I was interviewed on Norweigan radio station P4 last week about the first European Greenpointer Dirck Volckertszen or as he is known, Dirck the Norseman. I explained how Dirck built Greenpoint’s first house near Calyer and Franklin in 1645, but how he also killed native Americans and started slavery in Greenpoint.
If you do not speak Norwegian like I do not then you miss some things!
I am the author of Greenpoint's Forgotten Past and King of Greenpoint. I also wrote two Williamsburg histories, Williamsburg Transformed and The Rise and Fall of the Sugar King, a history of the Havemeyer sugar empire. My latest book is the Irish in New York, profiling Irish Americans who have shaped the history and culture of the Empire State
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