In 1660, as the last Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherland, Peter Stuyvesant was instrumental in the establishment of the Village of Bergen near this site. The Scottish-American sculptor J. Massey Rhind was commissioned to create a statue to mark the 250th anniversary of the village’s founding, and it was unveiled to the public in 1913. The statue has been loaned to Hudson County Community College by the City of Jersey City and was moved to this location in 2014.