http://www.whatsdutch.org Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:22:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 http://www.whatsdutch.org/2009/architecture-planning/ http://www.whatsdutch.org/2009/architecture-planning/#comments Sat, 01 Aug 2009 16:45:38 +0000 rickwhelan http://www.whatsdutch.org/?p=189 Early Dutch architectural details rest on construction and building techniques that are still expressed and visible in the Hudson Valley and beyond:

• Some of the oldest buildings and sites in the United States are located in Ulster County and the Hudson Valley:  Original New York State Senate House; oldest Dutch Reform Church; Historic Stockade District.
• The streets in the City of Kingston (Ulster County NY), formerly called Wiltwyck, remain laid out just as they were by the Dutch.
• Although the wooden houses of the original colonists are long gone, the second generation of homes—which were made from stone—still survive.  Today twenty-one still stand within the original layout of the Stockade Historic District, of which many are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
• The original Dutch home design began as a single room with a loft and then gradually expanded.  The simple limestone and mortar materials that were hauled directly from the fields outside of the Stockade are still visible.
• Agricultural land was called the “polder.”  As a result of a this type of planting pattern, the streets of Manhattan (among others) are divided into plots similar in size and ordered along numbered streets similar to the Dutch polder.  This street pattern was called the Beemster.

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