stuyvesant town–peter cooper village is a large, private community where people live. it is on the east side of manhattan, a borough in new york city. it is one of the most and successful post-world war ii private housing communities. stuyvesant town is known to its residents as "stuy town". it was named after peter stuyvesant, the last director-general of the dutch colony of new amsterdam, whose farm occupied the site in the seventeenth century. peter cooper village is named after peter cooper, a 19th-century industrialist, inventor and philanthropist. cooper also founded cooper union.