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Take the Governors Island ferry to NY State’s birthplace of 1624 – the most historic of New York attractions;
Land on the place where the first settlers lived;
See where the jurisprudence of Religious Tolerance took hold in the New World during New York's infancy;
Historical source of ethnic and cultural diversity in North America;
Explore the principle of Tolerance in its many faceted manifestations;
Experience the foundational principle from which the notion of American liberty evolved;
Encounter Governors Island events of 21st-century substance and relevance; and, some day,
get inspired by the Governors Island park-to-tolerance with the Tolerance Monument as centerpiece for the greater-good.
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Governors Island’s natural symbolism composes the National Heritage Triangle of America's fundamental values in New York Harbor with the uniquely historic island symbols of Tolerance, Liberty and Welcome.
The Governors Island ferry will take you first to the Governors Island Park-to-Tolerance, then to Liberty Island’s Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island’s American Immigration Museum.
Governors Island events and programming are of thematic substance, have educational value and relate to understanding liberty-for-all thus giving meaning to the conception of American freedom through broad awareness and conscious vigilance.
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Take the Governors Island ferry to
New York State's most important landmark - its birthplace
Most vital American symbol Most profound of New York attractions
If American citizens, from wherever, were to take the Governors Island ferry to New York State's birthplace—to TOLERANCE WALK as the most significant of New York attractions—it would restore Governors Island to its historical integrity as the place on which the momentous, juridical messages of Religious Tolerance and Freedom of Conscience were placed first into the New World in 1624 (click TOLERANCE PARK.) Governors Island thus became the birthplace of the sovereignty of New York State (originally the juridical entity of New Netherland.) Tolerance is a reciprocal dynamic (i.e., a two-way street) and the basis for successful religious, ethnic, racial and cultural diversity. TEACHING TOLERANCE is a critical element in understanding the conception of American freedom because Tolerance is the Lifeblood of American Liberty. Broad awareness of the universal value of Tolerance will help foster our understanding of the deeper meaning of the adjacent Liberty Island and Ellis Island in the composition of American freedom (as visualized in the National Heritage Triangle of America's fundamental values in New York Harbor.) This elemental principle in our understanding of what American liberty is all about and as Common Theme of Social Cohesion—the underpinning of successful American pluralism—will help us connect with one another and bring us together in unity through conscious vigilance. Governor Island events and programming with public or private monies are unimaginable without featuring the Island's unique, historical contribution to American jurisprudence and culture and its enduring, inspirational relevance as a national symbol to successive generations of Americans. These concepts of America’s primary values (Tolerance, Liberty, and Welcome as portrayed by three unique island symbols in New York Harbor) can be traced directly to the birth of New York State when the legal-political infrastructure and the geo-cultural traditions of the United Provinces of the Netherlands (the "Dutch Republic") were delivered to Governors Island by the first settlers to the New York Tri-State region in 1624. The theme of this fundamental New York State history is to be reflected in a Governors Island Preservation and Education project through an unconventional and innovative Governors Island Park-to-Tolerance in New York Harbor with a 151 feet high (46 meters) high TOLERANCE MONUMENT as the universal embodiment of the dynamic force of Tolerance at its center. It will transform Governors Island to a primary National Symbol as the nation’s oldest historic, natural monument of purpose, power and pertinence—New York State's most important landmark since 1624. Tolerance is the foundational principle for American liberty and vital to successful cultural and racial pluralism. It is the "Lifeblood-of-American-Liberty." What is Tolerance? An easy way to understand the precept of Tolerance as the foundational principle for liberty is to know that it is the opposite of intolerance. In an intolerant society liberty-for-all can’t flourish or even exist. Intolerance is the enemy of democracy and freedom. Because Tolerance is a reciprocal dynamic it demands respect, stimulates equality, fosters peace and engenders harmony in difference. In other words, it is the friend of democracy and the common theme for social cohesion or unity. Respond to intolerance with silence and liberty will wither. Governors Island History (34 slides) The 1624 planting on Governors Island of New York State's oldest laws and ordinances—the cultural footing of the North American juridical entity of