History of New York City (prehistory–1664) with the ethnic and racial balance of the community. The economic activity brought in a wide variety of ethnic groups to the fledgling city during the 17th century, including Spanish, Jews, and Africans, some of them as slaves. The Dutch origins can still be seen in many names in New York City, such as Coney Island (from "Konijnen Eiland" – Dutch for "Rabbit Island"), Bowery from "bouwerij" (modern Dutch "boerderij" = "farm"), Brooklyn (from Breukelen), Harlem from Haarlem (formalized in 1658 as "Nieuw Haarlem"), Greenwich Village (from Greenwijck, meaning "pine wood quarter"), Flushing (from Vlissingen) and Staten Island (from "Staaten
Old Dutch Church (Kingston, New York) Old Dutch Church (Kingston, New York) The Old Dutch Church, officially known as the First Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of Kingston, is located on Wall Street in Kingston, New York, United States. Formally organized in 1659, it is one of the oldest continuously existing congregations in the country. Its current building, the fifth, is an 1852 structure by Minard Lafever that was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2008, the only one in the city. The church's steeple, a replacement for a taller but similar original that collapsed, makes it the tallest building in Kingston and a symbol of the