New York City wasn't always the grand city that we think of today. In fact, it was once a filthy drunken village where hogs and goats ran freely in streets filled with rubbish and excrement.
Back when New York was Dutch owned and then known as New Amsterdam, tourists wouldn't want to set foot in such a place.
Thanks to new documents recently digitized and released to the public by the New York City Department of Records, we now have an inside look at what life was like in the city's early history, at least from 1647 to 1674. The documents cover rules and laws from that period.
One thing the documents unveil is that New Amsterdam had a serious drinking problem.
"Whereas we have experienced the insolence of some of our inhabitants, when drunk, their quarrelling, hitting and fighting each other even on the Lords day of rest, of which we ourselves have witnessed the painful example last Sunday in contravention of law, to the contempt and disgrace of our person and office, to the annoyance of our neighbors, and to the disregard, nay contempt of Gods holy laws and ordinances," states a decree prohibiting the sale of alcohol on Sunday before morning church services.
Not that this sort of decree did any good. A declaration made in 1648 from director general of New Amsterdam Peter Stuyvesant remarks that nearly one-fourth of the city "has been turned into taverns for the sale of brandy, tobacco and beer." This led to "the debauching of the common man... and what is still worse, of the young people from childhood up, who seeing the improper proceedings of their parents and imitating them leave the path of virtue and become disorderly."
Stuyvesant fought a losing battle against the debauchery. Fights were common and the city itself was dangerous. At the time, New Amsterdam was basically in the middle of nowhere, which meant that it attracted the lowest of society, meaning that although the city had laws, its citizens acted lawlessly.
But New Amsterdam wasn't just drunk. It was also dirty and smelled bad. It was common that people threw their rubbish into the city street, along with excrement and dead animals. This created a problem with hogs and goats wallowing in the filth, not to mention a horrible stench, which led those in charge of governing the city to create new ordinances that not only banned people from allowing their "privies" emptied on the streets, but also banned anything else being thrown out, too.
Fortunately, the Dutch sold the city to the English in 1664, when it became New York. The English proceeded to clean up the city, making it what it is today.
Still, many think that New York was in its "golden age" during its early days, and these new documents disprove that.
"One of my favorite pet peeves is to hear somebody say the city is so dirty and dangerous, or things have gone downhill from some previous golden age," says Michael Lorenzini, deputy director of the New York City Municipal Archives. "You have no idea how disgusting this city was."
[Photo Credit: The NYC Department of Records]