New Netherland (1624-1674) which was renamed New York by the English, an appellation subsequently adopted by the United States upon its transformation into the state of New York—have left an enduring legacy on both American cultural and political life. They included the jurisprudence of Religious Tolerance and Freedom of Conscience which affected New York's culture and politics uniquely. A private commercial venture since 1614 upon the issuance of patents by the States General of the Dutch Republic in 1614, the general New Netherland territory thus became a province in 1624 specifically. The most important instruction to the Governors Island settlers was the one that echoed the 1579 founding document of New York’s birthfather—the Dutch Republic. It promulgated that "everyone shall remain free in religion and that no one may be persecuted or investigated because of religion." At the time, this unique legal-cultural instruction of toleration (= religious tolerance) formed the basis for religious, ethnic and cultural diversity in New Netherland and especially in its capital of New Amsterdam, now New York City. This religious Tolerance was preserved by treaty for New Netherlanders exclusively under provisional English authority in 1664. It endured as a regional cultural tradition after ceding the New Netherland province definitively to the English in 1674 and after the 1776 declaration of political independence from English tyranny. As an individual right, this jurisprudence of toleration was reintroduced and codified one year after the 1776 Declaration of Independence in New York State's 1777 Constitution and ratified at the federal level four years after the 1787 Constitution of the thirteen United States through the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights in 1791. It became effectively available to all U.S. citizens in 1868 through the 14th Amendment in the Bill of Rights which finally freed them from religious compulsion by subordinating individual states' rights in religious matters to federal law. New York's political culture of religious and ethnic plurality was the result of the dynamic principle of Tolerance as an individual right so delivered first to the New World on Governors Island in NY Harbor in 1624. This historic precept has been Governors Island's legacy, NY's birthright and identity ever since and endures to this very day. This was affirmed by the New York State Legislature in May 2002 (click Legislative Resolution).
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Origin of America's jurisprudence of Religious Tolerance and Freedom of Conscience (An article by Joep de Koning) In the settlers’ fatherland—a haven for refugees from intolerant or despotic regimes—the city of Leiden especially was a magnet for religious diversity. It was there that the Pilgrims, originally from England, lived for 12 years prior to their sailing to North America in 1620, with a stopover in Southampton, England, to avoid looming war with Spain after the expiration of the twelve-year-truce. In 1622, sixty-seven percent of Leiden's population had come from outside the Dutch Republic in search of toleration and liberty. Its population was a kaleidoscope of religious variety. In 1645, Willem Usselincx, from Antwerp and spiritual founder of the West Indian Company, proclaimed that “it is because of foreigners that the country will be peopled, because its might is derived mostly from those who come from abroad and settle, marry and multiply here. If one were to remove the foreigners, their children and grandchildren from the large cities of Holland, the remaining residents would be fewer in number than those removed.” This statement reflected the attitude that encouraged religious and ethnic diversity in New Netherland before it became popularly referred to as the New York Tri-State (New York State, New Jersey and Connecticut.) Usselincx's statement could have been uttered today in America and is particularly pertinent to New York City, then named New Amsterdam. Yet, Governors Island’s legacy and New York’s tradition of tolerance—the basis for its characteristic diversity and identity—have gone unrecognized politically. The North American introduction, in 1624, of that basic human value gave rise to the most diverse city in the world and the nation’s largest municipality—itself a legal concept introduced, in 1653, in New Amsterdam and reincorporated as New York City in June 1665. May New York’s politicians understand the power of Willem Usselincx’s 1645 statement. His words were reflective of a legal-cultural tradition which became the very foundation of this nation: Tolerance, the Founding Principle for American Liberty. That legacy originated on Governors Island in 1624.
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Our proposed education and history project for Governors Island—the Tolerance Park—will unleash the island’s currently concealed historic symbolism for the nation. It will provide our children with an opportunity to understand the twin notions of tolerance (dynamic) and liberty (static) of American freedom and imbue them with a deeper appreciation of the meaning of freedom in a pluralist society through broad awareness and conscious vigilance.
