{"id":101021,"date":"2026-06-05T20:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T20:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/101021\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T20:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T20:51:15","slug":"the-knicks-and-the-knickerbockers-the-most-new-york-city-story-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/101021\/","title":{"rendered":"The Knicks and the Knickerbockers: The Most New York City Story Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0New York Knicks<\/a>\u00a0are the ultimate New York City sporting franchise. Why would we make such a big claim?\u00a0It\u2019s all in the\u00a0name.<\/p>\n

The Knicks were founded in 1946 as one of the inaugural teams from the sports professional league which became the National Basketball Association (NBA). <\/p>\n

Their owner\u00a0Ned Irish,\u00a0from\u00a0Madison Square Garden<\/a>, chose the name Knickerbockers, quite literally pulled it from a hat, because the word evoked the spirit of Old New York and\u00a0the early days of Dutch New Amsterdam.<\/a><\/p>\n

However there were no notable Knickerbockers in the original Dutch settlement. Where did this odd name come from?<\/p>\n

Tom and Greg go on the hunt for the origins of this unusual name, charting a course through the Hudson River Valley in the early 19th century \u2014 to the romantic\u00a0Knickerbocker Mansion<\/a>\u00a0in Schaghticoke, and then following the various wanderings of a young\u00a0Washington Irving.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

His character\u00a0Diedrich Knickerbocker\u00a0would not only bend the will of history, he would inspire generations of New Yorkers to boast traces of their lineage to the city\u2019s Dutch past. By the Gilded Age, it would be a stand-in for New Yorkers in general, adhered to steamships, hotels and even beer<\/p>\n

And so the spirit of Washington Irving shines down upon the Knicks to this day!<\/p>\n

This episode was produced and edited by Kieran Gannon.<\/p>\n

LISTEN NOW: THE KNICKS AND THE KNICKERBOCKERS<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

FURTHER LISTENING<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0New York Knicks\u00a0are the ultimate New York City sporting franchise. Why would we make such a big claim?\u00a0It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[101],"tags":[199,4866,51822,51823,200,51824],"class_list":["post-101021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-amsterdam","tag-amsterdam","tag-basketball","tag-father-knickerbocker","tag-knicks","tag-netherlands","tag-peter-stuyvesant"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116699482782042947","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}