Notorious New Yorkers

New York has had its share of scandal over four centuries. These notorious New Yorkers are a small but expanding sample of those who outraged their fellow citizens. The list starts where the city started, in the Dutch era. I don't mean to pick on the Dutch even if arguably they set us on the road to debauchery. But I ran across so many candidates writing The Mevrouw Who Saved Manhattan.
-- Bill
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New York's First Whore: Griet Reyniers arrived as mistress of a Dutch Director but turned into whore of the rabble.

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The Turk: Anthony van Salee's skin showed the swarthy hue of his Moroccan mother but he acted more like the pirate his Dutch father turned into.

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New York's First Embezzler: Cornelis van Tienhoven started a long tradition in city that would become the financial capital of the world.

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An Early Member of the Gay Community: If only Harmen van den Bogaert had lived four hundred years later. A sterling example of how mores have change.

Find more vignettes of the people of New Netherland
at New Amsterdammers


The Mevrouw Who Saved Manhattan
Reviews

"[A] romp through the history of New Netherland that would surely have Petrus Stuyvesant complaining about the riot transpiring between its pages ... Readers are guaranteed a genuine adventure that will evoke the full range of human emotions. Once begun, they can expect to experience that rare difficulty in putting down a book before they have finished."
-- de Halve Maen, Journal of the Holland Society of New York, Summer 2009

"Bill Greer has deftly blended fact and fiction in his humorous tale The Mevrouw Who Saved Manhattan. ... The characters are rowdy, raunchy, loveable, and sometimes despicable, but thoroughly believable. ... This is a thoroughly delightful story that brings the Dutch colonies to life."
-- Historical Novels Review Online, August 2009

Bill's Book

Meet Griet Reyniers, Anthony van Salee, Cornelis van Tienhoven and other Notorious New Yorkers in

The Mevrouw Who
Saved Manhattan
A Novel of New Amsterdam

"A very authentic ring, like etchings
by Van Ostade and Steen."
-- Charles Wendell, Ph.D.,
President of the
New Netherland Institute

book cover

Join Mevrouw Jackie Lambert
on a madcap ride through
New York history.

More about the book.

Buy the Book at
Amazon

What readers say:

"Hilarious. Jackie had me
laughing out loud."

"Authority beyond question."

"People and action [are]
right on the money."

"How lusty those Dutch are."