First American Title New York Forms: Fill & Download for Free

Steven Attewell wrote the definitive answer to this question on the Lawyers, Guns and Money Blog in 2014:Steve Rogers doesn’t represent a genericized America but rather a very specific time and place – 1930’s New York City. We know he was born July 4, 1920 (not kidding about the 4th of July) to a working-class family of Irish Catholic immigrants who lived in New York’s Lower East Side.[1] This biographical detail has political meaning: given the era he was born in and his class and religious/ethnic background, there is no way in hell Steve Rogers didn’t grow up as a Democrat, and a New Deal Democrat at that, complete with a picture of FDR on the wall.Steve Rogers grew up poor in the Great Depression, the son of a single mother who insisted he stayed in school despite the trend of the time (his father died when he was a child; in some versions, his father is a brave WWI veteran, in others an alcoholic, either or both of which would be appropriate given what happened to WWI veterans in the Great Depression) and then orphaned in his late teens when his mother died of TB.[2] And he came of age in New York City at a time when the New Deal was in full swing, Fiorello LaGuardia was mayor, the American Labor Party was a major force in city politics, labor unions were on the move, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was organizing to fight fascism in Spain in the name of the Popular Front, and a militant anti-racist movement was growing that equated segregation at home with Nazism abroad that will eventually feed into the “Double V” campaign.Then he became a fine arts student. To be an artist in New York City in the 1930s was to be surrounded by the “Cultural Front.” We’re talking the WPA Arts and Theater Projects, Diego Rivera painting socialist murals in Rockefeller Center, Orson Welles turning Julius Caesar into an anti-fascist play and running an all-black Macbeth and “The Cradle Will Rock,” Paul Robeson was a major star, and so on. You couldn’t really be an artist and have escaped left-wing politics. And if a poor kid like Steve Rogers was going to college as a fine arts student, odds are very good that he was going to the City College of New York at a time when an 80% Jewish student body is organizing student trade unions, anti-fascist rallies, and the “New York Intellectuals” were busily debating Trotskyism vs. Stalinism vs. Norman Thomas Socialism vs. the New Deal in the dining halls and study carrels.And this Steve Rogers, who’s been exposed to all of what New York City has to offer, becomes an explicit anti-fascist. In the fall of 1940, over a year before Pearl Harbor, he first volunteers to join the army to fight the Nazis specifically. This isn’t an apolitical patriotism forged out of a sense that the U.S has been attacked; rather, Steve Rogers had come to believe that Nazism posed an existential threat to the America he believed in. New Deal America.I feel bad excerpting this much of the answer, but it’s worth reading. Go over there to read the whole thing, which includes the failure of the Captain America title on every occasion when they tried to make him into a right-wing figure.

There are many, but most of the surviving Dutch place-names of the former New Amsterdam (Nieuw-Amsterdam) (1624–1664) have been heavily Anglicised in the centuries since the Dutch ceded control of the area to the English (in 1664, confirmed by the Treaty of Breda of 1667). However, the closeness of the Dutch language to the English language (they are both members of the West Germanic linguistic family) means that the replacement place-name in English cannot fully disguise the underlying, original place-name in Dutch - whose meaning often remains transparent, with little or no translation.Below are those examples that I can think of off the top of my head (a bit of research may well yield others). The spelling of Dutch has moved on a bit since the 1600’s and 1700’s and so, in some cases where I am aware of the old spelling in Dutch, I give that in brackets after the modern spelling in Dutch. Happy reading!Bowery, the - from de Bouwerij, referring to a farm property of the last governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, whose own surname is immortalised in various place-names within New York City.Broadway - from de Brede Weg (de Breede Weg), literally the broad way or the broad path.Bronx - named for Jonas Bronck, a 17th century Dutchman who may have been of Swedish origin and who was the landowner in the Dutch era; the change from -ck to -x at the end of the name comes from its having originally been a possessive - Broncks Land (Broncks Landt), meaning Bronck’s Land.Brooklyn - from Breukelen (Breuckelen), a town in the modern-day Netherlands.Coney Island - from het Konijneneiland (het Conÿneneylandt), literally the rabbits’ island; coney is an old, sadly now almost extinct word in English for a rabbit, cognate with the Dutch word konijn (conÿn) and the word for rabbit in other European languages (cf. Kanin(chen) in German; coineachan in Gaelic); because of the etymology, I think that this is my favourite amongst the Dutch place-names of New York.Harlem - from Haarlem (Haerlem), a town in the modern-day Netherlands.Long Island - from het Lange Eiland (het Lange Eylandt) - no translation required.Nassau - from Nassau, a town in what is now Germany but from which the modern-day Royal Family of the Netherlands (House of Oranje-Nassau) hails; named for Prince William (Willem) of Oranje-Nassau, who later became King of England, Scotland and Ireland.Staten Island - from het Staten-Eiland (het Staeten-Eylandt) - named for the States-General (de Staten-Generaal (de Staeten-Generael)), which was the name of the Dutch Parliament in the 17th century (sometimes also known by its French name, les États-Généraux).Wall Street - there is a lack of agreement on the origin of this name, except that it is of Dutch origin; the competing theories are that it comes either from Waalstraat (Waelstraet), meaning Walloon Street (Walloons were among the early settlers in New Amsterdam) or Walstraat (Walstraet), meaning