THEn Feb. 1, Andrew Yang – the New York author, entrepreneur, nonprofit and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate now running for New York City mayor – tweeted that the official flag of his adopted city, a flag that has floated iconically over the New York skyline since 1915, should be rashly retired and replaced with a less “old” design.
“The colors are based on the flag of the Dutch prince. The seal is old, ”Yang claimed, referring to the NYC official seal carried by the flag.
Corey Johnson [speaker of the NYC Council] suggested having a new flag designed by artists in New York as a symbol of civic pride, “Yang stated – and Yang apparently agrees:” I like the idea of a more modern flag for NYC. “In Mr. Yang’s philosophy, longevity is clearly not a sign of success.
Forget about the flag design for a moment. Why are you concerned about the age of the flag? New York City itself was first settled in 1624 and is therefore centuries older than the flag that Yang believes is too geriatric to represent. Should New York City, or New York State itself, therefore be abolished? Of course not. Antiquity in terms of antiquity is not an argument against the NYC flag. Yang needs a better argument to convince New York to do away with the iconic flag designed by the Mayor’s Commission in 1915.
So enough with mere age as an argument. What about the flag itself? Should the New York City flag be thrown in the trash can of history?
Prior to June 1915, New York City had no official flag and an unofficial white flag was used with the city seal on an ad hoc basis. “To date” as reported in Seal and flag of the city of New York (published in 1915, “The City of New York has never had an official flag in the truest sense of the word.” Mayor John Purroy Mitchel appointed a civilian-led committee to produce an official flag and introduce a historically informed, standardized version of the city seal. The occasion marked the 250th anniversary of the installation of the first mayor and council of New York City Council in 1665, marking the beginning of ‘New York City’ under the English and the end of Dutch rule over New Amsterdam – apart from a period in 1673–74 when the Netherlands regained power. Produced by the Mayoral Committee and approved by the City Councilors in 1915, the blue-white-orange tricolor was a landslide design victory, flying proudly and distinctly across the New York skyline for the past 105 years. The city flag and seal it bears combine the colors of the flag of the Dutch Republic with a “quintessentially American” eagle cap on the city’s English arms, creating a bold emblem that unmistakably represents New York and its past. The flag was intended to demonstrate the identity and creation of a fiercely proud American city. It has been consciously created to evoke the heritage and history of New York and New Amsterdam. The apparent “antiquity” of the emblem is intentional, not accidental. But it seems all this history has been lost in today’s anti-flag crowd.
The design coup of the New York City flag is that it succeeds as a bold and energetic-looking symbol in a way that is basically nurtured, not obscured, by its roots in the past. It also has the official poll necessary for a city like New York. While modern flag designers often criticize the practice of placing stamps on flags, it would be the NYC flag if a design were an exception to this rule. The design works, and has been for 105 years. Why punish this flag for its success?
The same can be said for the design of the seal itself. When the 1915 art committee submitted their version of the city seal to the board of directors for approval, they answered an expected criticism of the design. The committee’s response anticipated Yang’s complaints more than a century later: “It is by no means a new design,” said John B. Pine of the Official Art Commission, “and any criticism that it is not pretty or that. failure to meet heraldic requirements is irrelevant. ”He added,
No doubt a more beautiful seal could be designed, but we consider it far more important to perpetuate the seal adopted by the Common Council in 1686 and used by the City since that date, but with a slight modification as the symbol of are legal person.
(These words can be found in the above book, Seal and flag of the city of New YorkIn fact, John B. Pine himself edited the beautifully bound book, which was officially authorized by the Mayor’s Seal and Flag Commission. It is a great book for anyone interested in the history of Gotham’s civil symbols. You can find it in the NYC Public Library as well as online. It provides an in-depth background to the city’s emblems and a brand new official flag. Fittingly, it’s bound in the city flag’s blue and orange tinctures. Apparently the publisher did not share Yang’s doubts about the colors of the “Dutch Prince”.)
Anyone concerned that the seal on the city flag is ‘old’ has missed the boat with its concern for over a hundred years. The seal was of venerable age in 1915, when the art committee and aldermen enthusiastically applied it to the new Gotham tricolor. Far from lacking in civic pride, the flag was intended from the outset as a grand, bourgeois project that would promote pride in a major American city. Citizen artists already designed the current flag, so retiring would accomplish nothing more than obscure their work. It would create the same error that a “new flag” should fix. This suggests that those who oppose the flag do not understand its history and consider it fair game to create excitement and novelty for a social pet project.
Finally, New York City is far from the only city or province with the old Dutch, New Amsterdam colors. I am a lifelong resident of Dutchess County, New York, which also draws on this aesthetic. But at least the NYC flag features the Dutch colors in upright bars. With its orange-white-blue horizontal tricolor, the Dutchess County flag is an exact reproduction of the Dutch Prince flag, distinguishable only by the provincial seal. Ulster County is in the same situation as Albany, the capital of the state of New York. Fittingly enough, Yang’s hometown of Westchester is also home to the Dutch colors on his flag.
Throughout the history of the country, Americans have stubbornly exhibited their heritage through civic symbols. Before passing another flat judgment on a classic American emblem like the NYC flag, Mr. Yang and his anti-flag allies must recognize that fact. After all, the American flag itself bears the title “Old Glory” – and not as an insult.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated since its original publication.