Salutations and Declarations

With fife and drum fading in the distance as the first major campaign between The Continental Army and His Majesty's Royal Army happened, the fine line of war was not yet in place. A carefully written and addressed letter may have made a difference.

Lord Howe, General William Howe of the Royal Army, encamped on Staten Island, writes on July 7, 1776 for reinforcements. Unlike today there was no tweet on July 4th, the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Actually a copy of the declaration did not reach New York until July 9th.

To write a letter during this time of the Revolutionary War it would have taken as much as six weeks time for mail and news to be received and then cross the Atlantic with response. General Howe had no way of knowing that the colonists had signed an agreement. Lord Howe considered himself a master of pardons and a peacemaker, he found himself in a compromised situation a he waited for reinforcements.

During this time General Howe tried to correspond with what he considered the rebel army. He addressed the written correspondence to “George Washington Esq.” (Esquire – a man with no title, a subject.) With no respectful acknowledgement, respect was not returned.

Howe wasn’t going to recognize Washington as a comrade-in-arms, let alone an equal, and therefore a solution was found by making a verbal, rather than written request and that request was to “His Excellency General Washington” to meet with Lieutenant-Colonel James Paterson, the adjutant general of the British Army, the backhanded attempt was never acknowledged.

It was August 1776, remember it took as much as six weeks for correspondence to travel and with the wait and frustration, strategy, and impulse, August 27 – 29, 1776 one of the most notorious battles for freedom occurred: The Battle of Brooklyn.

The Sign of the Times

Parking can be a hassle in a high-rise community.

In 1897, the island of Manhattan could never compete on an international level as a major city. A small island, the land is finite. It was the shared New York harbor that provided a common territory, access, and later, the Greater New York City Area. The consolidation of 1898, January 1, the merging of the five boroughs; Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island, New York City became the largest city in the world, and with this parking can be a headache.

The hub of traffic and the dire of rush hour the streets of Manhattan are hustling, and bustling around the clock. The population continues to be the test bed for innovation, and implementation. Understand it wasn’t until 1915 that there was a concentration of automobiles that required a need for a traffic light. Red, green, and amber all mean go to a horse.

Since 1897, New York City has transitioned from coal burning locomotives to the electric Subway system with a most vigorous concern for noise and air pollution. As much as this city represents corporate America, this city adapts and applies. Parking in a city of 1.5 million inhabitants and an influx of twice that many people filling the streets during rush hour it seems only fitting that like our handheld devices there is now a docking station for what we call a ‘smart’ car. Can this possibly get us a step closer to the much-anticipated hovercraft?