Rampart Street, owing to its position adjacent to the boundaries of the original Dutch settlement.Yonkers - from the Dutch title Jonker (derived from Jonckheer, itself a compound of jong + heer (young + master), roughly equivalent in the English-speaking world to esquire), referring to the title held by Jonker Adriaen van der Donck, a 17th century Dutch landowner in the area; I am guessing that the appearance of the -s in Yonkers is as an abbreviation for a possessive form, such as des Jonkers Stad (the Jonker’s Town), des Jonkers Dorp (the Jonker’s Village) or something similar.Personally, I think that the Dutch cultural heritage of New York City and its environs is often overlooked and underplayed, especially by the British (disclosure: I am a British citizen myself), who tend to think in their imagination that they founded just about everything in the old Thirteen Colonies that later formed the ‘core’ of the United States. The truth is, they (we) didn’t. But, as mentioned, the Dutch and the English languages are so close to one another that, after the English takeover of New Amsterdam and its renaming as New York in 1664, it was not so difficult to ‘submerge’ the Dutch identity of the nascent city into an English one. As I hope that the above list shows, only a little renaming and ‘repurposing’ was required, in order to transform the old Dutch names of the city’s landmarks, districts and streets into spanking new English ones.If I had all the time in the world (but I don’t, unfortunately), I would love to know more about the Dutch cultural heritage of New York City and its environs. In this connection - and although I know that it’s just a work of fiction - I loved how, in the 1999 film production of Sleepy Hollow (starring Johnny Depp, Miranda Richardson and Christina Ricci), a lot of the characters in the film, set in the upstate New York of 1799, had Dutch names and spoke English with a strange, half-Dutch accent. Hollywood is not best known for its historical accuracy, but at least they acknowledged on this occasion the Dutch cultural and linguistic heritage of New York (even though it’s in something as whimsical as a tongue-in-cheek, semi-horror film).More seriously, the Dutch heritage of New York yielded two prominent Americans of the 19th century whose first language was Dutch - President Martin Van Buren and black abolitionist Sojourner Truth, née Isabelle Baumfree.I really do think that this is a subject worthy of greater study and public attention.Hartelijk bedankt voor het A2A / Many thanks for the A2A, Dick Sobsey.

Maybe it’s true that most German prisoners enjoyed their captivity DURING the war. If nothing else, they were out of the war zone and out of danger. The food was so good, at least compared with what people in Europe were eating, that many prisoners at first experienced some degree of upset stomach and diarrhea. Camp guards were fairly relaxed (after all, where were prisoners going to run to?) and Canadians as a whole tend to be decent, courteous and humane in their dealings with each other.I don’t know of any “German soldiers who were captured after the end of WWII”, but many POWs liked Canada so much that many of them stayed on or emigrated to Canada after their repatriation. At least one, however, was unhappy enough in Canada that he determined to escape at any cost.Franz von Werra was a Luftwaffe fighter pilot who was shot down over England in September 1940. He was a flamboyant, charismatic character, as good at self-promotion as he was at flying, but he certainly didn’t lack courage, imagination or daring.(Hauptman Franz von Werra - 1941)(von Werra’s Me-109, Marden - Kent)Almost as soon as he was captured, he began trying to escape and made three different attempts before being shipped out to Canada. On his third try, he was recaptured at the controls of a Hurricane fighter plane. He was trying to figure out how to start the engine.In early January 1941, along with almost a thousand other POWs, he sailed from Liverpool aboard the Canadian Pacific Liner “Duchess of York”. Even in the middle of the North Atlantic, von Werra didn’t stop scheming. With the help of a couple of captured U-boat captains, he proposed to organize the prisoners, seize the ship and sail it to a neutral port.(SS Duchess of York was used as a troopship during WWII. She was affectionately known as the “Drunken Duchess” because of the way the ship handled in rough seas)Before the conspirators could organize the rest of the prisoner contingent, the ‘Duchess’ made landfall in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Von Werra and his co-conspirators were put on a train bound for a POW camp in the far north of Ontario “on the shores of Lake Superior”. It didn’t take long for von Werra to realize that, if he had any chance at all, he had to get off the train while it was still relatively close to the US border. In 1940, the United States was still neutral territory and he figured he had a good shot at getting clean away.Somewhere around Smiths Falls in Eastern Ontario, von Werra saw his chance. When the train stopped, he and several other prisoners managed to jump out of a carriage window and made a run for it. The rest of the escapers were quickly rounded up but von Werra got lucky. His absence went unnoticed long enough that he was able to scramble through the snow-filled woods and fields to a nearby road.Incredibly, according to von Werra’s account, instead of having to trek some 50 kilometres in the depths of a Canadian winter, a kindly policeman picked him up. According to von Werra, the police officer gave him a lift in his cruiser and dropped him off in Johnstown, on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence. Ironically, if von Werra had not been hitchhiking, but doing his best to maintain as low a profile as he could.The police officer, at least according to von Werra’s account, told him that if he had been trying to get a lift, he would have had to arrest him. In wartime, it was illegal.In 1941, the international crossing that bridges the river between Prescott, Ontario and Ogdensburg, New York had yet to be built. The river