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The Director-General of the Dutch West India Company, Peter Minuit, purchased Manhattan island from the Indians in 1626.








Got a question about New York? Of course you do! Mother Knickerbocker knows everything there is to know about NYC, and she fakes it when she doesn't. Want to know the population of Brooklyn? The history of the Independent Budget Office? The height of the Chrysler Building? Ask Mother Knickerbocker!

Ask Mother Knickerbocker
Ask Mother K: motherk@gothamgazette.com

Dear Mother Knickerbocker,

I'm a fan of the New York Knicks writing in hope of finding out more about them. I like the team a whole lot and it's fun to watch them play and all, but I was wondering who really are the Knicks? It's something that has been on my mind a lot lately! My questions are as follows:

  1. Who originated the team?
  2. How did the New York Knicks get their name ?
  3. How and when did they come to make it in the NBA?
  4. What was their originating history like?

So glad you asked about their history! Anything to shield Mother K's eyes from the debacle on 34th Street that is the present 2002-03 version of the Knicks.

Prior to the establishment of the NBA, the National Basketball Association, the Knicks were one of 10 franchises in the BAA, the Basketball Association of America, formed on June 6, 1946, at the Hotel Commodore in New York City. The Knicks played in, and won, the first BAA game, a 68-66 nail-biting victory over the Huskies in Toronto. Along with the nine other original clubs, the Knicks entered the NBA prior to the 1949-50 season when the BAA merged with the NBL or National Basketball League.

As to the name "Knicks," Mother K alerts you to the fact that while she welcomes your questions, she also hopes that you actually read her answers. In the Mother K archives (they're not too big, so don't look too hard), you'll find most of what you need to know about the origin of the team's name which-hint, hint-is also Mother K's last name. There are some additional tidbits, though, that might give you a fuller picture. First, while "Knickerbocker" indeed means "baker of marbles," it also refers to the short pants ("knickers") that the Dutch settlers wore upon their arrival to New York in the 1600s. This at least explains the shorts (the really, really short shorts-you've seen the pictures) worn by the Knicks and other basketball franchises for decades. Rumor has it that Ned Irish, the team's legendary founder, was the man responsible for the decision to name the team the "Knickerbockers."

Dear Mother Knickerbocker,

What street or avenue is the longest in the Bronx and Manhattan? I need to know ASAP. Thanks.

You need to know a sap? Mother Knickerbocker knows too many saps. Many of them live along Broadway, which, at 15 miles long in Manhattan alone, is far and away the longest avenue in the borough. Nicknamed the Great White Way after the lights of the theater district in midtown, Broadway is also the longest street in the world, extending (including some stretches of highway) from the downtown tip of Manhattan all the way to the state capital in Albany. The longest east-west cross street in Manhattan is 14th Street, measuring more than two miles in length.

The longest avenue in the Bronx is the Grand Concourse, which is 4.5 miles long. That is far shorter than its more famous counterpart in Manhattan, but the Grand Concourse is actually much broader than Broadway. Starting at 138th Street and running north to the Mosholu Parkway, the 11 grand lanes of traffic on the Concourse force Mother Knickerbocker to call into question the Greatness of the Great White Way. After all, the Concourse, and not Broadway, receives the whitest glow from the brightest lights of the greatest theater of all New York City, Yankee Stadium.

If you're not quite ready to swing it with Derek Jeter and the Bombers, but still in the mood to burn a few calories as you make your way through the borough, explore the Bronx along one of its numerous "step-streets," or streets composed of lengthy, often steep concrete staircases. The longest "step-street" at West 230th Street is sure to give you all the hike your body can handle. Want to know more about Broadway? Mother K suggests this web site.

Dear Mother Knickerbocker,

What is the population of Flatbush? Also, what is the ethnic make-up of the residents of the area?

At last check, the population of the Flatbush/Midwood section of Brooklyn was nearly 169,000 or roughly seven percent of the borough's 2.5 million residents. There are countries smaller than that! Of the 169,000 Flatbush/Midwoodians, the overwhelming majority (80 percent) are black. To find out about the other 20 percent, look at Gotham Gazette's Searchlight district 40 page.

