"On Aug. 26, 1664, 350 years ago Tuesday, a flotilla of four British frigates led by the Guinea, which was manned by 150 sailors and conveying 300 redcoats, anchored ominously in Gravesend Bay off Brooklyn, between Coney Island and the Narrows."

"The reasons behind New Yorkers' nearly unanimous indifference are, well, historical, chief among them an ambivalence toward the British and a dispassion for the past."