Peter Stuyvesant’s New York Legacy

Cast in bronze, he towers amid the lilac sweetness, so pungent it overwhelms the cannabis smoke hovering in the steamy air above Stuyvesant Square Park. The arch of his back rises from the good leg. He lost the other to a Spanish cannonball in the siege of St. Martin — the stump in its place a grisly display of will to the wayward and irreligious newcomers, his walking stick less a crutch than an instrument of punishment.

He faces down Stuyvesant Street, which cuts aslant in defiance of Manhattan’s grid. Farther south, Stuyvesant High School, the most selective in the city, is tucked at the bank of the Hudson River. His farmhouse at the corner of 16th Street, a short walk from the statue, is now a convenience store. It sells flowers, stale candy, and mega-million dreams in the shadows of the Stuyvesant Town high-rises.

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Steven Volynets

Steven Volynets is a writer and critic.

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Cast in bronze, he towers amid the lilac sweetness, so pungent it overwhelms the cannabis smoke hovering in the steamy air above Stuyvesant Square Park. The arch of his back rises from the good leg. He lost the other to a Spanish cannonball in the siege of St. Martin — the stump in its place a grisly display of will to the wayward and irreligious newcomers, his walking stick less a crutch than an instrument of punishment.

He faces down Stuyvesant Street, which cuts aslant in defiance of Manhattan’s grid. Farther south, Stuyvesant High School, the most selective in the city, is tucked at the bank of the Hudson River. His farmhouse at the corner of 16th Street, a short walk from the statue, is now a convenience store. It sells flowers, stale candy, and mega-million dreams in the shadows of the Stuyvesant Town high-rises.