Dear Mother Knickerbocker,

Is NYC drinking water safe to drink? Sometimes it looks slightly brown when it first comes out of the faucet. Is a Brita filter sufficient to make it clean/safe? Thanks! Meline

All the experts say that New York City's water is remarkably safe, and high in quality. Of course, they also say it contains contaminants.

Contaminants! Mother Knickerbocker does not like the sound of that word. But, as it turns out, all drinking water -- bottled water included -- likely contains at least some contaminants in small quantities. Thankfully, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection reports that the concentrations of pathogens carrying contaminants like Cryptosporidium or Giardia are rarely high enough to threaten health.

New York City water is virtually lead-free when it arrives from upstate reservoirs, the experts say. Sometimes, however, it is possible that your tap water contains lead gathered from the plumbing system in your apartment building or house. If you're worried that this is the case, you have several options. The Department of Environmental Protection offers a free lead-testing kit upon request at their 24-hour Help Center (718) DEP-HELP. If they're busy, you can call the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Safe Drinking Water Hotline at (800) 426-4791 for more information. And if you are particularly impatient or thirsty but still uneasy because you haven't used your tap in over 6 hours, simply let your cold-water tap run for 30 seconds to two minutes or until the water turns cold and clear. This should flush out any water possibly contaminated with lead from your building's pipes and make your water safe to drink. Mother K reminds you to use cold water only and, in the best scenario, to refrigerate your drinking water as the coldness protects against unwanted bacterial regrowth.

The city agency recommends the same flushing strategy for the brown water that typically results from plumbing corrosion problems and rusting hot-water heaters. If and when brown water appears or if you haven't used your tap for an extended period of time, simply run the cold-water tap for two to three minutes. Again, this will flush the water line and make your tap water safe to drink. If your tap water comes out cloudy or milky but not brown, the city says that you don't have to worry at all and you shouldn't bother running the water. The cloudy or milky appearance, which results from tiny air bubbles that become trapped in the water as it travels from the upstate reservoirs to the city, is temporary and completely harmless.

As to the recent Brita water filter craze, the jury is still very much out in Mother K's court. After all, since most bacterial contaminants present in tap water are so small in size and concentration, it is by no means guaranteed that filters will even catch them. The city authority does not recommend the use of filters, and it actually discourages city residents from buying bottled water, stating that New York City "water meets all federal and state health-based drinking water standards…[and]…bottled water costs up to 1,000 times more than the city's drinking water." So while a Brita or Pur filter or a Poland Spring tank may help reduce your anxiety, these contraptions are, in reality, unlikely to improve the safety of your drinking water. The ultimate verdict, Meline? Assuming the brownness or milkiness gives way to clarity, the city says save your money, drink away and fear not.

For more comprehensive information, be sure to check the Department of Environmental Protection's web site for the updated 2002 report to be released soon.

Yes, Yes Yankees
Why are the New York Yankees called Yankees? Where did they get the name from and why?
Sarah

Mother Knickerbocker notices that the names of sports teams have perversely little to do with their city. The L.A. Lakers? The Utah Jazz?!! (Yes, Mother knows that the Lakers were originally in Minneapolis, "land of 10,000 lakes," and the Jazz were originally from New Orleans. But they aren't there now are they?) This is one example in which New York is like the rest of the country. In England or Canada, Yankee means an American; in the South, it means somebody who fought on the Union side in the Civil War; in the mid-Atlantic states, it is used to refer to a person from New England, especially a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant from New England. Until there was a New York Yankees baseball team, people did not especially associate the term Yankee with the City of New York.

Yes, Mother Knickerbocker has heard the stories about the origin of the word "Yankees," that the colonial British slurred the Dutch dairy farmers along the Hudson River by calling them "Jan Cheese," for Jan the Cheese Makers, which if you say it ten times fast becomes "Yankees." But Mother K does not believe this story -- the British never said anything ten times fast -- and, even if she did, what do upstate dairy farmers from three hundred years ago have to do with modern city sluggers?

