Depart to New York City

I was waiting for this day long time ago. I could not wait to go to the big city. Even though I live in the city with my father, I think it will be a great experience staying in the city for a week with my college friends. We departed to the city around 8 o’clock in the morning. In our way there, we stopped at a hill in order to admire the beautiful landscape of the mountains and the river. I felt that the ride was a little bit dangerous because the road was very curvy. However, the beauty of the landscape made the danger worthy. The pictures above show the landscapes of the river and the mountains. Beauties like this one is what inspired many artists such as Frederic Church and Thomas Cole.

Bald Eagles

The Bald Eagles are briefly described in a post which was hanging where we were. The post describes that these eagles almost became extinct due to the destruction of their habitat, selective killing and the use of pesticides. This caused me a great discontent. Professor Toby had explained that many animals became extinct due to the destruction of their habitat and this is what was happening to the bald eagles.  The post also says that in 1940 the United States passed a law that makes illegal the killing, possessing, selling or trading of bald Eagles. Thanks to this law Bald Eagles are returning back to New York.

Manor of the Philipse Family

 Before going to New York City, we stopped at sleepy Hollow which was named after Washington Irving’s book, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I was very happy that we visited this town. I never imagined that Sleepy Hollow would be the name of an actual town. When Professor Michael told us we were going to go to Sleepy Hollow, I was very surprised since I thought sleepy Hollow only existed in Irving’s book. Once we were in Sleepy Hollow, we went to Philipsburg Manor.The Philipsburg manor was owned by the Philipse family. The picture above shows the house of the Philipse. In this manor, products such as flour, butter, remedies and others were made. The accessibility to deep water shipping that they had helped them to transport their goods to New York CIty where they made good profit. The Philipse who were Dutch did not spend a lot of time in the manor. Thanks to that the slaves knew how to write and read, the business never stopped. When the owners came back from wherever they were, everything was under control thanks to the slaves. This really impressed me because from the historical houses we have been to so far, no one of their slaves were skilled. In addition, many people did not have a lot of slaves because they feared that slave upraise might occur.

However, it seems that the Philipse family did not worry about that since they had 23 slaves.
 The Philipse Family did not only farm but they also owned the international shipping slavery. The family participated in the triangular trade which brought slaves from Africa to Europe and from Europe to the New World. Due to their farming and slave shipping, the Philipse family became very wealthy and famous in New York. However, their slave shipping business brought many problems to America. Sometimes I wonder if people who participated in slave shipping should be granted a historical monument New York.

Irving's House in Sunnyside

After eating lunch in sleepy Hollow, we went to Washington Irving’s house which was couple miles away from Sleepy Hollow. Before going inside the house, I was able to see the railroad which was very close to the house. Even though Irving had to deal with the noise of the train, he received money which helped him with his paintings. Since Irving became very famous, I expected his house to be a mansion like those of Vanderbilt. However, Irving’s house was smaller and simpler than I expected. One thing I noticed in the house is that Irving really liked to be in contact with nature. How the house was designed and decorated shows how Irving was so in love with nature. Many of the wall paper were greenish and there were windows everywhere. As the book The Hudson by Tom Lewis describes, Irving felt very inspired by the landscapes of the Hudson. If I had awakened every day looking at the beautiful landscapes of the Hudson, I probably would have become a writer or artist too.