Step 1 : Introduction to the question "2. Which harbour city on the east coast of the United States was once known as New Amsterdam?"
...1. Philadelphia 2. Boston 3. Newark 4. New York The face of the harbour has changed over the last 200+ years, and it has come to include the Upper New York Bay along with the Port of New York and New Jersey, and the port district for the New York-Newark metropolitan area. When the Dutch founded the settlement, they called it New Amsterdam. Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch Director-General, ordered construction of the first wharf on the Manhattan bank of the lower East River because it offered protection from the winds. The construction was finished late in 1648. In 1686, when the British took over control of the waterfront, New York became the most important port in North America, and it continued to be when the US declared its independence in 1776.