Actually, the baseball team was called the New York Highlanders, but they stank. In 1912, the owner renamed them the Yankees for whatever reason, and they still stank...until 1920. That is when the new owners, one of whom had the odd name of Colonel Tillinghast L'Hommedieu Huston, went to the Boston Red Sox (another odd name), which had won five World Series, to buy the contract of a player whose name was Babe Ruth. The owner of the Red Sox used the money from the sale to finance the Broadway musical "No, No, Nannette." Babe Ruth became the most famous baseball player of all time, helping the Yankees to win three World Series in the 1920's, his popularity leading to the building of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. The Yankees are now also called the Bronx Bombers, and are the most successful baseball team in history, and probably the most famous team in the history of sports. The Boston Red Sox are now also called chumps; since giving up Ruth's contract, they have not won a single World Series.


Dear Mother Knickerbocker
I would like to know the origin of the term "gotham". I also wonder about "tammany (hall)", what does it refer to exactly? And please, tell me about the story behind "knickerbocker".
Marie-Luce Garderes

So glad you asked.

Gotham is Anglo-Saxon for "goat town"-and this was WAY before George Steinbrenner. Actually, Washington Irving, best-known now for the short stories "Rip van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," first used Gotham to refer to New York City in 1807, in a series of essays he wrote with his brothers and labeled Salmagundi. It seems that way back in the Middle Ages the townsfolk of the original Gotham, in England, tried to avoid paying taxes by acting insane--and this was WAY before the Helmsleys!!! Irving apparently saw New York as similarly populated by such "wise fools."

Two years after he started referring to New York as Gotham, Washington Irving wrote one of the first books from America to gain great popularity in Europe, A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. It was intended as a spoof of the first New York guidebook, a pompous, self-satisfied little treatise written two years earlier by a Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchill. Irving originally wrote his satire under a pen name, Diedrich Knickerbocker. The word knickerbocker means "baker of marbles" (another reference to insanity? As in "lost their..."?) Father Knickerbocker became the symbol of New York, in the way that Uncle Sam is now the symbol of America. Knickerbockers became a common term for the original European families who settled the city, the old-stock Dutch and Huguenots, to contrast with those upstart immigrants, the Yankees.

Speaking of which, it was Yankees who first created the Society of St. Tammany, in 1788, because they couldn't get into the older, more exclusive clubs like the Society of the Cincinnati-and this was WAY before Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. Tammany was named after a legendary Delaware Indian chief, Tamanend or Tammany, and its members went around in Indian paraphernalia and adopted Indian titles, from braves all the way up to sachems. It was not until the 1860's that William "Boss" Tweed took over Tammany, replacing the Indian symbols with a tiger. Tammany Hall became the powerful political machine that ruled New York until the 1930's.

So there are your answers. But WHY would you want to know about Gotham and Knickerbocker and Tammany when only Mother Knickerbocker and Batman ever utter those words anymore?

Wouldn't you like to know where "Big Apple" comes from? Well, I'll tell you anyway. Ironically, it didn't come from New York, but from New Orleans. The expression is said to come from the Spanish words Manzana Principal. Manzana means apple, but it is also an informal expression for land (as in apple orchard) or city block. The Spanish-speaking natives of New Orleans used manzana principal to mean main block, or the downtown area. The early jazz musicians translated that phrase into "Big Apple" around the turn of the last century. Since downtown was "where the action was" in New Orleans, the Big Apple came to mean "the big town." And for the predominantly African-American musicians, the big time was Harlem.

The nickname didn't become official until the 1970's, thanks to the relentless "Big Apple Campaign" by Charles Gillett, who was then president of the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau.

While we're at it...

Did you know that there are many, many much more common words that New Yorkers introduced into the English language? Here is a sampling:

boss: derived from the Dutch word baas, which means master.

buff: as in movie buff-was originally used as in fire buff, a volunteer fireman who envied the buff-colored uniform of the professional firefighters.

corny: traveling actors from New York City dismissed rural audiences, who liked sentimental melodramas, as corn-fed, which became corny.

