New York City (Fodor's, 2012) - Fodor's [16]
Governors Island
THE FINANCIAL DISTRICT AND SOUTH STREET SEAPORT: TOP TOURING EXPERIENCES
THE BATTERY’S DOWN
The best piece of navigational advice about the city still resides in the tune “New York, New York” (the one from the musical On the Town): “The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down.” But once you head down (take the 4 or 5 train to the Bowling Green stop at Broadway and Battery Place, the 1 train to South Ferry, or the R train to Whitehall), you’ll want a clue about what’s actually down here.
Perhaps mercifully, after all your walking as well as standing on buses and trains with no available seats, Battery Park has plenty of places to sit, including tiers of wood benches that line the promenade facing New York Harbor. On a reasonably clear day you’ll be able to see Governors Island, a former Coast Guard installation now managed by the National Park Service; a hilly Staten Island in the distance; the Statue of Liberty; Ellis Island; and the old railway terminal in Liberty State Park, on the mainland in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Your key point of interest within the park, as well as where to buy tickets for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, is Castle Clinton National Monument, once a fort intended as a defense against the British, though the castle’s cannons were never fired in war. The building saw far more action in later centuries as an opera house, an aquarium, and a processing center for immigrants. In 2005 the Bosque Gardens by landscape artist Piet Oudulf were opened, as was the Spiral Fountain, with 35 illuminated and interactive jets.
The northern tip of Battery Park skims Bowling Green, New York’s first public park and a great place with fantastic views. On Bowling Green’s south side a warren of blocks contain additional remnants of New York’s colonial history, including Fraunces Tavern, established in 1762. It was the hostelry of Samuel Fraunces, George Washington’s steward and one of the colonial era’s most prominent black New Yorkers. George Washington was fond of the tavern, and the American Revolution was in part planned here. History buffs will want to view the American Revolution and other early New York City collections in the Fraunces Tavern Museum, which includes four 19th-century buildings in addition to the 18th-century Fraunces Tavern building.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
Late in the evening of December 15, 1989, sculptor Arturo Di Modica left a 7,000-pound surprise gift for N.Y.C. under the Christmas tree in front of the New York Stock Exchange—his bronze Charging Bull statue. The bull quickly became the icon of Wall Street. Ask New Yorkers who don’t frequent the downtown area where the statue is and they’ll usually tell you it’s somewhere on Wall Street near the stock exchange. But the statue actually resides in Bowling Green, where it was moved after police complained that it was blocking traffic in its original location. Since the city never commissioned it, the bull is still officially dubbed a “temporary installation.”
After you pose for snapshots with the bull, head northeast to Wall Street, one of the most famous thoroughfares in the world. The epicenter of Wall Street is—you guessed it—the New York Stock Exchange, at the intersection of Wall and Broad streets. The stock exchange traces its beginnings to a group of brokers who, in 1792, shortly after Alexander Hamilton issued the first bonds in an attempt to raise money to cover Revolution-caused debt, were in the habit of meeting under a buttonwood tree that once grew on Wall Street. The exchange isn’t open to visitors, but there is a related museum at the Federal Hall National Memorial. Look at the facade of 23 Wall Street, just across from the exchange. The deep pockmarks and craters were created on September 16, 1920, when, at noon, a horse-drawn wagon packed with explosives detonated in front of the building, killing 33 people and injuring 400. Those responsible were never apprehended, and no one ever claimed credit for what was the worst terrorist attack on American soil until the Oklahoma City bombing and later