New Netherland to the Manhattan Market

New Netherland to the Manhattan Market. Hudson River Park. , In the earliest years of Dutch New Netherland, life centered on the southern tip of Manhattan, south of the wall (now Wall Street) that had been erected by Africans enslaved by the Dutch West India Company. As local Indigenous populations were ravaged by disease and war and more colonists arrived, Europeans began purchasing land north of the wall. Much of the area round present-day Pier 76 remained farms and woodlots well into the nineteenth century, but city authorities eyed that area as a location for a market., by the 1870s a group of investors collaborated to develop the enormous Manhattan Market, a grand brick and stone building that covered eighty city lots and featured 70-foot iron towers on all four corners. the market's cavernous interior contained space for 1,500 vendors. Although the building was an architectural marvel, it contributed heavily to the pollution of the Hudson River., [photo captions:] , The Manhattan Market was built on the site of the old Rapelje Farm. The Rapelje family, among the colony's earliest settlers, established a farm that began at 34th/35th Street and the North River., The Manhattan Market, designed by architect H.G. Harrison, contained space for vendors, wholesalers, a fish market, and butchers, as well as a 300-foot loading dock that was once the largest in the world., In the 18th century, most of Manhattan was not yet heavily developed.