NEW YORK - NOW AND THEN

The Tribute in Light on September 11, 2011, on the
tenth anniversary of the attacks, seen from New Jersey. 

The 11^th of September seems to be a day of New York anniversaries:

Replica of Henry Hudson’s

ship Halve Maen,

On the 11^th September 1609 Henry Hudson discovered Manhattan Island and the indigenous people living there. On that day, Hudson sailed into the upper bay. The following day began a journey up what is now known as the Hudson River. Over the next ten days his ship ascended the river, reaching a point about where the present-day capital of Albany is located.

On the 11^th September 1776 the British-American Peace Conference on Staten Island failed to stop the American Revolutionary War.

Engraving byAlonzo Chappel
 depicting the conference

The Staten Island Peace Conference was a brief meeting held in the hope of bringing an end to the war. The conference took place at Billop Manor, the residence of Colonel Christopher Billop, on Staten Island, New York. The participants were the British Admiral Lord Richard Howe, and members of the Second Continental Congress John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Edward Rutledge..

Since Lord Howe's authority was, by design, extremely limited, the Congressional delegation was pessimistic about the meeting's outcome. The conference, held in the days after the British capture of Long Island, lasted just three hours and was a failure. The Americans insisted on recognition of their recently declared independence, and Howe's limited authority was inadequate to deal with that development. After the conference, the British continued their military campaign for control of New York City.

John Adams, who had no real belief that the conference would succeed, wrote in a letter to James Warren on the 8^th September 1776:

John Adams

Some think it will occasion a delay of military operations; which we much want. I am not of that mind. Some think it will clearly throw the odium of continuing this war on his Lordship and his master. I wish it may. Others think it will silence the Tories and establish the timid Whigs. I wish this also, but do not expect it. All these arguments, and twenty others as mighty, would not have convinced me of the necessity, propriety, or utility, if Congress had not determined on it. I was against it from first to last. All sides agreed in sending me. You will hear more of this embassy. It will be famous enough.

On the writing front there are three birthdays on the 11^th September, I believe worth noting:

1903 – Theodor Adorno, German philosopher and sociologist

Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno

(front right), and Jürgen Habermas (in the

background, right), in 1964 in Heidelberg.

1917 - Jessica Mitford, British writer

1965 - In New York City,  Richard Melville Hall known by his stage name Moby - some will know him from the Bourne movies: