This is not New York, no, this is Amsterdam and without Amsterdam there would be no New York. But I want to show you something, come on. This is the best in this parkhouse, the West Indian warehouse, I guess that will be in English. And there's an intimate connection between this building and New York. This is the location where all the goods coming from New Amsterdam would be stored 400 years ago. So beaver belts or whatever else. It was mostly beaver belts that would store here. I'm not sure if it was ever really full. The West Indian company never really made a profit. And the directors of the company were once in a really nice building but eventually it moved in here upstairs with the goods. And I used to work in this building actually. And I'd be fully aware of the building I was in and the beautiful connection it has to New York. I wonder if they had a ping pong table back then. So it's a gorgeous building and that's why tourists from all over the world come here to enjoy historic buildings like this. But there's also the general misconception that America doesn't have any buildings that are as old as this one. And that's simply just not true because there's a building in New York that's basically just as old as this one. And I went there together with architecture historian Helae in western house. And yes, that is the oldest building in New York. This is the house called the Wicof Farm. Most of what you see is newer but the oldest part of this house is from about 1652, which makes it only 10 years younger than the West India Parkhouse. We are being guided around by Joshua who works for the foundation that runs this fantastic historical artifact. He shows us the room that gave the building its birth year. This is where the circa 1652 comes from because it's in that year that we know that Peter and his wife were living here on the property. How was living here? What was going on? Everything that you were doing in your house today, cooking, cleaning, sleeping, socializing. All in this one room, family of 13. 13! 11 children, 2 parents. What in this room? It's the children. Almost the 5-13 people in here. Well, keep in mind they would have had a loft space above and they would have had outbuildings. There are tens of thousands of descendants of the Wicofs. For the last name looks anything like it, you are most certainly one. And all of them can trace back their ancestry to this little room. Or with so many kids around, maybe there was some other spots. Whether it was a little more privacy for the parents, do you know? Those new generations didn't come out of nowhere of course. Anyway, back then the house was in the middle of green fields. Nowadays it's in a fairly industrial neighborhood, right next to a McDonald's. The oldest part of the building is on the left. The bigger house on the right is a little bit newer, from about 1730. 1730, this map of the earth is from that era. It's how the world looked like to the most informed Europeans. There's the solar system with the sun in the middle and wonders from all over the world. Elephants, and I guess that's a dragon, and this is really the ugliest lion I've ever seen. And I'm just not sure what this is. Ah, North America. Look at it, California was still on island. The Great Lakes basically stretched to the west coast. And New Netherlands was still New Netherlands. Wait a minute, no it wasn't. This map might be from 1730, new Amsterdam existed from around 1625 till 1664, when it was renamed to New York. Historians have to deal with confusing sources like this all the time. And so it is still not fully clear if the Wike of Farm is really from around 1652. And that's why the foundation would love to do physical scientific research on the house. To date it. Because holes remain in the story of Peter Klaasen and his family. Based on written sources, we know when he moved to his farm, but who built the house and went exactly remains a guess. It could well be a little bit older, or technically it could be newer and this whole video would be useless. It is important because primary sources documents can say that there was a cottage on this property in a certain time. But they're not going to say that it was this particular cottage. We don't really know because an earlier house could have burned down. And they could have rebuilt on that exact location. What did that matter for you though? Yeah, I think so. I think it would be a huge disappointment to lots of people just because this is such a novelty in New York. But I do think it's important for future generations to establish that now. This cat agrees. There are plenty of hints that the house is pretty old. Something Helae knows how to spot in the attic of the house. This is one of the behind the scenes treasures of the work of the flower. You show it to people or not. Occasionally we have seller to add it to earth. Eddicks are good for historians because they usually get changed less than the rest of the house. May I? Joshua? Yes, please. Thank you. Oh my god. This is renovated. I think this might even be 21st century but it's possibly 20th. Highly, likely 20th century. But then you see the difference between this construction and those old beams that's here. Like for instance here, those are much older. And here there's also wooden. Yeah, that's a wooden nail. Well, there's a reason why they weren't made of wood because they didn't have other materials. So that's also an indication to date it. Yeah, but this is fantastic. Look at that. Amsterdam was lucky enough to preserve its historic buildings. New Amsterdam wasn't so lucky. But I'd say cherish what you have, even if it's just a few beams. 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