The Henry Hudson (West Side Highway) Parkway comes back to ground level and we are at the passenger piers just north of 59th Street where we started. This is Manhattan by water. This is the old and new. On the waterfront, at least, the new is better. Someday, what you are seeing will be prime real estate. If you care to invest, we are sure someone is willing to sell. The bridges are not for sale.
Henry Hudson (b. 1570 England – d. Hudson Bay, Canada 1611) was an English explorer and navigator who explored parts of the Arctic Ocean and northeastern North America. The Hudson River, Hudson Strait, and Hudson Bay are named for Hudson. He was hired by the Muscovy Company in 1607, to find a waterway from Europe to Asia. Hudson made two trips (in 1607 and 1608) but failed to find a route to China. In 1607, he sailed to Spitzbergen (an island north of Scandinavia in the Arctic Ocean) and discovered Jan Mayen Island (an island off eastern Greenland). In 1608, he sailed to Novaya Zemlya (an island north of Russia in the Arctic Ocean).He was hired by the Dutch East India Company in 1609 to try to find the Northwest Passage farther south. In his ship the Half Moon, Hudson sailed to Nova Scotia, and then turned and sailed south. He sailed into New York's harbor on Sept. 3, 1609 (Verrazano sailed by the area in 1524), and noted that it was an excellent harbor. He sailed up river (Hudson River) 150 miles and noted the fertile land, but realized it was not a route to India. His reports resulted in the Dutch settling the area. A 1610-1611 trip through the Hudson Strait and into Hudson Bay ended in a mutiny after the ship was trapped there for a winter. In 1611, the crew left Hudson, his son, and seven crew members adrift in a small, open boat in Hudson Bay. They were never seen again.
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