Explore Dutch New York with new audio tours

Fri, Jun 27 - Wed, Dec 31  2025

New York

The Dutch Heritage World Tours Foundation has launched two new self guided audio tours, “How Dutch Is New York? - The Brooklyn Tour” and “How Dutch Is New York? - The New Amsterdam Tour."

The new tours are available for free in both Dutch and English, making centuries of shared history accessible to all.

You can find the tours here.

“How Dutch Is New York? – The Brooklyn Tour”

This tour invites listeners to explore the rich Dutch roots of Brooklyn through 25 carefully curated stops. The tour tells the story of Brooklyn’s early days, when the area, originally home to the Lenape people, saw the arrival of Dutch settlers crossing the East River from Manhattan in the 1630s.

These settlers established farms and villages, many of which still echo their Dutch names today. Visitors can trace the origins of places like Breuckelen (now Brooklyn Heights), Boswijck (Bushwick), Midwoud or ’t Vlacke Bosch (Flatbush), Nieuw-Amersfoort (Flatlands), ‘s-Gravesande (Gravesend), and Nieuw-Utrecht (New Utrecht).

A highlight of the tour is the Wyckoff House Museum, New York City’s oldest surviving building from the Dutch colonial era. But history isn’t just confined to museums—Brooklyn still boasts clapboard houses and structures from the colonial period, including the Hubbard House, Van Nuyse houses, the Lott House, the Lefferts House, the Wyckoff-Bennet House, and the historic Old Stone House.

The tour offers a balanced perspective, celebrating architectural and cultural heritage while acknowledging the darker chapters of Dutch colonization, including the displacement of indigenous communities and the introduction of enslaved Africans to the region.

“How Dutch Is New York? – The New Amsterdam Tour”

This walking tour takes visitors through 28 locations across Lower Manhattan, tracing the city’s early Dutch roots during the period from 1625 to 1664, when the area was known as New Amsterdam.

With the 400th anniversary of New York’s founding in 2025, the extended tour offers a timely opportunity to uncover the Dutch influence that still shapes the city today. Streets like Broadway, Wall Street, Nassau Street, Stone Street, and Maiden Lane all reflect this heritage, while Dutch names remain etched in tombstones across the city’s cemeteries.

The hour-long walk through bustling modern Manhattan transports visitors back to the 17th century, telling the stories of Dutch colonists, Indigenous peoples, Jewish settlers, and enslaved Africans, highlighting the complex, multi-layered history behind one of the world’s most iconic cities.