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The French gift of the Statue of Liberty (inaugurated in 1886) transformed Bedloe Island to Liberty Island in 1956 to become an omnipresent, fundamental American symbol. The 50-acre canvas for the creation of a masterpiece of thematic and visual excellence—the Tolerance Park with the Tolerance Monument as centerpiece—will transform Governors Island, over time, to the third iconic island as a quintessential American symbol in New York Harbor, yet its most fundamental one because the notion of liberty sprouts from the principle of Tolerance. Together they will compose the "National Heritage Triangle." The work of art—a Tolerance Canvas—will visually link the 1624 historic planting of Tolerance (that is, the father of American liberty and the basis of successful pluralism) with broad awareness of the indispensability of this dynamic notion in contemporary 21st-century society. It will acknowledge that constructive pluralism is an original precept in “American” freedom since the year in which it took root on the very place where it was planted first. The Tolerance Park will safeguard America’s ultimate, active virtue to the world while preserving the national significance of Governors Island's historic symbolism as an enduring beacon to humanity.
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The National Heritage Triangle In acknowledgment of New York State’s historic beginning on Governors Island and its momentous contribution to American culture, we composed a triad of islands in one iconic whole where each island represents a symbol and exemplifies its own unique facet of American history (see the National Heritage Triangle). The sum of this National Heritage Triangle of America’s primary values in New York harbor is worth more than its collective parts. It would promulgate that tolerance and liberty define the juridical and cultural construct to which American freedom refers—that the "dynamic" precept of tolerance distinguishes the specifically American notion of freedom from the "generic" or "static". TOLERANCE (embodied by Governors Island as the nation’s leading, natural, historic symbol); because it precedes liberty as its building block while also being its partner in the definition of “American” freedom; LIBERTY (embodied by the island symbol of “Liberty” signified by its statue); because it is a function of tolerance (is liberty possible in an intolerant society?); and IMMIGRATION (embodied by the Ellis Island symbol of "Welcome" as portrayed by the American Immigration Museum); because it is a function of the twin notions of tolerance and liberty which comprise the conception of American freedom. A two-way street, tolerance demands reciprocity and reciprocal respect rather than unilateral accommodation. Embedded in Governors Island—New York State’s legally recognized, historic birthplace—tolerance is a critical part of New York’s cultural patrimony and its unique contribution to American culture. Without doubt, it is the very foundation for successful pluralism and the lifeblood of American liberty. Please address any communications to President@TolerancePark.org.
Governors Island’s legacy of tolerance with liberty as its fraternal partner constitutes American freedom. Its restitution to primary American history reveals the nation’s oldest National Symbol as a crucial pillar of democracy. With the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, Governors Island composes a National Heritage Triangle of quintessential American symbols. New York’s legal and political tradition of tolerance, the basis for its characteristic cultural diversity and pluralism, had its beginnings on Governors Island in New York harbor. That tolerance is central to the contemporary Western conception of personal freedom which can be defined in terms of the twin credos of tolerance and liberty. Its origins as an ethical force in the Western Hemisphere and as a legal and political imperative can be traced to the year 1624, in what is now the State of New York. Tolerance is an active dynamic entailing reciprocity and reciprocal respect. Always bilaterally demanding, it forges “American” freedom by relentlessly transforming plurality into constructive pluralism as a never-finished product of American culture. In the face of intolerance, tolerance is neither uncritical acceptance, appeasement or submission, nor laxity, sloth or indifference. Tolerance defines and gives meaning to an otherwise undemanding “generic” or “static” freedom. Without conscious vigilance and broad awareness of that vital, fundamental notion of tolerance, there will be times when there will be no freedom in the sense that Americans recognize that term today. Left unnurtured and unprotected, simple liberty invites and facilitates the "friends" of intolerance and extremism—complacency, carelessness, apathy, passivity and insipidness—opening the door to insidious assaults on civil liberties. A proposed 50-acre Governors Island Park-to-Tolerance (30% of the Island) will restore New York State's birthpace to its rightful historical importance and extol America’s vital role in advancing liberty in the world through the moral force of tolerance. It will be the place where 350 years of contrasts will visually dissolve harmoniously into a new and unique tableau, just as divergences and boundaries melt away through the ethical force of tolerance into common humanity.
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