was much too wide to swim, especially in the middle of winter but the river appeared to be frozen solid. Struggling through deep snowdrifts, von Werra started to cross. He soon discovered that the river seldom freezes over completely. As he neared the American side of the river, his progress was stymied when he found himself on the edge of an ice-free, open channel.Most people would have given up, but not von Werra. He returned to the Canadian side and went looking for a boat. The one he found had no oars, but it was better than nothing. Wearily he dragged it back across the ice and launched it into the river. The swift-moving current whirled him away but took him close enough to the American side that he was able to jump onto an outcropping ice shelf.He struggled up to the road that parallels the river at that point, flagged down a passing car and identified himself to the drive (a young nurse who worked at the New York State Hospital for the mentally ill) as an escaped German prisoner. She took him to the Ogdensburg police station where von Werra allowed to contact the German Consul-General in New York.By then, the press had got hold of the story and von Werra’s talent for self-promotion came to the fore. Among other things, he told reporters he was a Baron (he was, sort of…), that he had shot down three British Spitfires the day his plane went down in England (he didn’t), that he had crashed after a collision with another plane (that wasn’t true either), and that he was eager to get back to Germany so he could participate in Britain’s inevitable defeat.The Ogdensburg police charged him with illegal entry into the United States and shortly thereafter, the Ontario Provincial Police arrived with a summons charging von Werra for “plunder and theft” to the amount of $35, the estimated value of the stolen rowboat. The OPP politely requested the Ogdensburg Police to turn him over to a Canadian court.They were too late.By then, von Werra had been moved to Albany (the state capitol), where he was scheduled to appear in Federal court but was released into the custody of the German Consul after he posted a $5,000 bond. He was promptly whisked away to New York City.The consequences of his daring escape were out of all proportion to its significance. He was feted by New York society and was wined and dined by local celebrities. "Escaped Hun Baron Woman's Pet in U. S.” read the headline in the London Daily Mirror. “At night,” the story continued, “the Baron eats and drinks at his admirers’ expense, repaying them with fantastic stories of his ‘bravery’… When he dines out with his bodyguard… you can't see the baron for skirts."Through the consulate, von Werra learned that he had been awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross for an exploit “unique in the annals of fighter aviation in this war”—his alleged attack on a British airfield, in which he had claimed to have destroyed a number of British aircraft. The Germans always excelled at capitalizing on a propaganda opportunity but this one was totally bogus. British records revealed that story was an invention but by then, von Werra was a hero.Nor surprisingly, both Canadian and American officials were horrified at the apparent ease with which von Werra had managed to escape… and cross the border. There was heated discussion about what to do with him and who should do it.They were still talking about it when von Werra quietly slipped aboard a train heading for the Mexican border.48 hours later, he found himself in El Paso, Texas. He immediately made for the Mexican border but noted what seemed to be an unusually large number of uniformed officers. He quickly swapped his new suit for a straw hat and jeans at a local street market and joined a stream of Mexican labourers returning to Ciudad Juarez. He cleverly positioned himself behind a very smelly manure cart, grabbed a pitchfork from the back and strolled past the border officials who had been alerted to watch out for him.In the wake of his escape, American regulations regarding POW escapees were tightened. Several more POWs managed to escape before America entered the war but, after von Werra, they were promptly returned to Canadian custody.Eventually, von Werra successfully completed the 4,000-mile journey back to Germany. With the help of German diplomatic officials, he was flown home via Peru, Bolivia, Spain and Italy. When he arrived in Berlin, he was personally awarded his Knight’s Cross by Hitler himself. The Fuhrer congratulated him on his escape and his ability "to turn a tactically unfavourable situation to his own advantage.” (Kendall Burt and James Leasor - Maclean’s Magazine, 1956)Reichsmarschall Goering promoted him to the rank of Captain and ordered him to visit all POW camps holding RAF prisoners to ensure that they were given the same treatment von Werra had received in England and Canada. After completing his report, von Werra returned to operational duties.By then Germany was at war with the Soviet Union and Hauptman von Werra was sent to the Russian Front. A few months later his unit was withdrawn from Russia for training on a new aircraft, the Messerschmitt Bf 109F-4. He was ordered to an airfield in the Netherlands to take delivery of his new fighter.In October 1941, while on a practice flight over the North Sea, his engine failed and he crashed into the sea.The news of his death was not immediately reported by the German press. When it was, several weeks later, news stories claimed that he had been killed in action - on the Russian front - leading his squadron in attack after attack before meeting a hero’s fate.It was the last of the many lies told about “The One that Got Away”.If all this sounds like a Hollywood movie, it was. Franz von Werra’s story was told in the 1957 movie “The One that Got Away”, with Hardy Kruger in the lead role.For the full and complete account on Baron von Werra’s adventure, the 1953 book of the same title by James Leasor and Kendall Burt is well worth reading. An electronic version of the book is available from Amazon and is the source of most of the information in this much-condensed version of the story.