Know of any other words that originated in New York? Tell Mother Knickerbocker, at motherk@gothamgazette.com


Dear Mother Knickerbocker
Where are there clean public restrooms in Manhattan?
Ingeborg Kelly

Mother Knickerbocker feels your pain. Manhattan has two public, self-cleaning toilets, one for every 4 million New Yorkers. What's more, they're blocks apart, in Herald and Greeley Squares.

New York does have other public toilets but their cleanliness is in the eye of the beholder. The city's public parks have over a thousand, even the Subway system has about eighty. Public interest groups have advocated them for over a century, cabbies and homeless groups demand them, Robert Moses championed them, but they've never found a foothold. Mother Knickerbocker suspects New Yorkers are tough enough to be patient.

For a detailed account of New York's public toilet wars, check Gotham Gazette's article http://www.gothamgazette.com/iotw/bathrooms/


Dear Mother Knickerbocker,
The only municipal agency not consolidated when the new New York City was formed in 1898 are the 3 separate library systems: New York Public Library(serves Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island), the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Borough Public Library. Each of these 3 library systems have their own central library, executive director and administrative staff.

Why haven't these 3 library systems been consolidated?
Sincerely,
Walter Greenspan

Mother Knickerbocker knows the answer to this - blame a robber baron. But to understand why this is so, you are going to have to read through the next several paragraphs of history, because reading is fundamental.

When the City of Greater New York put together the five boroughs in 1898, the purpose was to streamline the city's industry, especially the port. Public libraries were not the top priority. Of the city's three current library systems only the Brooklyn Public Library existed as a circulation library open to the public. The New York Public Library -- officially called the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations -- was a private library open to the public, the product of a merger of the preexisting Astor and Lenox Libraries and a bequeath from Samuel Tilden, the former Governor of New York State. Queens had begun to consolidate its various libraries into a comprehensive branch system as well, but the Queens Borough Public Library was in an early stage.

In 1901 the private New York Public Library took over the New York Free Circulating Library, a truly public branch system that had been established in 1878. It became the circulating department. Shortly after the merger, Andrew Carnegie made donations to all three systems to improve and expand their branches, allowing each to grow on its own. He gave the gifts with assurance that each would receive funding from the city.

Carnegie's donation to the New York Public Library was the largest and included building branches in The Bronx and Staten Island whose libraries did not receive separate gifts. Since the three systems each received distinct funding from the newly established city, there was little need to consolidate them. Each also became a symbol of local pride. Like the Brooklyn Dodgers, the libraries didn't change their name at consolidation.

Occasionally a mayor will suggest the libraries merge, but it would be a monumental and irrational task. The New York Public Library, is the most renowned. With 11 million volumes, it has more books than any public library system in the country. But the Queens Borough system is second; it houses a mere 9 million volumes. With more books than the Miami and San Francisco libraries combined, The Brooklyn Public Library isn't too shabby either. Just merging the collections, doesn't even begin to address how the bureaucracies would be tailored to each other. Also the New York Public Library is open to Brooklyn and Queens residents with exceptionally demanding book needs. Anyone who lives, works, studies or pays property taxes in New York State can get a free New York Public Library card. They won't let you take out the Gutenberg Bible though, so don't ask.

As far as Mother Knickerbocker can tell there's only one reason to merge the three systems: boasting rights. Put together, it would be the largest library system, of any kind, in the world. It would top the Library of Congress by about 3 million books- a decent library in its own right.


Dear Mother Knickerbocker
I wanted to know where the first public housing was built in New York City. Was the first the Harlem River Houses or a development on the Lower East side? Please I really need this information.
Gaskin

What are you, on Internet Time? You can't wait until Mother Knickerbocker composes her pearly words of wisdom for all to read? Ok, the short answer is it was "a development on the Lower East Side" --more specifically, First Houses, in 1936, on 3rd Street west of Avenue A. Harlem River Houses was built the following year, 1937, at 153rd Street and the Harlem River.

HOWEVER, it depends on how you define "public housing." The New York City Public Housing Authority, the first such local authority in the United States, was the government agency responsible for First Houses. Harlem River Houses, however, were the first FEDERALLY subsidized housing in the country.

So, there you go. Will this solve the bet? Who wins? Does Mother Knickerbocker get a cut of the winnings?



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