400 Hudson NY City

New York, New Amsterdam, September 8th 2009.
MoPromo, Monique and co pilot Johanna, left Western New Jersey and took a pilgrimage trip to New York City to be a part of the 400 years celebration of enduring friendship between the Netherlands and the United States. In 1609, a Dutch ship called the Halve Maen reached the shores of what would become New York City. The Dutch pioneers settled on the island of Manhattan brought entrepreneurship. With events and activates throughout 2009 we celebrate the shared values which remain important today and in the future: freedom, tolerance and the pursuit of happiness.







Henry Hudson the English sea captain hired by the Dutch government in 1609 traded beaver pelts instead of spices in New York and made friends with the Lenape Indians on the island Manhattan.




Today New Yorkers and other visitors from all around the world have the opportunity this week to eat Dutch food, meet Dutch musicians, and see Dutch costumes and make Dutch friends.

Mopromo had the great opportunity to meet a group of musicians called Kleintje Pils, which was a very entertaining brass band from De Sassenheim, The Netherlands.




This band will be playing at Battery Park the whole entire week on several time slots. The location of this Dutch festival is in front of the US Custom Building.

The Kleine Pils is very good and so entertaining. I had the opportunity to meet Gerard Baker which was one of the creative player in the band. Johanna Vander Heyden gave The Violanta's CD of The Dutch Street organ to the festival to play this week during intermission. The Violanta will be playing this weekend in Belvidere, NJ. Details: Sept 12 & 13 take a look at the web site www.myspace.com/violantastreetorgan








We also meet Jan David whom new song "Miss Sunshine" was debuted at the park today.
Jan David a songwriter from The Netherlands will be at the park the entire week and will be performing is new song " Miss Sunshine".









Here is the link to his song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mllZHW8AT8&feature=related

We ended the trip the afternoon by renting some bicycles for FREE!!! Yes, you can rent these cool looking orange bikes for free with a photo id for 4 hours the whole week.








We rode around the park and pier A . Between crazy New York traffic and coach buses from out of town we made it all around the park and back in 4 hours.
















For more information of the 400 year celebration on the Hudson go to their web site.
http://www.ny400.org/