HERE they hailed from, the Van Couwenhovens, Huddes, Schenks, even the Van Voorhees, although they were originally from Drenthe. Amersfoort, the Fort on the Amer, now the river Eem. This is what it looked like, even back then, during the long Dutch winters of the seventeenth century. Without the bicycles.
Amersfoort emigrants built New Amersfoort on Nassau Eylandt, near Breukelen and New Utrecht, near Coneynen Eylandt. New Amersfoort eventually became Flatlands, Breukelen became Brooklyn, the Isle of Wild Rabbits became Coney Island, New Utrecht is still a high school today, and Nassau Eylandt became Long Island.
BUT walk your dog to Avenue I and 38th Street in Brooklyn, and you’ll find a green park in a lovely neighborhood: Amersfort Park with a real Amersfoort boulder in it, across from Amersfort School, near Amersfort Place, not far from what used to be called Amersfort Avenue. Gerritsen Avenue runs nearby, named after Alderman Gerritsen from Achterveld near Amersfoort. His real name was Van Couwenhoven, but no one could pronounce that in Nieuw Amsterdam, where he was alderman. His father’s name was Gerrit, hence Gerritsen.
Not far from the boulder in Amersfort Park rests Amersfoort’s most famous son, Piet Mondrian. Though under a much smaller stone.
* The Amersfoort Kei (left), and its US copy in Brooklyn’s Amersfort Park.
