric pattern, rising to a height of 100 feet. Eventually it is to bear on its top a statue of Hudson himself. The monument was erected on Spuyten Duyvil hill in 1909 during the Hudson-Fulton celebration to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the voyage of the Half Moon up the Hudson and the 100th anniversary of the first voyage of Robert Fulton's steamer Clermont up the river in 1807, marking the beginning of steam navigation. The spot is said by some to mark the scene of a fight between Hudson's men and the Indians. However that may be, it is undoubtedly near an old Indian village, for there are still large heaps of shells, marking the scene of many a primitive Sherry, Churchill, or Delmonico feast. Spaces are left on the monument for explanatory tablets, but at present there is nothing to tell the visitor who happens upon it what it is. It stands out in a little open, park-like spot, surrounded by some of the most beautiful secluded homes of New York's millionaires. Of the man Hudson we know little. "We see him first on the deck of his little ninety-ton craft. He goes out of our view in a crazy boat manned by seven sick sailors, cast adrift in the Arctic seas to perish miserably, the victim of a cruel mutiny." He probably died feeling that his life had been a failure--that he had accomplished nothing; yet as direct results of his work we have the great Spitzenbergen whale fisheries, the Hudson Bay Trading Company, and he brought the Dutch to Manhattan Island. It was under the Dutch West India Company's charter that New York City was established. Manhattan Island, consisting of about 19 1/2 square miles was purchased from the Indians in 1626 for a handful of trinkets whose value was about $24.00. Now this same land at the lower end of the island is worth from $200 to $600 a square foot and office space rents at from $1 to ...
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