Mayor Eric L. Adams Op-Ed: Celebrating 400 Years of the Greatest City in the World

2025 marks a historic occasion — our city’s 400th anniversary. It marks four centuries since the first European settlement of Manhattan in 1625, on land then known as Lenapehoking, the homeland of the Lenape people. The tiny Dutch colony began as New Amsterdam and then changed to New York when the English took control and expanded rapidly. A century ago, its boundaries increased beyond the island of Manhattan to encompass the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.

To celebrate our city’s 400th anniversary, we are proud to announce the launch of our “Founded By NYC” campaign, which focuses on commemorating and celebrating our city’s 400th birthday and honoring the Indigenous communities that came long before. The campaign highlights contributions from New York City that have shaped our nation and affirmed our country’s place in the world.

Our website, FoundedByNYC.com, features events and activities that showcase our city’s amazing 400-year history. You can also sign up for our newsletter, which will keep you up to date on events in the five boroughs and submit information about your own events that illustrate New York City’s past so that we can showcase it on our calendar.

Even as we look forward and celebrate all our great city has to offer, our administration is deeply committed to acknowledging and engaging with our city’s complex past. That is why we met with Chief Brad KillsCrow of the Delaware Tribe of Indians at Gracie Mansion and have proclaimed November 20 as “Lenape Heritage Day.” The Lenape people are the original inhabitants of this region, we acknowledge the pain they have experienced and the great contributions that have made — and continue to make — to our city.

Like the Lenape, our city’s story has ultimately been one of perseverance and triumph. Together, the many nationalities, religions, and ethnicities that have been a hallmark of our city from its earliest years have worked to build a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. For four centuries, New York City has been a beacon of hope for people from all over the world, a place of religious freedom and tolerance, a place to fulfill the American Dream; and our administration has been working hard to bring that dream a little closer for New Yorkers today.

We passed the historic “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” plan that will help build a new generation of affordable housing; proposed the “Axe the Tax for the Working Class” to eliminate and cut city income taxes for some of our hardest-working New Yorkers; driven down crime all last year by seizing illegal guns, getting ghost cars and other illegal vehicles off our streets, and closing down unlicensed cannabis stores. We also created a record number of new jobs and small businesses, shattered affordable housing records, and produced a record amount of public space for pedestrians across the five boroughs. And, as we commemorate our 400th anniversary, we are preparing for the next 400 years — prioritizing climate resiliency by instituting citywide composting, creating new parks, planting trees, and completing the first section of the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project.

As mayor of the greatest city in the world, I am committed to fulfilling the great promise that is New York, and delivering for you. Every day. Everywhere.