1616 Dutch West India Company establishes a new colony with the capital on Manhattan named New Amsterdam. Precedent set for a future commercial center in NYC.

1639 The East River is utilized as farmland by the Dutch.

1664 English gain control of Manhattan and rename the city New York.

1647-1740s The Stuyvesants, Delanceys, and Rutgers, prominent Dutch families, acquire farmland in what would be called The Lower East Side. 

1742 A Plan of the City and Its Environs of New York as it was in 1742. First evidence of provision of “public housing”

          represented in map as “Poor House.”

1776 Declaration of Independence is signed and establishes the United States of America.

1811 The Commissioner’s Grid Plan is approved for the plan of streets and blocks that would establish the city's plan for how it is laid out today.